There’s no escaping the ever-encroaching storage requirements of modern games. As such, it’s important to have an SSD that has both the space and speed to sate the needs of today’s releases. Thankfully, solid-state prices are falling once again and one of my favourite models, WD_Black SN850X, is now cheaper than ever.
WD_Black SN850X
“Battling out with the best consumer SSDs available, WD Black SN850X is another fine contender.” Read our review.
Over on Amazon, the cost of a 4TB WD_Black SN850X is down 29% ($110) from $379.99 to just $269.99. This is the most affordable the SKU has ever been, complete with heatsink. Should you want to forgo the included cooling, you can pick up the drive in its birthday suit for $259.99.
It’s worth giving this option some thought. An extra $10 for the heatsink boasts fantastic value and might seem like a no-brainer, but prying the stick from beneath its metal sheath is no small task if you want to slide it underneath your motherboard’s included thermal shields. I know, I’ve tried!
While PCIe 5.0 drives have knocked WD_Black SN850X from the roost, its PCIe 4.0 sequential read and write speeds are still plenty fast. Clocking in at 7,300MB/s and 6,600MB/s, respectively, there are hardly any games out there that can saturate its bandwidth. Suffice it to say, your games library will install and load as fast as you reasonably want on this drive.
Speaking from experience, SN850X’s included heatsink does an ample job of keeping it cool. In the countless hours I used it as the base for a test bench and my own personal rig, I never saw it overheat. If I were to build a rig today, the drive would be high on my shortlist and well ahead of much more expensive PCIe 5.0 SSDs.
Better still, you can get the SSD shuttled to your door as quickly as its read speed with Prime Delivery. If you’re not already a member, Amazon offers a Prime trial for two weeks that even includes access to Prime Video. We’ve put together a primer (pun intended) on everything the subscription service offers if you’re considering giving it a go.
