The best SSD for gaming

By Jarred Walton, James Norris 3 days ago

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SSDs are essential components of any modern gaming rig. With your OS and apps stored on an
SSD, Windows boots faster and game levels load in a snap. What youve heard is true: once
youve tried solid state, youll never go back to a spinning plate. Hardcore gamers may want
multi-terabyte storage for archives and media libraries, but SSDs are getting big and cheap
enough to finally replace old school hard disks.

Lately, the increased demand for NAND-based storage from smartphones and laptops has
created something of a NAND shortage. The result is that SSD prices have trended upward over
the past year. This is similar to the current state of DDR4 pricing, but as additional 3D NAND
manufacturing comes online, we should see that trend will reverse.

SSDs also come in a variety of form factors, including the venerable 2.5-inch SATA drives and
newer M.2 'gumstick' drives. M.2 uses the PCIe interface to blow away SATA bottleneck, and the
best models use NVMe to further improve performance, but they tend to carry a hefty price
premium. (Note: there are also M.2 SATA drives, but don't bother as they're still SATA speeds.)
Compared to good SATA drives, for many workloads the benefits are pretty slim, but check our
best NVMe SSDs guide for higher performance options. For gaming, we want good
performance, capacity, and reliability at a price that won't make your wallet cry out in pain.

Samsung still rules the SATA roost with the 850 Evo, though some of the latest NVMe
alternatives like Intels 600p can beat it in certain workloads. Our budget SATA recommendation
has also been updated after testing the Crucial MX300. Its not the fastest SATA drive, but it is
one of the least expensive SSDs and still delivers good overall performance.
The best SSD

Samsung 850 EVO 500GB

$225.46
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$258.89
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$279
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Hits over 500 MB/s read speeds

Outperforms more expensive SSDs

Good price per gigabyte

Speed can drop under heavy prolonged write loads

Lower capacity models are slower

Slower than M.2 / U.2

What does the term 'best' mean, when talking about a storage device? Best value for money, great
real-world performance, or a brilliant feature set? The ideal SSD for a gaming PC strikes that
perfect price/performance/reliability balance, and Samsungs 850 Evo SSD manages this, and
then some.

Samsung is the only SSD manufacturer that operates an entirely vertical business, owning the
means of production for every aspect of its products. It designs the controller, programs the
firmware, manufactures the NAND flash memory, and sells the finished product. Every other
company is forced to rely on a third party for at least one of these aspects of its SSDs.
The advantage is closer collaboration between teams. When designing the controller, the
engineers know exactly the type of NAND it will be used with. When writing the firmware,
every last detail of the 850 Evo is known to the programmers. This allows features like
TurboWrite to pay off, improving both endurance and performance.

The 850 Evo uses the same vertically arranged 3D NAND flash memory as in the 850 Pro. This
arrangement allows for higher chip densities without having to go down the path of shrinking
cell sizes, which begins to introduce problems that affect performance and reliability. Samsung
calls its proprietary 3D flash memory technology V-NAND, and stacks 32 layers of flash cells on
top of each other (and newer V-NAND is now capable of 48 layers). Each layer is connected to
the next via unbelievably tiny wires, with a far greater number of connections between cells than
you might expect from a 2D (planar) arrangement.

The 850 Evo is sold in 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and even 4TB capacities, with prices
on Amazon ranging from around $100 (100) for the 250GB model, to around $360 (300) for
the 1TB, or as much as $1,500 (1,250) for the massive 4TB drive. Its not the most affordable
SSD, but its around 20 percent less than the top-end Samsung SSD 850 Pro, and it's cheaper
than any other SATA SSD that might match its performance. Its probably best classed as a
midrange drive, although it outpaces more expensive drives in many tests.

Samsung rates the 850 Evo at 75TB of writes over five years for the 120GB and 250GB models,
150TB for the 500GB and 1TB models, and 300TB for the 2TB and 4TB drives. Thats a lot of
writing, averaging to 41GB, 82GB, or 164GB per day, every day, for five years. Unless you're
putting the 850 Evo through a ton of use, you won't go over this limit.

Another perk of Samsung's SSDs is its bundled Magician management software. It's very well
designed, with easy access to SMART information, a benchmark tool, and a function to secure
erase your SSD (which creates a USB boot disk). It also enables something called Rapid Mode,
where a portion of your system memory acts as a cache for the SSD, so when you write a file, it
can be written at speeds well in excess of 4GB/sec to system memory, then flushed to the SSD
during idle periods. A chunk of your system memory is used up when it's enabled, so this is best
used only if you have 16GB or more RAM in your PC. Rapid Mode looks great on benchmarks,
but in real-world use its impact is smaller.

