The Best SSDs of 2023
Loading screens will become a thing of the past for you if you use the best SSDs for gaming. The days of finishing a level and having time to check your phone are long gone. Solid state drives are king right now, regardless of the platform you play on. There are now a tonne of fantastic choices you can employ to make the fastest gaming PCs even quicker because so many are created with gaming in mind. Gen 4.0 NVMe drives are the most popular among the finest SSDs for gaming, while SATA and Gen 3.0 NVMe drives are still reasonable alternatives, especially in bigger capacities.
Thanks to their incredibly effective motherboard interface, which enables more input/output operations per second, Gen 4.0 SSDs can run considerably quicker than a SATA III SSD (IOPS). These SSDs fit in place neatly and are some of the best PS5 SSDs because they are smaller than SATA drives. What distinguishes the top SSDs for gaming from HDDs, though? Without getting too technical, SSDs have far quicker read and write speeds than HDDs since they don’t rely on the typical spinning discs of HDDs—some of which can reach over 7,000 MB/s. Below, we have mentioned the best SSDs.
WD Black SN850X
As a result of the launch of the new Ryzen 7000 CPU family, PCIe Gen 5 is now available on platforms from AMD and Intel. Now, let’s be honest. A PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot is almost definitely absent from your present computer. So here we have the new WD Black SN850X, which is kind of a final gasp for Gen 4 SSDs. And at the moment, it’s the best option available. Although SK Hynix’s Platinum P41 may offer a slight performance advantage, the difference is so small that we choose the less priced SN850X over the rest of the current SSD crop. This is one of the best SSDs.
The cooling system in our test configuration is WD’s recognizable armour design. WD hasn’t included the cooling option in the new drive’s updated thermal profile if it was optional on the old SN850. That applies just to the SN850X. Of course, you might not want to spend extra money on a self-cooled SSD if your motherboard already has a built-in M.2 SSD cooling kit.
Corsair MP400
A gem, the Corsair MP400. The Corsair MP400 offers a tonne of capacity for a reasonable price, even for SATA SSDs, so you get the most storage for your money. It’s not a SATA SSD, though. It’s a PCIe NVMe SSD, and it’s not even a slow one.
Its price is lower than many other PCIe 3.0 SSDs but its speeds are competitive with theirs. Its lesser endurance is really its single flaw, but for most users who aren’t writing a lot of data, this won’t be a big deal. Thus, this product is one of the best SSDs available right now.
Seagate FireCuda 530
If you utilise a heatsink, the FireCuda 530 provides excellent speed, an incredibly long lifespan, and efficient thermal management everything an best SSDs should. Even better, there is an unique guarantee that includes three years of data recovery should the disc malfunction something that is often only offered with enterprise-class hardware.
Owners of PCs and gaming consoles who want the best-in-class PCIe 4.0 drive should definitely consider it. You might have trouble affording one, especially one with a 4TB capacity.
Crucial P2
The Crucial P2 is a strong alternative if the 970 EVO Plus is out of your price range but you still want an NVMe drive. It is substantially less expensive but slightly slower than Samsung’s M.2 drive, with sequential read speeds of up to 2,400MB/s as opposed to 3,500MB/s. The P2 is available from Crucial in 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities. Currently, this is one of the best SSDs that you can buy right now.
Silicon Power US70
Due to the Silicon Power US70’s more modestly targeted performance targets of 5,000 MB/s read and 4,400 MB/s write, it will be one of the more cheap Gen 4.0 NVMe drives available in 2022. In our tests, we discovered that the drive produced decent results of about 3 GB/s read and 3.3 GB/s write, which is good considering the advertised values but slightly off the mark. For now, this is one of the best SSDs you can consider.
Our score from AnvilPro was 16,591.33, placing the Silicon Power US70 in competition with some of the more affordable Gen 4.0 SSDs currently available. The US70’s thermal performance was particularly impressive, as it only reached temperatures between 40 and 44 degrees when it was benched and put through protracted file transfers.
Kingston KC3000
Especially now that Intel has stopped making its Optane products, Kingston’s KC3000 addresses that need. The KC3000 is a high-performance PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD with up to 7 GBps of read and write throughput and up to one million IOPS. The Kingston KC3000 is powered by the Phison PS5018-E18 and is paired with Micron’s 176-Layer TLC flash, just like the Seagate FireCuda 530 and Corsair MP600 Pro XT.
However, the KC3000 has a tactical advantage over the MP600 since its flash is faster—1,600 MTps—than the MP600’s. The Samsung 980 Pro can’t match the durability and performance of the 2TB Kingston KC3000, but at the expense of efficiency. That means that laptop program will have lesser battery life. This one of the best SSDs.
SK Hynix Gold P31
Particularly considering its recently decreased pricing, the SK Hynix Gold P31 is a superb drive. On the PCIe 3.0 interface, it gives fantastic speeds that rival some of the PCIe 4.0-based SSDs we’ve tested. But the fact that considerably quicker drives are now available on the market is the only significant limitation. The P31 is a fine option in many situations, but if a PCIe 4.0 slot is available, it makes more sense to use a speedier drive. Currently, this is one of the best SSDs that you can buy right now.
WD Blue SN550
In order to keep the price of the best SSDs low enough for the majority of PC owners to view it as an affordable upgrade, WD did a fantastic job of designing an SSD that cuts functionality back to the bare minimum.
Even though it doesn’t offer the fastest possible performance or hardware encryption, this is still much faster than any SATA drive. Although you’re better off acquiring the larger capacities and we’d like a 2TB model, the Blue SN550 comes highly recommended from us.
Samsung 990 Pro
With this fantastic 980 Pro update, Samsung responded to its rivals. Samsung has reclaimed the SSD throne thanks to new hardware and options, including a heatsink with RGB and a 4TB model that will be. Overall, performance is really good, breaking a few records, such as the 4K random read performance. The drive proved reliable, power-efficient, and cool during our tests. The best SSDs toolkit is now available thanks to Samsung’s new software for this drive, which has also received a respectable guarantee and respectable support.
The new Samsung 990 Pro is an upgraded and far superior alternative for 2022, delivering improved speeds and increased power efficiency, optimized for graphically demanding games and other intensive tasks including 3D rendering, 4K video editing and data analysis.
The new Samsung 990 Pro is a 55% improvement in random performance over the 2020 released Samsung 980 PRO (depending on your hardware/storage setup). Samsung claims that the new 990 PRO is particularly well-suited for heavy gaming as well as creative and productivity tasks. For example, with PS5 game console and USB 4 enclosure, ultra-fast speed shortens loading time and improves task responsiveness, ideal for gamers and creative professionals.
ANKMAX UC4M2 USB4 Enclosure + Samsung 990 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD