Samsung 980 Pro SSD to come with a PS5-friendly heatsink later this year
One of the top PCIe 4.0 SSDs around is showing some love for console gamers.
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What you need to know
TheSamsung 980 Prois one of thebest SSDsthat money can buy, and PC builders have been able to give their machines beast mode performance with this drive for about a year now. But PCIe 4.0 SSDs are no longer just the fancy of PC builders, ever since Sony turned on its long-awaitedstorage expansion feature.
Sony has a set of strict but not actually that strict guidelines on what SSDs can be used with the PS5, and now the feature is available to all Samsung has confirmed that the 980 Pro meets all of them. So, PS5 owners can buy a 980 Pro, slap it in, and get some god-tier performance backed by Samsung’s well-known reliability.
One thing the Samsung 980 Pro doesn’t have, however, is a heatsink. I’ve been using one in a PC since day one and it can get warm. In a PC where it was mounted on the back of the motherboard, for example, temperatures could hit 60C under serious load. In a PC where it’s on the front and the air is flowing over it, that comes down quite a lot. Of course, the PS5 doesn’t have the freedom of pushing huge lumps of cooling air over the SSD, so a heatsinkmightbe a worthwhile addition.
Samsung has confirmed that with a third-party heatsink the 980 Pro still meets all Sony’s guidelines, but it isn’t stopping there. Later this year, Samsung hopes to begin shipping the 980 Pro with a heatsink included, which honestly benefits PS5 and PC buyers. No worries about it being able to fit in the PS5 drive bay, and fewer concerns for PC builders. Win-win.
The 980 Pro from Samsung is simply ridiculous. It offers data transfer speeds of up to 6,900 MB/s, so long as you have a PCIe 4.0 compatible motherboard and processor.
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Richard Devine is a Managing Editor at Windows Central with over a decade of experience. A former Project Manager and long-term tech addict, he joined Mobile Nations in 2011 and has been found on Android Central and iMore as well as Windows Central. Currently, you’ll find him steering the site’s coverage of all manner of PC hardware and reviews. Find him on Mastodon atmstdn.social/@richdevine