It should also be noted that when talking about the SSDs, the performance differences between
them are tiny. In PCMark 8 for example, rival brands are often within 0.1 seconds. Some come
out slightly ahead, some slightly behind, but these differences are so small, they're not worth
losing sleep over.

Finally, we circle back to price. When we reviewed the 850 Evo SSD, we noted that it was a
fantastic SSD that was just a bit too expensive to be our new favorite. Remember, when it comes
to SATA SSDs, the performance differences are often barely noticeable. When it launched, the
500GB Samsung 850 Evo cost $250 on Amazon. Now it costs around $180, making it a much
better value. For most people, this is the SSD to get.

Samsung 850 EVO 500GB deals

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The best budget SATA SSD

Crucial MX300 525GB

$34.99
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$62.06
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$99.99
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Good value

3D NAND like Samsung

Good SATA performance

Up to 2TB sizes available

Slow compared to M.2 and U.2

Mechanical hard drives still cheaper

Crucials MX300 SSDs were the first to follow Samsungs long lead with 3D NAND on SATA,
established by the 850 Pro and its sibling 850 Evo, our overall top pick for SATA SSDs. While
Samsung wields all sorts of advantages in research and manufacturing, Crucials parent company
Micron is no lightweight when it comes to technology either.
Rather than pursue speed, a hopeless cause now that ultrafast next-generation storage
technologies such as M.2 and U.2 are taking hold, Crucial is looking to replace the larger
mechanical hard disks that most users still rely on for bulk storage and use in older devices.

Read More

The best budget M.2 NVMe SSD

Intel 600p 512GB

$194.94
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$194.94
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$249.96
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M.2 speeds run rings around SATA competition

Cheaper than some SATA drives

Intel SSD reliability

Slow for an M.2 drive, especially 128GB/256GB sizes

Random writes are slower than a fast SATA SSD

Crucial isnt the only SSD player on the market using Microns new 3D NAND process. Co-
partner and 800 lb. gorilla Intel has also waded into the fray, introducing the 600p M.2 drive
using the same battle plan Crucial is trying with the MX300 on SATA.
In this case, Intel is going a step further and making the argument to ditch SATA along with the
mechanical hard disk, skipping straight to the next-gen M.2 NVMe interface to access the same
inexpensive Micron 3D NAND memory. This makes a lot of sense for newer systems with empty
M.2 slots, but dont bother with smaller 600p models as performance plummets if you drop
below the 512GB version.

Read More

The best high-end SATA SSD

Samsung 850 Pro 512GB

$144.98
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$257.99
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$257.99
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Fastest consumer SATA SSD

10-year warranty and extreme endurance

Pricier than Samsung 850 EVO for small speed gains

SATA bottlenecks

Samsung holds the top spot in a second category for our best SSDs, and with good reason. The
Samsung 850 Pro is simply the fastest consumer SATA SSD money can buy. And with the
ongoing migration to M.2 NVMe drives, it's unlikely to cede the throne. Over two years after it
first became available, no other SATA drive has managed to match its performance. But at what
price?

The 850 Pro was the first consumer SSD to use V-NAND. Like the 850 Evo, the NAND flash
memory is 40nm, with 32 vertical layers. However it doesnt use TLC NAND: everything here is
2-bit MLC. Theres no need for an SLC cache, which gives it a slightly higher formatted
capacity, and slightly better performance in heavy write scenarios. The cost results in a
significantly higher retail price than other SATA SSDs, but if you can't use M.2 and still one
maximum performance, this is the drive to get.

Read More

How we test SSDs

SSDs make your whole system faster and more pleasant to use. But they matter for gaming, too.
A fast-loading SSD can cut dozens of seconds off the load times of big games like Battlefield 1
or MMOs like World of Warcraft. An SSD won't normally affect framerates like your GPU or
CPU, but it will make installing, booting, dying, and reloading in games a faster, smoother
process.

When shopping for a good SSD for gaming, one of the most important factors is price per
gigabyte. How much will you have to spend to keep a healthy library of Steam games installed,
ready to be played at a moment's notice? With some games surpassing the 50GB mark, this
becomes even more critical.

To find the best gaming SSDs, we researched the SSD market, picked out the strongest
contenders, and put them through their paces with a variety of benchmarking tools. We also put
in the research to know what makes a great SSD great, beyond the numberstechnical stuff like
types of flash memory and controllers.

