Over the last decade, SSDs (Solid-State Drives) have become much cheaper. They play a central role in computer systems and are available in a broad spectrum with different form factors, capacities, speeds, functions, and prices.
Having an SSD is a great way to enhance your desktop experience. SSDs are like hard drives. However, they have no moving parts. They are pretty much faster, though.
Today’s generation of SSDs keeps data on NAND-based flash memory, which retains all the data without power. A modern-day SSD can be considered a big Pen Drive that uses the same NAND storage to store information permanently.
SSDs come in various sizes and shapes. Despite its differences from a traditional HDD (Hard Disk Drive), an SSD uses the traditional SATA interface to transfer data. You can leverage SSDs to speed up your old laptop or new desktop, and they can also be used in a desktop gaming PC to decrease the game load time.
10 Best and Fastest SSDs for Gaming to Use in 2023
Are you ready for the upgrade? We have got some great options for you. They are here as follows:
1. Samsung 870 EVO
As it’s a SATA SSD, it is restricted by the bandwidth of the SATA interface. However, this latest SSD continues to hit a speed limit of up to 560MB/s. Compared to Samsung’s previous 860 EVO drive, the speed is up 10 MB/s.
No wonder Samsung continues to offer quality drive management software and a 5-year warranty. The drives should not have difficulty lasting longer as it uses 128 layers of V-NAND.
Specialization
Offers fast speeds at an affordable price range. The new SSD offers up to 560MBps sequential read and 530MBps write speeds, which are the maximum possible speeds with a SATA interface. Comes with a 5-year limited warranty and is available in capacities ranging from 250GB to 4TB.
Reasons to Buy
- 5-year warranty
- Great performance
- Strong built-in encryption
- High capacities available
- Unlike the QVO, long writes don’t slow down
- Useful and user-friendly companion software
Reasons to Not Buy
- The price could do with a bit of tweaking
- Samsung 980 exists
- Hard to get excited over SATA
2. WD Black SN850X
This latest edition of Western Digital Black takes a giant leap – over SN750 – from PCIe 3.0 to PCIe 4.0 x 4. The WD Black SN850X uses 96 layers and TLC 3D NAND. It comes at a cost-effective price for a 1TB drive without compromising longevity.
With the ever-lasting speed of the WD Black SN850X, you will eventually become a passionate gamer. Performance numbers will play a significant role in the future. Modern gaming consoles are certainly leveraging the quick storage capacity to deliver supersmooth gaming performance.
Specialization
A powerful, high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD near the top of the heap in almost every category. The SN850X is available in high capacities and has an optional RGB-laden heatsink for most models
Reasons to Buy
- Excellent performance
- Optional heatsink/RGB
- Available up to 4TB
Reasons to Not Buy
- Game Mode 2.0 is a bit gimmicky
- Somewhat parsimonious TBW ratings
- High price
3. Crucial P5
The Crucial P5 NVMe SSD provides 250 GB to 2 TB of storage which is great for the boot drive and enough to store many games. Using the PCIe Gen 3 NVMe interface, it still offers high speed, which would cost you the same as expensive SATA drives.
Because it is available at a lower price and offers a compact size, you can install a couple of these drives to get a terabyte of quick and cost-effective PCIe storage. The SSD also has an ‘adaptive’ thermal protection onboard to keep the drive from overheating, with recommended operating temperatures ranging between 0°C-70°C. Indeed, the low profile of this drive will make it a great fit in microATX builds if you plan to build a compact gaming PC to live next to your television.
Specialization
If you’re looking to give your PC a new lease of life or just want to spec it to the max, Crucial P5 SSD can help achieve either of those with blazingly fast performance figures of 3,400MB/s read and 3,000MB/s write speeds.
Reasons to Buy
- Competitive performance and price
- Hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption
- Attractive design
- Software package
- 5-year warranty
Reasons to Not Buy
- High idle power consumption
- Less-than-average efficiency under load
4. Samsung 970 Evo Plus
The Samsung 970 Evo has bagged the title of the best gaming SSD. It has preserved the crown for the top NVMe SSD with the Samsung 970 Evo Plus. This is the fastest drive that includes the company’s own flagship Samsung 970 Pro.
Apart from gaming, the Samsung 970 Evo Plus is ideal for tasks that require unrestricted data streaming, like working with high-resolution RAW images, 4K video editing, and 3D rendering.
