Our top PCIe 4.0 SSD pick is back down to $99.99 for 2TB at Newegg
The WD SN850x is a tremendous performer.
A month after the 2TB WD SN850x dropped to a historic low price of $99.99, our top PCIe 4.0 SSD pick has returned to this price over at Newegg when you use code LDCV29378 in your shopping cart. This is an awesome price for this drive, and a worthy pickup for anyone building a new PC or upgrading an existing one with more game storage.
The SN850x made it to the top of our list of PCIe 4.0 recommendations after offering similar performance to the class-leading Samsung 990 Pro, while costing less in most regions. (The 2TB 990 Pro is currently $149.99 at Amazon with heatsink, for reference.) Like the Samsung drive - and a drive from SK Hynix we covered yesterday - WD's flagship option benefits from being a complete bottom-to-top WD production, with the flash memory giant supply its own controller, NAND flash and DRAM. That allows the company to hit some excellent speeds while keeping costs reasonable, versus smaller SSD companies that have to use third-party parts to assemble their drives.
In terms of raw specs, the SN850x is impressive - its TLC NAND and DRAM cache allow it to hit up to 7300MB/s sequential reads and up to 1.2M IOPS random reads, with a max of 6900MB/s sequential writes and 1.1M random writes as well. Those are among the very highest figures we've seen and run right up against the limits of the mature PCIe 4.0 interface.
James measured the drive's performance in real-world testing too, and here the SN850x also did well. The drive loaded a Shadow of the Tomb Raider save in just 6.7 seconds, faster than any other drive we've tested except for the 990 Pro at a nearly identical 6.6 seconds. By contrast, the older SN850 managed around 10s in the same test.
To use this drive at its maximum speed, you'll need a PC motherboard or laptop that supports the PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 standards - which includes most models released over the last three or four years; Google is your friend here to confirm. You can also use this drive in the PS5, though Sony recommends you add a heatsink like this $9 option.
That just about does it, so thanks for reading and we'll catch you again soon!