As today’s AAA games demand ever more computing resources, PC gamers (and sometimes even console players) are hard-pressed to upgrade their components to keep pace. They need speed; they need space. Replacing a primary solid-state drive (boot drive), adding secondary storage, or both can help keep your rig as current as possible. And on the upside: Unlike graphics cards and some other PC parts, SSDs haven’t seen shortages and skyrocketing prices over the last few years.
Which SSD to buy, though, is the tricky bit. With platforms ranging from gaming consoles to laptops and desktops of different eras, there’s no one-size-fits-all gaming-SSD solution. Your choice of a gaming SSD depends largely on what kind of device you are updating, what type of (and how many) drive slots or drive bays it has, and what flavor of USB-C port it may have. The latest internal PCI Express 4.0 M.2 SSDs are touted for gaming, and drives for Sony’s PlayStation 5 are getting their share of attention, but not all PCs support PCIe 4.0, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who hasn’t yet been able to find a PS5 at a price they’re willing to pay.
Fortunately, you can find good solid-state storage solutions even for less-than-current systems. We’ve outlined our favorite tested picks below, and after that, whipped up a guide with everything you need to know to about buying the right SSD for gaming.
More About Our Picks
Best Overall PCI Express 4.0 M.2 SSD for Hardcore Gamers
Bottom Line:
The SK Hynix Platinum P41 posted record-high scores in some of our general storage and gaming tests. It’s a super-value M.2 SSD; just add your own heatsink to ensure peak performance.
Pros
- In our testing, exceeded its sequential speed ratings
- Excellent scores in PCMark 10 and 3DMark benchmarks
- Competitively priced
- Includes drive cloning/migration software
- Supports 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption
A Solid Alternative to the SK Hynix Platinum P41
Bottom Line:
The WD Black SN850X takes the company’s flagship PCIe 4.0 gaming SSD and makes it even better, offering higher capacity and improved test results (including a new PC Labs record in the 3DMark Storage benchmark). About all it lacks is hardware-based security.
Pros
- Capacities up to 4TB
- Available with or without heatsink
- Exceeded both its sequential read and write speed ratings
- Aced PCMark and 3DMark storage tests
Cons
- Lacks 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption
Best Overall PCI Express 3.0 M.2 SSD for Hardcore Gamers
Bottom Line:
Samsung’s SSD 980 M.2 drive provides a stellar mid-tier option for new or returning fans of the company’s SSDs, squeezing the most performance possible out of the older PCI Express 3.0 interface.
Pros
- Edges out the Intel SSD 670p in 4K random reads
- Competitive pricing for its performance class
- Field-leading SSD software suite
- Good durability rating for MLC
- Five-year warranty
Cons
- Still capped at PCI Express 3.0’s natural ceiling
Best Budget PCI Express 4.0 M.2 SSD for Gamers
Bottom Line:
The ADATA XPG Atom 50, which can be used in a laptop, desktop, or PlayStation 5, delivers stellar performance for a budget PCIe 4.0 internal SSD.
Pros
- Inexpensive for a PCIe 4.0 SSD
- Superb benchmark results with high scores for OS booting and game loading
- Compatible with Sony PlayStation 5
- AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption
Cons
- Currently available only in 1TB capacity
- Relatively low scores in some file-copy tests
Best Budget PCI Express 3.0 M.2 SSD for Gamers
Bottom Line:
SK Hynix’s solid-value Gold P31, an M.2 internal solid-state drive using the PCI Express 3.0 bus, aces key tasks such as booting the OS and launching applications. It’s a fine general-pick SSD upgrade.
Pros
- Swift numbers in our 4K read tests
- Excellent durability (terabytes written) rating
- Aggressively discounted off list price
Cons
- No 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption
- Meager software
ADATA XPG Gammix S70 Blade
Best M.2 SSD for PlayStation 5 Upgrades
Bottom Line:
Sizzling fast yet thin enough (even with heatsink) to fit a laptop or PlayStation 5, ADATA’s XPG Gammix S70 Blade is a killer internal SSD for gaming.