SSD performance and value ranked

To test the SSDs, we used a PC with an Intel Core i7-6700K, 16GB of DDR4 memory, an Nvidia
GeForce GTX 980 graphics card, and an Asus Z170-A motherboard. Windows 10 was installed
on the main system drive, AHCI was enabled, and all the drives were connected to the
motherboards SATA III ports (except for the Intel 600p, which used the M.2 slot). We used a
combination of synthetic and trace benchmarks, as well as real-world file copying. This includes
AS SSD, CrystalDiskMark, and PCMark 8, which runs a set number of timed traces of popular
applications.

As you can see in the benchmark rankings of current SSDs, going from the slowest SATA SSD
we've tested to the fastest SATA SSD is only about a 50 percent increase in performance. Moving
to even a somewhat slow M.2 NVMe SSD meanwhile results in another 50 percent increase in
performance.

This is only when you're really hitting the storage subsystem, of course. If you're not running
benchmarks, the real-world differences are difficult to detect. However, in the same test suite, a
good hard drive scores around 10-15. Yeah, it's that big of a jump, and you absolutely will notice
the difference between any modern SSD and an HDD.

Because price and capacity are also important factors, these charts combine all three metrics to
generate a different look at the drives. Prices do fluctuate quite a bit over time, and we've used
the best current prices we could find for these charts, but sales can and will change positioning.

SSD Technology

The single specific advantage that makes an SSD so much faster than a hard disk is access times
that are orders of magnitude faster. A hard disk depends on a mechanical arm moving into
position to read data from a platter, while with an SSD, data is stored and accessed electronically.
Although modern hard disks are astonishingly fast at accessing data, theyre no match for an
SSD; the fastest HDD access times are still around 10ms, while any decent SSD will usually
have access times under 0.1ms.

An SSD is a physically simple device. Its made from an array of flash memory chips and a
controller, which comprises a processor, memory cache, and firmware. But like most things in
computing, it starts to get complicated when you look at it in more detail. NAND flash chips
store binary values as voltage differences in non-volatile memory, meaning they retain their state
when power is cut off. In order to change the state of a single cell (ie writing to it), a strong
voltage is required. But because of the way the cells are laid out, it cant be done on a cell-by-cell
basis: an entire row has to be erased at once.

Each cell is insulated from its neighbors to preserve the value it holds, but every time a cell is
programmed, the insulator becomes slightly less reliable. Eventually, after a certain number of
writes, the cell becomes unable to hold any values, which is why SSDs have a limited lifespan.
In the early days of flash memory, this limited number of writes was a concern, but clever tricks,
improved technology, and software improvements mean its no longer a real issue.

If you want further proof, then have a gander at the SSD endurance experiment over on
TechReport. In one of the only tests of its kind, they set about continuously writing data to select
SSDs until the drives became completely unusable, in a test that went on for months. Although
the odd bad sector crops up relatively early, at 100TB of writes, most of the drives survived until
nearly a petabyte of data or more was written to them, far beyond the manufacturers ratings, and
it took months of non-stop writing to reach that point.
The best drives managed 2.5PB of writes, which means even at 250GB of writes per day it
would still take 10,000 days to reach that point. Its fair to say endurance for all but the most
extreme workloads is no longer an issue.

SLC, MLC, and TLC memory

A given quantity of physical flash memory cells can be programmed to hold either one, two, or
three bits of data. A drive where each cell holds a single bit is known as SLC (Single-Level Cell).
Each cell can only be in one of two states, on or off, and only needs to be sensitive to two
voltages. Its endurance and performance will be incredible, but a large amount of flash memory
is needed to provide a given capacity, so SLC drives have never really taken off beyond
expensive server and workstation setups.

2-bit MLC (Multi-Level Cell) memory is currently the most popular kind used in consumer
SSDs. Each cell holds two bits, with four binary states (00, 01, 10 and 11), so the cell needs to be
sensitive to four voltages. The same amount of flash memory provides double the amount of
space as SLC, so less is needed and the SSD is more affordable.

3-bit TLC (Triple-Level Cell) memory goes even further, with three bits per cell. Now each cell
has to hold eight binary states (corresponding to 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111), and
performance and endurance begins to really suffer as there are eight distinct voltages that
represent data. Since each cell needs to differentiate between eight voltage values, reading them
reliably requires more precision, and wear and tear reduces the number of write cycles. The plus
side is you get even more capacity from the same amount of flash memory, resulting in even
cheaper SSDs, which is something everyone wants.

As weve found from testing some SSDs, manufacturers are using tricks to mitigate these
negative effects with TLC flash memory, so prices can continue falling without impacting
performance. These days, we're seeing increasing numbers of TLC SSDs, particularly in the
budget sector, and performance has reached the point where they're generally an acceptable
compromise.

