Following its introduction over a month ago, Samsung's SSD 840 series is finally available from retailers like Amazon and Newegg, including the standard and 'Pro' variants. We reviewed the later back in September and found it to be a solid contender with impressive overall performance. If Samsung's reputation for reliability holds up as we expect this could very well become the market's top enthusiast drive.
The SSD 840 Pro is avaiable in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities for around $100, $155, $270, and $600 respectively. That's admittedly on the pricey side considering that equivalent models from OCZ's high-end Vertex 4 family cost between $40 and $200 less. But Samsung is hoping to sweeten the deal by including a downloadable full retail copy of Assassin's Creed III – a $60 value – with the purchase of a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB SSD 840 Pro. These models promise up to 100,000 input-output operations per second (IOPS), 540MB/s sequential read speeds, 520MB/s writes and AES 256-bit encryption.
Alternatively, non-Pro variants equipped with 3-bit-per-cell MLC (aka TLC) NAND are available at $110 for 120GB, $200 for 250GB, and $400 for 500GB. You'll get just slightly less performance (up to 97,000 IOPS, 540MB/s and 330MB/s read and write speeds depending on the model) and no Assassin's Creed III bundle.
The drives are manufactured entirely in-house by Samsung, including the MCX controller that proved a solid option in terms of speed and reliability for the 830 series, as well as the memory and cache.