Pros
- Blazing sequential read and write speeds
- Good to excellent scores in nearly all our standard tests
- Exceeds Sony’s PS5 compatibility requirements
- 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption
- Includes ADATA’s SSD Toolbox software suite
- Competitively priced
Cons
- Modest AS-SSD copy speed (folder-to-folder) scores
Best High-Capacity PCI Express 4.0 M.2 Drive for Gamers
Bottom Line:
The Kingston KC3000, a PCI Express 4.0 internal SSD, performed well in most of our benchmarks and offers capacities up to 4TB (though you’ll pay a bundle for that model).
Pros
- Available in capacities up to 4TB
- Strong overall benchmark results
- Great speed at performing everyday tasks
- Above-average durability ratings for a TLC-based drive
Cons
- Highest capacity is costly
- Slow in AS-SSD program and game speed tests
- Lacks AES hardware-based encryption
Best SATA 2.5-Inch SSD for Gamers
Bottom Line:
The Samsung SSD 870 EVO hits the peak of Serial ATA performance, moving so fast in 4K random read and write operations you’d almost mistake it for a PCI Express 3.0 drive.
Pros
- Record-setting 4K results for SATA drives
- Strong write-durability rating
- Samsung Magician is the gold standard of SSD management software
Cons
- SATA drives still have a lower ceiling than PCI Express for large file transfers
WD Black P50 Game Drive SSD
Best USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 External SSD for Gaming
Bottom Line:
The WD Black P50 Game Drive SSD is a visually striking, no-compromises repository for massive game files, though you’ll need one of the rare PCs with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support to reach its full speed potential.
Pros
- USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support offers blazing speeds
- Durable, shock-resistant enclosure
- Five-year warranty
- Separate USB Type-C and Type-A cables included
Cons
- Expensive
- A bit bulky
- Gen 2×2 ports are uncommon (though drive is backward-compatible)
Best USB 3.2 Gen 2 External SSD for Gaming
Bottom Line:
The Crucial X8 SSD is a sturdy little beauty that offers excellent performance and plenty of storage in a tiny package at an affordable price. It’s highly recommended for videophiles, gamers, and other data maniacs.
Pros
- Small and sturdy.
- Stylish all-metal chassis with rubberized ends.
- Attractive cost per gigabyte.
- Solid performance.
- Includes a USB-C cable and USB-C-to-USB-A adapter.
- Compatible with a wide range of devices.
- Three-year warranty.
Cons
- No activity light.
- No backup utility.
- USB-A dongle less elegant than a dedicated cable.
WD Black D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD
Best Thunderbolt External SSD/Dock for Gamers
Bottom Line:
If you’ve got the cash, the WD Black D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD nets you an industrial-cool, speedy drive/docking station with up to 2TB of storage and a slew of ports. But if your PC lacks Thunderbolt 3, fuhgeddaboutit.
Pros
- Bristling with ports
- Up to 2TB capacity
- Very fast sequential reads and writes for an external drive
- Provides up to 87-watt power delivery
- RGB lighting
Cons
- Expensive
- Requires a computer with Thunderbolt 3 port
- No HDMI port
Best RGB-Lit PCI Express M.2 SSD
Bottom Line:
The ADATA XPG Spectrix S40G is an unapologetically bright RGB-lit M.2 SSD that blings up your PC. Its 4K read and write speeds should keep most gamers happy, too.
Pros
- Exceptional 4K write and sequential-read results.
- Strong value proposition.
- RGB lighting is a fun addition for PC builders.
Cons
- Some quirks around saving RGB settings with multiple profiles.
TeamGroup T-Force Delta Max White RGB SSD
Best RGB-Lit SATA 2.5-Inch SSD
Bottom Line:
As a SATA drive, TeamGroup’s Delta Max White won’t set any speed records, but it will add 1TB of storage and some nifty RGB lighting to your rig.
