Experience lightning-fast loading screens with the best M.2 SSD for gaming. This reliable upgrade enhances your day-to-day PC usage, as not only does an M.2 NVMe SSD provide a much faster overall experience than other types of drive, but it's also one of the most affordable upgrades you can make for your PC.
The best M.2 SSD for gaming is the WD Black SN850X. It manages to balance performance with very reasonable pricing, making it a great shout for any modern gaming rig. If you're looking for something cheaper, however, then the Lexar NM970 is the best budget M.2 SSD by far, thanks to its blistering performance for a surprisingly low price.
We're constantly testing the very latest drives to identify the top NVMe SSDs for PC gaming. 512 GB used to be enough, but these days we consider 1 TB to be a more realistic minimum, and if you can stretch to a 2 TB or 4 TB drive, all the better. We still think you should be buying Gen 4 drives over Gen 5, as when it comes to real-world performance a Gen 4 drive is still all you really need in 99% of scenarios. Still, if you have your heart set on a Gen 5 drive and don't mind the cost, we do recommend the Teamgroup T-Force Z540.
Jeremy likes CPUs. And GPUs. And SSDs. A lot. Which is just as well, since he's been writing about them since the early Mesozoic period. Or at least since Intel released those early stuttering SSDs. Remember them? Good times.
The quick list
Best overall
The WD Black SN850X is something of a last hurrah for Gen 4 SSDs, and it's still the best overall NVMe drive out there right now. It's a stone-cold classic at this point, and one that several members of the PC Gamer hardware team use everyday.
Best budget
The Lexar NM790 manages an impressive party trick. Super-fast performance for budget prices? Yes please. If you're looking to spend less, yet get the proper benefits of a fast Gen 4 drive, here's where you want to be.
Best high capacity
If you need huge amounts of speedy storage without breaking the bank, then the Nextorage NEM-PA NVMe makes for an excellent pick. Big sizes, relatively small prices, and superb performance.
Best 2230 SSD
Stick this Lexar Play SSD in your handheld gaming PC and enjoy great performance, all without masses of heat. It would be nice if Lexar had a larger capacity model, but 1 TB is decent enough.
Best for PS5
If you're looking for a PS5 upgrade, look no further. A very fast drive with an excellent heatsink that should slot into your console with no issues at all.
Best PCIe 5
PCIe 5.0 SSDs are too expensive and run too hot to be truly recommended. But if you really must have the fastest storage out there, then the Teamgroup Z540 is the one to go for, as it's the only one that's not super pricey.
Recent updates
Updated 22 November 2024 to add a note in the intro about Black Friday sales and where you can find the latest deals on M.2 SSDs for gaming.
The best M.2 SSD
Our favorite WD Black SN850X config:
✅ If you want a great all-rounder: The SN850X has a winning combination of great speeds, cool running and affordability that's difficult to beat.
✅ If you don't want to worry about temps: Whether you go for the heatsink model or not, the WD Black SN850X stays chilled.
❌ You want the absolute cutting edge of performance: There are slightly faster drives, or much faster if you go for Gen 5, but realistically this is all the real-world speed you're going to need for the time being.
The regular SN850 was one of our favourite drives, but since the WD Black SN850X arrived it took our top spot for the best NVMe SSD overall and has stayed there ever since.
So what sets it apart from the pack? Well, while it might have some of the standard features of a regular Gen 4 NVMe drive, what with its four lanes of PCIe connectivity and the expected M2 2280 form factor, it sports some shiny new additions to the board that add some serious performance credentials.
WD's own controller has had some revisions, alongside an upgrade from 96-layer TLC NAND memory chips to newer 112-layer models. And if those sorts of specs make your eyes cross, have no fear, for we shall interpret them for you: It means performance. Lots and lots of it.
The 1TB model delivers read speeds of 6,300 MB/s, and write speeds of 7,300 MB/s. That's plenty fast, and while it puts it in contention with some of the very fastest Gen 4 drives we've tested, they are slightly faster. Two things on that point: Firstly, when it comes to small differences in synthetic SSD benchmarks, you're absolutely not going to be able to tell the difference in real-world drive usage. And two?
With the WD Black SN850X, you're not just getting great speeds, you're getting the whole package.