Specialization
The Samsung 970 EVO Plus is a solid-state drive in the M.2 2280 form factor, available in capacities ranging from 250 GB to 2 TB. Its interface uses a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 connection. Samsung has installed a 92-layer TLC NAND flash on the 970 EVO Plus. A pseudo-SLC cache improves write speeds, so bursts of incoming writes are soaked up more quickly. The cache is sized at 42 GB. Once it is full, writes complete at 1700 MB/s. The 970 EVO Plus is rated for sequential read speeds of up to 3,500 MB/s, and 3,300 MB/s write; random IOPS reach 600K for reads and 550K for writes. Samsung guarantees an endurance rating of 600 TBW, a typical value for consumer SSDs.
Reasons to Buy
- Solid overall performance
- Solid endurance
- Five-year warranty
- Write performance drop is mild compared to that of other TLC drives
- Easy to use with lots of features
- Low latency
Reasons to Not Buy
- Could use further efficiency optimization
- Write performance drops in half once a small buffer is filled
5. WD Blue SN550 1TB
It is one of the budget SSDs available in the market today. It is the best you can get under $100 without compromising on speed and capacity. It may not be the fastest, but certainly the most excellent one.
At ten cents per gigabyte, you won’t be able to find another fast SSD drive that can deliver such performance at an affordable price.
Specialization
The WD Blue SN550 is positioned as a significant upgrade over its predecessor SN500 SSD, and the performance is impressive for a DRAM-less drive. It would make an excellent upgrade over a SATA SSD, and the competitive pricing helps it stack up favorably against other low-cost NVMe options.
Reasons to Buy
- Extremely affordable at the 1TB capacity
Reasons to Not Buy
- Drops to 835MBps during long copies
6. Crucial MX500 500GB
The MX500 is an affordable option and it’s your go-to SSD if you are looking for the cheapest SSD, of course, without compromising on quality standards. Crucial is a brand under Micron, capable of providing SSDs using high-quality memory at a reasonable price.
The Crucial MX500 underbids the competing 860 EVO and offers identical SSD performance, which is not a surprise, provided the speed limit imposed by the previous SATA interface. It is one of the most affordable SSDs for what it offers quality-wise.
Specialization
The MX500 line of SSDs is based on Micron’s new 256 GB 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash and is currently available in 250GB/500GB/1TB/2TB capacities for the SATA III interface and 250GB/500GB/1TB for the M.2 2280 interface. Priced aggressively, the Crucial MX500 still manages swift read and write speeds, making it an excellent value for upgrading a mainstream laptop or desktop PC.
Reasons to Buy
- Very affordable
- Competitive performance
- Available in 2.5-inch or M.2 SATA versions
- Reliable
Reasons to Not Buy
- The endurance rating is low for usage cases involving heavy data writes.
7. Corsair MP600 Pro Hydro X Edition
Being a superfast SSD, it must have fast cooling to ensure the heat never drags down its speed. This is precisely what Corsair strives to offer with the Corsair MP600 Pro Hydro X Edition. All thanks to its PCIe 4.0×4 interface, the solid-state drive offers high speed.
Corsair MP600 offers sequential read and write speeds of 7,000 MB/s and 6,550 MB/s. As this edition has a massive capacity of 2TB, you don’t have to think much about upgrading anytime soon. The endurance is also pretty great, which rates it at 1,400 TBW.
Specialization
The MP600 PRO Hydro X can achieve blazing-fast 7,000MB/sec sequential read and 6,550MB/sec sequential write speeds. The MP600 PRO Hydro X Edition is the first CORSAIR M.2 SSD to include an integrated Hydro X Series XM2 Water Block, easily fitting into your custom cooling loop for top-of-the-line cooling and performance.
Reasons to Buy
- Elite sequential read and record-high 4K write speeds
- Aluminum heatsink
- Capacities up to 4TB
- 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption
- Also comes in a water-cooled variant
Reasons to Not Buy
- Heatsink size limits the spaces this drive will fit
- Only middling speeds in PCMark game-launching tests
8. WD Black SN750 1TB
The WD Black SN750 1TB was worth the wait when it was launched in the market. It provides a powerful performance at par with the excellent Samsung EVO SSDs.
After possessing the SanDisk memory, combining an in-house memory controller and Toshiba memory results in a high-performance drive that can match Samsung EVO SSDs.
Specialization
The WD Black SN750 SSD comes with updated firmware that boosts performance. The drive also includes an updated SSD dashboard, a 2TB option, and a model with a sleek heatsink, making it a solid choice if you’re willing to pay a few dollars more.
