Samsung 980 PRO

Introduction

If you built a gaming PC or upgraded your PS5 in the last couple years, you've probably already bumped into the Samsung 980 PRO's name. This PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive arrived as Samsung's answer to the Gen 4 revolution—a necessary evolution from their wildly successful 970 lineup that dominated the Gen 3 era. Available in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities, the 980 PRO targets PC builders and PS5 owners who need legitimate Gen 4 performance without venturing into the bleeding-edge pricing territory of Gen 5 drives. Samsung positioned this as their flagship consumer SSD when it launched, leveraging their proprietary Elpis controller and in-house V-NAND to chase the theoretical 7,000 MB/s ceiling that PCIe 4.0 promises. The problem? By the time most people are reading this review, the 980 PRO sits in an awkward middle ground—faster than you probably need, yet slower and often more expensive than newer alternatives that have flooded the market.

Product Overview

The Samsung 980 PRO is built around an M.2 2280 form factor PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD, which is the standard specification that dominates modern motherboards and fits perfectly into the PS5's expansion slot. This isn't just Samsung slapping faster NAND into their old 970 PRO chassis—it's a ground-up redesign featuring their custom Elpis controller paired with Samsung's own TLC V-NAND flash memory, all engineered to push the boundaries of what Gen 4 can actually deliver in consumer workloads.

The drive measures a standard 80.15 x 22.15 x 2.38mm, roughly the size of a stick of gum stretched out to about three inches long and thin enough that heat management becomes genuinely challenging at sustained loads. Weight comes in at a mere 8.5 grams for the base model without a heatsink, though Samsung also offers a heatsink variant that adds bulk and thermal dissipation for those running extended workloads or installing in PS5 consoles where Sony mandates proper cooling.

Samsung wraps this in their typical understated aesthetic—a black and copper PCB with minimal branding, a stark contrast to the RGB-laden gaming drives from competitors. The drive includes no accessories beyond basic mounting hardware in retail packaging, though Samsung does bundle their Magician software suite which provides drive health monitoring, firmware updates, and performance optimization tools that actually prove useful rather than feeling like bloatware.

Available capacities span from a frankly inadequate 250GB model that borders on pointless in 2025, up through 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB variants that make considerably more sense for actual use. Samsung backs the 980 PRO with a five-year warranty or total bytes written ratings that range from 150TBW on the 250GB model up to 1,200TBW on the 2TB version—generous endurance figures that reflect Samsung's confidence in their in-house NAND production and suggest this drive should outlast the system you install it in.

Performance & Real-World Speed

Samsung claims up to 7,000 MB/s sequential reads and 5,000 MB/s sequential writes on the 1TB and 2TB models, with the smaller capacities taking modest performance hits—the 500GB variant drops to 6,900 MB/s read and 5,000 MB/s write, while the 250GB model falls to 6,400 MB/s read and a considerably slower 2,700 MB/s write. These numbers represent Samsung chasing the theoretical PCIe 4.0 performance ceiling, and in synthetic benchmarks, the 980 PRO delivers on these promises with remarkable consistency.

In real-world testing conducted by multiple reviewers, the 980 PRO demonstrates exactly the kind of performance you'd expect from flagship Gen 4 hardware. A 100GB game installation that might take 3 minutes and 45 seconds on a SATA SSD completes in roughly 52 seconds on the 980 PRO. Loading into Cyberpunk 2077 from the main menu to actual gameplay takes approximately 8.2 seconds compared to 24 seconds on a quality SATA drive—genuinely impressive improvements that you can actually perceive during daily use.

The drive sustains speeds around 6,200-6,500 MB/s in prolonged transfers once the SLC cache fills, which happens after roughly 115GB of continuous writes on the 1TB model. This represents strong sustained performance that won't leave you waiting during large file operations, though the smaller 250GB and 500GB variants show more aggressive slowdowns once their proportionally smaller caches exhaust. Random 4K performance—the metric that actually matters most for OS responsiveness and application launches—comes in at approximately 1,000K IOPS for reads and 1,300K IOPS for writes, placing the 980 PRO firmly in flagship territory for snappy system behavior.

Game boot times on PS5 show minimal differences compared to Sony's internal SSD, with load time variations typically falling within a 1-2 second range that proves imperceptible during actual gameplay. The 980 PRO meets Sony's required 5,500 MB/s minimum with comfortable headroom, ensuring full compatibility with PS5's custom decompression hardware and maintaining the console's signature rapid loading experience.

Thermal Management & Throttling

The 980 PRO's slim 2.38mm profile creates genuine thermal challenges under sustained workloads. In testing without additional cooling, the drive can reach 80-85°C during extended transfers, triggering Samsung's thermal throttling that drops performance to around 3,500-4,000 MB/s to prevent damage—a significant reduction from peak speeds but still faster than most Gen 3 alternatives.

The heatsink variant addresses this limitation with an aluminum heat spreader that keeps temperatures 15-20°C lower under identical workloads, maintaining consistent performance during extended operations. For PS5 installations where Sony requires proper cooling solutions, the heatsink model makes considerably more sense despite adding $10-20 to the purchase price. PC builders can often rely on motherboard-integrated M.2 heatsinks, though case airflow dramatically impacts results—poorly ventilated systems will still see thermal throttling regardless of added cooling.

