SEOUL - South Korean tech giant Samsung has just unveiled its new consumer solid state drives (SSDs) - the 960 PRO and 960 EVO - during its annual SSD Global Summit in Seoul.

The new SSDs are designed for users who crave smaller but faster storage solutions with higher bandwidth and lower latency in high workload scenarios, such as gaming, large file transfers or 4K video rendering.

Both SSDs utilise the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) Gen.3 x4 lane interface and are compliant with Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) specifications for effective use of the high-speed PCIe bus.

They are powered by Samsung's latest Polaris controller and use Samsung's third-generation 48-layer TLC V-NAND. They also feature Samsung's Dynamic Thermal Guard technology to manage performance during extreme workloads.

The flagship 960 PRO delivers peak sequential read speeds of up to 3,500 megabytes per second (Mbps) and write speeds of up to 2,100 Mbps. In comparison, last year's Samsung 950 PRO offers sequential read speeds of only 2,500 megabytes per second (Mbps) and write speeds of 1,500 Mbps.

Samsung claims that the 960 PRO is the world's fastest NVMe SSD in M.2 form factor. It will also be available in 2TB - the highest capacity commercially available for any M.2 NVMe SSDs. Other storage options include 512GB and 1TB.

The cheaper entry-level 960 EVO is the first EVO drive to support the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface as well as NVMe. It offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 3,200 Mbps and 1,900 Mbps respectively. It will be available in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities.

Both Samsung 960 Pro and 960 Evo will be available worldwide next month. Pricing of the 960 PRO starts from $459 for 512GB version, while the 1TB version costs $879. The 2TB 960 Pro will set you back at $1,829. For the 960 EVO, the 250GB model is priced at an affordable $179 with the 500GB and 1TB versions selling at $349 and $669 respectively.