Sequential Transfer Speeds

Whenever you read about an SSD or look at a review, the first figure youll usually see is a
headline-grabbing transfer rate. Imagine read and write speeds up to 550MB/sec, or even faster
in the case of PCIe SSDs. These numbers always look really impressive, and it typically
represents the best-case performance you'll see from a drive. It usually involves large sequential
file transfers, which means all the blocks are laid out one after the other and caching and other
advantages are at their peak.
In the real world, most software applications deal with both large and small files, and at times a
program might be waiting for input before it carries on, so youll rarely get the maximum
sequential speed of your SSD. You might see these speeds when reading or writing a large 10GB
movie file, but things will be a lot slower when copying a folder full of 10,000 jpeg images,
HTML documents, or even a game directory.

These smaller files could be spread all over the disk and will be slower to transfer. In the case of
a hard disk, that entails moving the disk head over the correct position on the platter, which adds
a really long delay. SSDs are far quicker to do this, which is where the real improvement in
overall responsiveness comes from.

To further complicate things, some SSDs (mostly older drives with SandForce controllers)
handle uncompressed data much better than compressed data. If theres a difference, the faster
speeds when dealing with uncompressed data are the ones that are quoted. Therefore, although
faster sequential speeds are always nice to see, its best not to judge an SSD on these figures
alone, as you won't see these speeds all the time.

IOPS

IOPS is another term that is often used to discuss performance of storage products, usually
quoted with SSD specifications, but its direct application to real-world use isnt simple. Put
simply, IOPS means input-output operations per second. The more a device can manage, the
faster it is. Except, not all IO operations are the same. Reading a tiny 512-byte text file isnt the
same thing as writing a 256KB block from a 10GB movie.

Theres no standard for how figures should be advertised, but generally companies quote the
QD32, 4KB block size figure, or IOPS when 32 4KB read or write commands are queued. In the
real world, applications wont be constantly queuing up 32 4KB blocks. It will likely be a
random mixture of block sizes, reads, writes, and times when the storage device is idle. For
random IO (like booting the OS when lots of files from many applications and drivers are
requested), the IOPS figures are important, but they're not the only figure that matters.

Much effort goes into measuring IOPS for patterns that simulate databases, web servers, file
servers and so on. For gaming, it really depends on the application, since no two games will be
identical. Some might involve huge textures being loaded from disk, while others might be
structured differently. Although the 4K QD32 IOPS figure is relevant, its best thought of as an
indicator of SSD performance with a heavier workload rather than a definitive, comparable
benchmark for overall performance.

Competitors

We started with a collection of ten SSDs after researching the most popular and competitive
drives around. At the time, 240-256GB drives offered the best blend of capacity and
performance, but as time has passed we're now looking at 480-512GB drives as the baseline, and
1TB and 2TB drives are sometimes tested256GB can go fast with a few games and Windows
10! There are plenty of other SSDs out there and new ones arrive regularly, so we've added
drives to our database over time. The above charts focus on commonly available drives that
we've tested, with older models no longer tracked.

Over the past couple of years, weve tested many drives. The Samsung 850 Evo, Samsung 850
Pro, Crucial MX300, and Intel 600p are currently our primary recommendations, but depending
on pricing and availability, many other drives are worth considering.

Corsair has had an SSD line under the Neutron name for several years now, and performance has
generally been good, but pricing is higher than we like. The Neutron XTi can't quite match the
850 Evo, despite a similar price, but with the right sale or bundle it's not far off.

Crucial's BX100 was a great budget option that was replaced by the slower Crucial BX200.
Crucial also has their MX200 and MX300 that boast better performance along with higher
prices, and the MX300 (with TLC 3D NAND) is now available at a variety of capacities, all
priced low enough to become the budget SATA SSD pick for this guide.

Intel has had many SSD models over the years, including the 520 and 730, which have been
superseded by the likes of the 750 and 600p. These days, Intel is mainly focused on M.2 and
NVMe solutions, and the 600p 512GB is our current pick for the best budget M.2 SSD.

Kingstons V300 is rather old now, and it has generally poor write performance and isn't worth
buying, despite its affordability. The newer UV400 drives look much more promising, using a
combination of TLC NAND and an SLC cache to deliver better performance than many other
TLC drives.