Build Quality & Compatibility

Samsung's manufacturing precision shows in the 980 PRO's construction—tight component placement, quality solder joints, and consistent NAND bin selection that suggests rigorous production standards. The drive feels substantial despite its minimal weight, and the copper-accented PCB conveys a premium impression that Samsung has cultivated across their storage lineup.

The 980 PRO works with any system featuring an M.2 slot with PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 3.0 support—modern AMD and Intel platforms, PS5 consoles with the expansion bay properly accessed, and even older PCIe 3.0 systems where the drive simply operates at Gen 3 speeds without issue. Installation on PC requires nothing beyond slotting the drive into an available M.2 socket and securing the mounting screw, a process that takes roughly 30 seconds even for first-time builders.

For PS5 compatibility, you need the heatsink variant or must add an aftermarket cooling solution that fits within Sony's dimensional requirements—specifically, the total height including heatsink cannot exceed 11.25mm. The 980 PRO with Samsung's integrated heatsink measures 8.6mm total height, providing comfortable clearance within Sony's specifications while ensuring adequate thermal performance during extended gaming sessions.

Critically, you need to understand what this drive can and cannot do. The 980 PRO excels as a primary OS drive for Windows PCs, a high-performance storage solution for creative workloads involving large file manipulation, and a PS5 expansion drive that matches Sony's internal SSD performance. It delivers genuine Gen 4 speeds that prove noticeably faster than Gen 3 alternatives in sequential workloads and large file transfers.

However, the 980 PRO cannot deliver perceptible improvements over quality Gen 3 drives for typical office productivity, web browsing, or light gaming where random 4K performance matters more than sequential speeds—and frankly, even budget Gen 3 NVMe drives handle those workloads admirably. You're paying a premium for speed that only manifests in specific use cases, and for many users, that premium doesn't translate to meaningful real-world benefits beyond benchmark bragging rights.

Strengths & Weaknesses

The 980 PRO's greatest strength lies in its consistent delivery of legitimate Gen 4 performance across both synthetic benchmarks and real-world workloads. Transfer speeds genuinely impress when moving large video files or game installations, with the drive maintaining strong sustained performance even after the SLC cache exhausts. Samsung's five-year warranty and generous TBW ratings inspire confidence in long-term reliability, while their Magician software provides genuinely useful monitoring and optimization tools rather than feeling like unnecessary bloatware. The drive's compatibility across both modern PC platforms and PS5 consoles delivers flexibility that platform-agnostic buyers appreciate, and Samsung's reputation for quality NAND and controller production suggests this drive should deliver consistent performance throughout its operational lifespan.

However, the 980 PRO isn't without notable limitations that have become increasingly apparent as the Gen 4 market matured. The fundamental weakness affecting the 980 PRO—and really, all Gen 4 drives launched in its generation—is value when compared to newer alternatives that have flooded the market. At launch, the 1TB 980 PRO commanded $230, a premium price that reflected its flagship positioning and Samsung's brand cachet. Today, you can find the same capacity for $90-120, but here's the problem—competitors like the WD Black SN850X, Crucial P5 Plus, and Samsung's own 990 PRO deliver identical or better performance for comparable or lower prices, making the 980 PRO's value proposition increasingly questionable unless you catch it on a significant sale.

The smaller capacities present particularly poor value, with the 250GB model offering inadequate storage for modern game file sizes and the 500GB variant feeling limiting for anyone maintaining a reasonable game library or working with 4K video footage. The drive's thermal characteristics without proper cooling create genuine throttling concerns during sustained workloads, forcing buyers to either purchase the more expensive heatsink variant or ensure adequate motherboard cooling—an additional consideration that budget alternatives often handle better through more conservative power management.

Perhaps most critically, the performance delta between the 980 PRO and quality Gen 3 drives proves imperceptible in the majority of consumer workloads. Boot times might improve by 2-3 seconds, application launches by fractions of a second, and game loading by amounts that rarely exceed 5-8 seconds—meaningful on paper, barely noticeable in daily use. You're essentially paying $20-40 more than a quality Gen 3 alternative like the SN570 for speed that only manifests in specific scenarios involving large sequential transfers, and even then, you need to be actively monitoring to appreciate the difference.

Verdict: Should You Buy It?

Buy this if: you're building a new PC with Gen 4 motherboard support and need a primary drive that delivers strong sustained performance for video editing or large file manipulation, you're expanding your PS5 storage and can find the heatsink variant on sale for under $100 on the 1TB model, or you specifically value Samsung's reputation for quality NAND and comprehensive warranty support enough to justify the premium over cheaper alternatives that deliver 90% of the performance.

Skip this if: you're price-sensitive and can find competing Gen 4 drives like the SN850X or P5 Plus for $15-20 less with identical real-world performance, you primarily use your system for gaming and general productivity where the performance delta over Gen 3 drives proves imperceptible during actual use, you need maximum capacity per dollar and would be better served by a 2TB Gen 3 drive at the same price as a 1TB 980 PRO, or you're building a cutting-edge system where Gen 5 drives have dropped to competitive pricing and offer headroom for future DirectStorage implementations.