Pros
- Programmable RGB lighting
- Relatively large lighting area for an internal SSD
Cons
- Short (three-year) warranty
- Requires motherboard with ARGB connector for full lighting effects
- Typically slow SATA performance in most benchmarks
ADATA SE900G External SSD
Best RGB-Lit External SSD
Bottom Line:
ADATA’s SE900G External SSD shines with a nifty RGB-lit chassis and can deliver close to the fastest read/write speeds in its class—if your computer supports its specific USB interface.
Pros
- Low price for a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 drive
- Very fast for sequential transfers when used with compliant port
- Tasteful RGB lighting on chassis
Cons
- Few computers support USB 3.2 Gen 2×2
- Short warranty compared with its competitors
SSDs for Gaming 101: What You Need to Know
In the past year or two, we’ve seen amazing advances in raw SSD transfer speeds (as measured by the Crystal DiskMark benchmark), especially with some of the latest PCI Express 4.0 NVMe internal drives. (If you’re not up on drive acronyms and abbreviations, check out our glossary of SSD terminology.) In sequential read and write testing—which measures throughput for best-case, straight-line transfers of large files—today’s read speeds can exceed and write speeds can approach 7,000 megabits per second (MBps) with PCIe 4.0 drives on an optimized PC. This is all well and good, and raw speed can help bolster both all-around and game-specific performance.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
Speed is most important for a boot drive, which holds your PC’s operating system and from which games have traditionally been run. Secondary drives, whether internal or external, have tended to be slower and have higher capacity—they’re often used to hold game libraries—but you can get a fast, high-capacity secondary drive and run games from it if you have the right expansion slot and are willing to pay the price.
More important than raw throughput, however, is how quickly a drive can load games. Our testing with UL’s PCMark 10 measures the load speeds of the internal SSDs we review for three AAA games: Battlefield 5, Overwatch, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Crystal DiskMark also measures read and write speeds for 4K-block-size files (a common trait of program-level files in gaming-loading scenarios).
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
Our newest SSD test in our arsenal, UL’s recently introduced 3DMark Gaming Benchmark, measures installation, loading, playing, saving, and/or copying speeds for various top-tier titles including the abovementioned trio, plus The Outer Worlds and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. We’ve bolstered our test-results database by running the new benchmark on recent drives we have had in house, and will be running it on all gaming and general-purpose internal and external SSDs reviewed from now on.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
Should I Get an Internal SSD, or an External SSD?
People shopping for a gaming SSD generally look to internal drives using the M.2 “stick of gum” form factor. PCI Express 4.0 NVMe drives offer the fastest throughput speeds (and generally the best overall performance based on our testing), but your system may not have an M.2 slot that supports that bus type. Although PCIe 4.0 SSDs are backward-compatible with motherboards that support PCI Express 3.0, to get anything like their rated peak speeds you’ll need a motherboard and chipset that supports PCI Express 4.0. (For much more on the nuances of M.2, see our deep-dive roundup on the Best M.2 SSDs.)
Examples include a select group of desktop motherboards for AMD Ryzen processors, as well as Intel Z590-chipset boards designed for 10th Generation and 11th Generation (“Rocket Lake”) CPUs and Z690 boards for 12th Gen (“Alder Lake”) processors. The “Alder Lake” platform also supports the latest PCI Express spec, PCI Express 5.0, which effectively doubles the bandwidth of PCIe 4.0 and offers, at least theoretically, approximately double the sequential read and write speeds of the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSDs. (The first PCIe 5.0 drives are making their way into enterprise systems at this writing, with consumer drives to follow. They aren’t a factor for gamers…yet!)
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
That said, there are plenty of capable M.2 SSDs supporting the older PCIe 3.0 bus that have done well in our games testing. And even if you don’t have a spare M.2 slot (or any at all), a motherboard port with the familiar SATA interface can help by hosting a secondary 2.5-inch SATA SSD, or even a hard drive, for game storage.
Another option for secondary storage is an external SSD, which can provide additional capacity for holding games. You don’t need an open M.2 slot or SATA port, just a spare USB port. Just be sure that your PC has the proper interface to fully support the drive you’re eyeing: The fastest external SSDs offer USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 connectivity, with sequential read and write speeds up to 2,000MBps.
