The best SSD for Game 2025

The WD Black SN850X is one of the fastest PCIE 4.0 SSDs to purchase, with high-speed sequential read and write speeds of 7,300MB/s and 6,600MB/s, respectively. More importantly, we offer this performance at a very reasonable price.

This level of performance not only improves game loading times, but also Game PC It also boots quickly and handles large file transfers easily. Thanks to the software toggle that includes Game Mode 2.0, you can always make the most of your drive while you’re playing the game.

If you are concerned about thermal throttling, which can affect the WD Black SN850X, you can pick it up with an optional heat sink for peace of mind. Better yet, the heat sink comes with an RGB splash, which can make you look cool during your stay nice.

Read the WD Black SN850X review.

Now a longtime veteran of the SSD market, the Samsung 980 Pro can often be found at bargain prices and is fast enough for most people’s needs. Samsung says that with the most of the PCIE 4.0 interface, this drive can read at up to 7,000MB/s, and in testing it reached 6,866MB/s.

The above WD Black SN850X is faster for write speeds and game loading times, but the 980 Pro is often available at a cheaper price, and you will hardly notice the difference between the two drives in most real use. What’s more, the top write speed of 5,000MB/s puts the Samsung 980 Pro far ahead of the PCIE 3.0 SSD. Samsung offers handy software packages, including migration software that allows you to easily move from an existing Windows installation to a new drive.

This drive was throttled without a heat sink in tests, so buy a model with a heat sink fitted in advance or use it if you have an M2 heat sink on your motherboard. However, prices often fluctuate, so be aware of the prices. If the WD Black SN850X is offered cheaper than the Samsung 980 Pro, it’s a better SSD to buy.

Read our Samsung 980 Pro review.

If your motherboard does not have a PCIE 5.0 M.2 slot and you want to push as long as you push the PCIE 4.0 M.2 connector, the Samsung 990 Pro is the drive for you. The drive failed to meet Samsung’s 7,450MB/s bill in testing, but it’s faster than the other PCIE 4.0 drives we reviewed with a top speed of 7,198MB/s. If performance is your number one priority, this is a great SSD.

When we first reviewed the 990 Pro, we kicked it a bit for a high price, but since then the cost has collapsed to the point where it often falls under $100 for a 1TB capacity. This is a great price for the performance offered.

However, this drive gets hot when running at full speed, so I recommend purchasing a heatsink version or at least using a basic M.2 heatsink on your motherboard. When it comes to gaming load times, buying this drive with the WD Black SN850X also doesn’t have any advantage, but if you regularly shift a lot of data, this will result in a faster drive at a reasonable price.

Read the complete Samsung 990 Pro review.

Samsung is a slow entry into the world of PCIE 5.0 SSDS, but it absolutely nailed the formula with the 9100 Pro. Not only is this the fastest SSD we’ve ever benchmarked, it not only reaches a massive sequential read speed of 14,725MB/s, but it also doesn’t require an oversized heat sink to keep the thermal down.

Despite the attractive heatsink being much shorter than the important T705, the 9100 Pro never overheats or slots in our testing, meaning that its profile meets the PS5 spec.

This drive also absolutely dominates the system drive benchmark, is perfect for Windows installations and is also the fastest drive tested for gaming load.

The only major staining in this SSD record is its high price, with a 1TB model asking for $199.99/£169.99 without a heatsink. But if you can afford it and want the fastest SSD you can buy now, this is the drive for you.

Read the complete Samsung 9100 Pro review

The NVME SSDS definitely replaces the SATA brothers, but drives that use aging interfaces like the Samsung 870 EVO are still well worth it. Its sequential read and write speeds may appear slightly in the face of PCIE storage, but it is still very fast in most games and undoubtedly faster than a hard drive.

If speed is your priority, choosing the Samsung 870 EVO can be a sensible move. It can be picked up in a size that goes all the way up to 4TB. This means you don’t have to worry about rehoming your Steam libraries, and it’s much lower than an M.2 SSD with the same amount of space.

