I've spent the past several years extensively testing PC components and without a doubt, the Samsung 990 Pro M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD is one of the best SSD picks you can make, even if you're using a PCIe 5.0 motherboard.
While it's normally quite expensive, you can get the Samsung 990 Pro 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD for just $169.99 (normally $249.99) right now at Newegg.
This model doesn't come with a heatsink, but you can spend an extra $10 and select that option. While it's a PCIe 4.0 SSD (so heat isn't as much of an issue as it is with faster PCIe 5.0 SSDs), in my testing, the heatsink definitely helped keep the drive's performance stable during heavy workloads. As such, definitely pick the heat sink option if you don't have a built-in heatsink on your motherboard.
Today's best Samsung 990 Pro SSD deal
More about this Samsung 990 Pro SSD deal
The major reason why this PCIe 4.0 drive is so expensive at MSRP is that its sequential read and write speeds are pushing up against the very limit of what the PCIe 4.0 interface on a motherboard can handle. With this 32% Newegg discount, however, you can get it for one of the lowest prices I've seen for this drive.
Rated for read speeds up to 7,450 MB/s and write speeds up to 6,900 MB/s, there's very little headroom left for the 7,500/7,000 MB/s read/write maximum for the PCIe 4.0 standard.
In my Samsung 990 Pro review, I found that the drive does, effectively, reach these speeds for a pretty common setup for most prosumer users and gamers. If you're still using a PCIe 4.0 system, this is probably the fastest drive you'll ever be able to use (and it is incredibly fast!).
Even better, this drive will also work with your PS5 console, and can get upwards of 7,000 MB/s read speeds, which makes it fantastic for loading game content quickly.