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
The catch is that few computers support Gen 2×2, so you may need to add an expansion card that supports the standard. Plugged into most of today’s PCs, such a drive will default to USB 3.2 Gen 2, with peak read and write speeds of about 1,000MBps. That’s still fine; just know what you’re paying for and if you’ll be able to leverage it to the full.
Many older gaming consoles rely on hard disk drives (HDDs) for internal storage, but in recent years spinning platter drives have been replaced by solid-state devices, with external SSDs the only option for secondary storage. The Sony PlayStation 5 not only has a built-in SSD but an expansion slot to accommodate a second M.2 SSD.
Sony has released requirements for compatible drives, and manufacturers have been quick to introduce SSDs that meet them. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to install a compatible drive in your PS5.
Old-School Speed: Should I Get a 2.5-Inch SATA Drive?
Depending on the age of your rig and what slots you have available, a solid-state drive with the older Serial ATA (SATA) interface and 2.5-inch hard-drive-style design may be a sensible option. SATA SSDs’ throughput can’t hope to compare with those of PCI Express devices, but the best SATA drives do relatively well in game loading and 4K read/write testing. Their advantages are a low price and (often) relatively high capacity.
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
And don’t count out platter drives just yet. Although this roundup is devoted to SSDs, which easily outstrip lumbering hard drives in overall speed and game-loading performance, platter-based drives still have a role in gaming. Because of their often enormous capacities and relatively low cost per gigabyte, hard drives can be great places to store game libraries, though as a first choice you wouldn’t want to run games from such a drive if you care about load speeds. But for cheap raw storage of loads of seldom-played or legacy games, hard drives can be great. A good external-drive example is the Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hub, available in 8TB and 16TB versions; internal SATA platter drives are even cheaper per gigabyte.
SSD Heatsinks: Ways to Beat the Heat
When it comes to SSDs, phrases like blazing fast or blistering speed may not be just metaphorical. Gaming SSDs, especially some of the latest PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives rated at 5,000MBps or more, tend to generate a lot of heat. That can lead to throttling or slowdown that can cause a performance hit and potentially reduce a drive’s lifespan. Drive makers take a variety of approaches to heat management, ranging from firmware-based solutions to designing SSDs for reduced power consumption without slowing performance.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
Physical solutions include thin heat spreaders that are generally affixed to the top of M.2 SSDs with adhesive. These are primarily made from graphene, which has high thermal conductivity and can dissipate heat from across their surface area.
Also popular are more traditional heatsinks, most of which use multiple aluminum fins to increase surface area for heat dissipation. Heatsinks are often tall, making them practical only in desktops (which have room for airflow around the M.2 slots) rather than laptop PCs. Lately, drive manufacturers have been designing more-compact heatsinks to fit laptops and gaming consoles. Some drives come with stuck-on or removable heatsinks, and others may offer aftermarket heatsinks as accessories.
(Credit: Tony Hoffman)
There’s also another, more fleeting kind of cool worth addressing. Desktop upgrader? If the rest of your rig is tricked out with cool RGB lighting effects, there’s no reason your solid-state drive shouldn’t be, too. There are a number of external and a few internal SSDs that offer their own lighting effects, usually compatible with popular RGB control software. You’ll just want to choose an M.2 slot or SATA drive bay for the drive that’s visible from outside the case. (As pictured above, you can find external USB SSDs that have tricked-out lighting, too.)
So, Which Gaming SSD Should I Buy?
So there you have it: our picks for best PCI Express 4.0 and 3.0 M.2 SSDs for gaming, plus a smattering of SATA options and USB externals. Whether you have a desktop, a laptop, or a PS5, and whether you’re after an attached-heatsink design or one with blinged-out RGB lighting, you don’t need a whole brand-new rig to kick up your gaming. These drives can do it. Below is a spec breakout of the top picks we outlined above. Roll down and dig on in!
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