It's been more than a year since Samsung's 960 EVO wowed us with its combination of ludicrous speeds and palatable price points. At that time, the NVMe SSD market was just beginning to expand, and manufacturers were starting to find room in their lineups for attainable drives in addition to their halo products.

Today's solid-state landscape is totally different. Every company and their grandmothers have brought multiple NVMe drives to bear for performance freaks and mainstream builders alike. Some NVMe drives' prices dip so low they even encroach on SATA drives' traditional downmarket dominance. It would take a truly special drive to make as big a splash today as the 960 EVO did back in 2016.