PCIE 5.0 SSDs like the MP700 Pro are well above PCIE 4.0 speeds, but at this point there are additional cost and thermal considerations to performance. Corsair’s MP700 Pro is the easiest to deal with these challenges, providing active cooling instead of the vast passive heat sink and bank-free price.

With read speeds of up to 12,400MB/s (12.4GB/s) and 11,800MB/s (11.8GB/s), the MP700 Pro is one of the fastest SSDs that can be slotted into your system. These specifications naturally make drives the best choice for games, but games that support DirectStorage have minimal improvements compared to cheaper and competing PCIE 4.0 drives.

However, especially in scenarios where long-term read speeds are a priority, the MP700 Pro is cut better than all other PCIE 5.0 SSDs thanks to an active heat sink. Unfortunately, that fan curve cannot be configured, but out-of-the-box performance allowed the Corsair drive to peak at just 65°C in testing.

Corsair also offers the MP700 Pro with Hydro X-series water blocks for enthusiastic builders who rock custom water-cooled loops. Sadly, there is no passive heatsink available on the SSD, but you can grab it without it and speed up the mercy of the motherboard heatsink if you wish. However, considering how PCIE 5.0 storage is obtained, I highly recommend choosing a model with an active cooler, especially as it only costs $10-20 extra.

Read our Corsair MP700 Pro review.

Built on the affordable SN570, the Western Digital’s Blue SN580 NVME SSD is a capable gaming SSD with up to 2TB of storage and solid 900TBW durability. It offers substantial read speeds for one of the lowest prices on the market.

During testing, the reviewers found that the SN580’s random 4K performance was significantly slower than the fastest PCIE 4.0 SSD they tested. But it’s the best you can get under $100 without sacrificing capacity, speed, or both. The biggest option for building a gaming PC Within budget.

Read the WD Blue SN580 review.

If you are considering upgrading to the best gaming laptop SSD, you need to balance thermal and performance. It gets too hot within the tight range of your laptop, so you don’t want a drive to finish throttling, but sometimes you don’t want to get stuck at a slower speed. This is where the Samsung 990 EVO hits the right balance.

Don’t be fooled by claiming that PCIE 5.0 is doing this drive. This is because it uses only two PCIE 5.0 lanes. However, it works well as a power efficient 4x PCIE 4.0 SSD that doesn’t require a heat sink and is perfect for installing on your laptop. It can be read at a maximum of 5,000MB/s. It’s faster than a PCIE 3.0 SSD and has a solid write speed of 4,200MB/s.

Additionally, this drive is often significantly discounted. This means you can pick up a 2TB drive for under $120. This is a bargain for that level of capacity. Adding the fact that the heat sink doesn’t need a heat sink to prevent throttling, there’s an ideal laptop SSD upgrade.

As you may already know, there is enough space within your steam deck to shoehorn a standard 2280 m.2 SSD, or there is another gaming handheld for that. However, thanks to the M.2 2230 connector, you can enjoy the benefits of high-speed storage within the deck. The TeamGroupMP44 is the right size.

What’s more, this drive uses a 4x PCIE 4.0 interface means it’s faster than you would expect from such a small drive. In our test, we will be happy to read at 5,089MB/s and write at 3,702MB/s. This is even faster than TeamGroup claims, and there is no heat sink either. Plus, you can buy this drive for a huge 2TB capacity and there’s plenty of space to install the best steam deck games.

Of course, one issue means that the PCIE 3.0 interface on Steam Deck means that this drive cannot be run at full speed on the deck, but it runs as fast as other top-end PCIE 3.0 drives. Additionally, the PCIE 4.0 interface will give you a potential future proofreading of Steam Deck 2, if it’s the ideal upgrade for ASUS Rog Ally X.

Read the complete TeamGoup MP44S review.