OCZ had some financial difficulties but was saved by Toshiba, who now owns their assets and
continues to sell drives under the OCZ brand. The OCZ Trion 100 and newer Trion 150 are the
first drives to come post-acquisition, with the 150 replacing the 100 and offering some minor
updates. The Trion 150 is a budget offering, using TLC NAND with the relatively common
Phison S10 controller. Phison had a deservedly bad reputation in the past, but their S10 performs
quite well. With MLC it can even come relatively close to the top drives, though the TLC models
are less impressive. OCZ's Vector 180 can actually come close to matching the 850 Evo's
performance. But availability is becoming a concern these days as newer drives replace it.

Plextor seemed to be making headroads into the world of consumer SSDs at one point, and then
they pulled out and focused on the more lucrative enterprise market. Their M6 Pro line has
decent performance, but at the current prices it's no longer competitive--you can get twice the
capacity for a lower price.

Samsung is the 800 pound gorilla of SSDs. They have the advantage of owning the NAND and
controller fabrication facilities, plus they do all their own firmware. That allows them to compete
on price while also offering better performance than many other companies. V-NAND allows the
850 Evo and 850 Pro to claim two of our four SSD recommendations, and in the world of NVMe
solutions Samsung also lays claim to the top spots. Simply put, you can't go wrong with a
Samsung SSD.
SanDisk's Extreme Pro is one of the few SATA SSDs that can go head-to-head with the 850 Pro.
It doesn't win every battle, but with a lower price it doesn't need to. Like Samsung, they make
their own NAND, which is a big advantage in the cutthroat world of consumer SSDs, and they
also have a lot of experience building controllers. It's interesting that the Extreme Pro is still their
best SSD, considering it came out in 2014; maybe we'll see an NVMe drive from the company in
the future?

Meanwhile, the SanDisk Ultra II is a serious contender for the best budget SSD, losing out
mostly due to the added $25 compared to the SP S55. The Ultra II is a bit faster than the S55,
thanks to its continued use of MLC NAND, and if you're willing to spend up it's worth a closer
look.

Silicon Power's S55 is one of our latest additions. The TLC models are currently some of the
least expensive SSD you're likely to find, though prices have crept up over the past several
months. We might be tempted to say you get what you pay for, but in practice we've been
pleasantly surprised by the drive and it's a decent budget recommendation. The MLC S55 drives
may perform better, but at their higher price we'd stick with a Samsung 850 Evo.

Transcend SSD370S series sticks with MLC NAND instead of going the TLC route, and
combines that with a Silicon Motion 2246EN controller. The result is relatively impressive
performancea bit behind the 850 Pro and 850 Evo, but worth a look, particularly if pricing
comes down. But current pricing puts it out of consideration.

Our final entrantalphabeticallyis Western Digital's Blue 1TB SSD. A long-time player in the
storage market, WD has not entered the SSD arena. Unfortunately, the performance is rather low
due to the use of TLC NAND, but pricing is at least reasonable. Like many SSDs, this brand is a
simple price cut away from a stronger recommendation.

Closing thoughts and a look to the future

Now that SSDs are such good value, there's simply no reason not to have one in your PC. If you
were an early adopter with a 64GB or 128GB drive and find that capacity to be rather limiting,
it's time to consider an upgrade. A 512GB SSD now costs a lot less than a 128GB model did a
few years ago, and we strongly recommend at least 240GB for your OS and primary
applications, with 480GB and larger providing plenty of room for some games and other
goodies.

While ubiquitous, standard 2.5-inch SSDs are now fundamentally limited by the speed of the
SATA bus, which has a maximum theoretical throughput of 6Gbit/sec. In real world terms, the
performance ceiling is around 550MB/sec for a SATA SSD, and its clear this is imposing a limit
on flash memory technology.

The solution is to switch to the PCI Express bus, where Gen3 offers 985MB/sec per lane, with a
x4 card allowing for up to 3.94GB/sec. Unfortunately, the PCIe SSDs are more expensive, and
they're mostly limited to either PCIe add-in boards or the M.2 form factor, which means only
newer PCs have the requisite NVMe support. In practice, that means you need to be running a
Skylake/Kaby Lake (or Haswell with the right motherboard) Intel chip, along with many X99
systems and the upcoming X299 platform. AMD's Ryzen CPUs and motherboards also have M.2
NVMe support, along with the upcoming Threadripper/X399 platform. Most new laptops use
M.2 drives due to the space savings, and long-term the standard has a lot of room to grow.

In another 10 years, solid state technology may make today's SATA SSDs look like floppy disks.
But for now, SATA SSDs still offer the best performance you're going to get for your dollar, and
the Samsung 850 Evo is currently the best choice for a great gaming SSD.

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Topics

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