Reasons to Buy
- Great performance in applications
- Impressive power efficiency
- Random write speed breakneck
- Low per-gigabyte cost
- Built-in cooling
Reasons to Not Buy
- It could use a few more firmware optimizations
- Big premium for heatsink
- High price
9. Crucial P1 1TB NVMe
The Crucial P1 is the most affordable option to add to your computer system. It allows for much higher density, and that too at economical pricing. However, the trade-off is the overall endurance and performance.
Besides, you will often have to fill and refill the drive so you can conveniently hit the lower endurance limits of the P1. However, it does not offer as good as TLC and MLC drive does.
When the drive is full, it can go down to the performance of a standard SATA SSD. If you have an extra M.2 socket on your motherboard and also have a boot drive running at NVMe speeds, then, the capacity and speed make it an outstanding drive to use.
Specialization
Crucial P1 1TB NVMe is a super-high-end MLC-based drive that takes on the Samsung 970 Pro. It is the second QLC-flash-based drive to be released (Intel 660p was the first). QLC is the next generation in flash storage technology, storing four bits per flash cell instead of three on TLC. This reduces manufacturing cost per Gigabyte significantly. QLC has lower endurance and lower write speeds; more on that later. With read speeds of over 3 GB/s and writes in the 1.6 GB/s range, our synthetic testing shows great results. IOPS are also high, reaching 360,000 for reads and 250K for writes.
Reasons to Buy
- Excellent overall performance
- Available in 2TB as well
- PCIe 3.0 x4 interface with NVMe protocol
- Small M.2 2280 form factor
- 5-year warranty
Reasons to Not Buy
- Thermal throttling
- SLC cache algorithms
- Sustained write speed plummets after the secondary cache is exhausted
10. Micron 5200
The Micron 5200 tops the category of best SSDs because it can write and rewrite up to 8.4 PB of data and offers 3 million hours before experiencing any aging issues. It delivers the best SATA performance with high capacity and a reasonable price tag.
Besides, this unit is developed to replace the current hard drives and legacy SSDs. It makes the most of the architecture of 5100 SATA SSDs. Micron 5200 is a specially designed SATA SSD for cloud architectures and digital workloads. It is one of the most durable and reliable SSDs and offers a latency of around 55 microseconds.
Specialization
Engineered on industry-leading 64-layer 3D NAND, the Micron 5200 SSD delivers best-in-class performance and capacity on the same proven architecture as the 5100 series. Designed for virtualized server workloads that power your business, such as OLTP, BI/DSS, VDI, block/object, media streaming, and more, the low-latency Micron 5200 SSD eliminates storage bottlenecks with fast, consistent performance – and a lower total cost of ownership.
Reasons to Buy
- High capacity and performance
- Overprovisioned for better maintenance cycles and rated for 1.7 drive writes per day
- A great workhorse at an affordable price.
Reasons to Not Buy
- The 5300 series replacement has much larger capacities.
Conclusion
Switching to SSD is always a good time to take your gaming to the next level. We are getting to the stage where SSDs will replace the usual HDDs.
Thanks to the growth in SSD technology, there is no shortage of expensive and cost-friendly SSDs that deliver unprecedented performance in terms of value and capacity. So, choose wisely.
Explore Google for more SSDs if you want to, and let us know which one you like the most. We want to update our list, too. As you see, technology is constantly evolving!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is an SSD best for gaming?
Yes, SSDs are the best choice for gaming as they are better than HDDs in key performance metrics like random read/write speeds and overall reliability. SSDs don’t have moving parts, so games launch and levels load faster when installed on an SSD.
2. What is the best size SSD for gaming?
A 1 TB SSD is suitable for moderate gaming. A 2TB SSD is a better choice to handle your game install and original game file storage needs. If you’re planning on gaming just every once in a while, a 512 GB SSD mated to a 2-3TB HDD combo should work just fine.
3. Do games run faster off SSD?
Yes, games launch and levels load faster when installed on an SSD. SSDs provide a smoother experience in games that stream assets from storage.
3. Is RAM still faster than SSD?
Yes, RAM is still faster than an SSD, as the memory chips in SSDs are slower than those in RAM.
4. How long does an SSD last?
The most recent estimates put the age limit for SSDs around ten years – though the average SSD lifespan is shorter. A modern SSD can operate for over 5 years under optimal operating conditions. However, other factors also determine the lifespan of an SSD, such as how you use it, and external factors, such as weather and environment.
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