Let's talk temperatures for a moment. Simply put, like many components, if your NVMe gets too hot under sustained usage then it throttles itself back to save itself from potential damage. The WD Black SN850X, however, runs remarkably cool under load, particularly if you pick the model with the WD signature armour-style heatsink.
We found our review unit never breached 58°C under sustained load, which is a big improvement over the standard SN850 and its 77°C.
That should give some peace of mind that you're getting the best performance out of your drive even under heavy usage, although even the non-heatsink model performs decently when it comes to temperature throttling.
You also get WD's Game Mode drive management software. The company claims this improves your gaming load times thanks to some clever algorithms. Pretty hard to test, that one, but we found the WD Black SN850X did extremely well in our game loading benchmarks, so it may very well be adding something to the pot. A nice feature to have, at the very least.
And finally, there's price. While the Lexar NM790 below can often be found cheaper and still makes our best budget recommendation for the excellent performance it provides, the WD Black SN850X has been around for a little while now and goes on discount on the regular. You might have to wait around a bit to find the best deal, but they are out there, and all the sweeter for it.
Any drawbacks? Well, the 4K random access results aren't stellar, although you'd only really see that on the benchmarks. It's real-world performance you're likely to care about most, and here the SN850X performs brilliantly.
It's an all-round performer and a completely solid overall choice for anyone looking for an NVMe SSD that hits all the right notes. Cool, efficient and plenty fast. What more do you really need?
Read our full WD Black SN850X SSD review.
The best budget M.2 SSD
Our favorite Lexar NM790 config:
✅ If you want top end performance for less: The Lexar NM790 is damn near as fast as the top Gen 4 performers, but regularly comes in significantly cheaper
✅ If you don't want a heatsink: We tested the heatsink-less model, and found its thermal performance was great, making it a very good laptop or small form factor solution.
❌ You'd prefer some more known components: The controller and flash combination here is a bit of an anomaly, but we've had no problem with the drives we tested and are still using long term. Still, if cheaper components bother you, you might want to look elsewhere.
Cheap and cheerful? How about cheap and still delivering excellent performance? The Lexar NM790 is a fantastic SSD that makes very few compromises while still remaining very affordable, and that means it sits proudly as our top-budget NVMe drive recommendation.
If you're in the market for a budget NVMe SSD, chances are you've been working under the assumption that you'll have to take some performance penalties in order to save some cash. Not so with the Lexar NM790, as it delivers read and write speeds that any Gen 4 drive would be proud of.
Rated at 7,400 MB/s sequential reads and 6,500 writes, this drive impressed us mightily when we reviewed the 4 TB version, but you'll be pleased to find it comes in a range of capacities including a very attractively priced 1 TB model. But how come you can get all this performance and capacity for less?
Well, it comes down to the use of a lesser-known controller and flash memory combo, the MaxioTech MAP1602 and YMTC 232-layer TLC respectively. Before you start worrying that maybe these lesser-known components will under-perform however, allow us to put your minds at rest. While the Lexar has made some concessions in the name of budget, when it comes to performance, it stands alongside some of the very best drives we've tested.
Whether it's synthetic benches or real-world gaming tests, the NM790 performs admirably, all the while running cool, calm and collected. It makes use of a large SLC cache buffer that allows it to put in numbers that compete with the best Gen 4 drives, and that's a very neat party trick to bring to the table.
More than that, the Lexar makes for an efficient drive no matter which way you look at it. While there are heatsink models available, we tested the heatsink-free version and found that its thermal performance was admirable, which is no mean feat, so there's really no need to spend up unless you really want to make double-sure that it'll deliver its full speeds without throttling.
Every now and then a component arrives that, thanks to some clever lateral solutions, runs rings around a lot of the competition while delivering great performance for less cash—and that's exactly what we've got here. We regularly see 1 TB models retailing for around $80 and 2 TB models around the $130 marker, and that's a genuine bargain for such a performant SSD.
Not only is it a budget champion, the mighty Lexar, but it can keep up with the big names without breaking a sweat.
Read our full Lexar NM790 4 TB review.
The best high capacity M.2 SSD
✅ You're looking for oodles of space: The Nextorage NEM-PA comes in a variety of sizes, but we particularly like the 2 TB and 4 TB versions for the money. Speaking of which...
✅ You don't want big prices for big sizes: We see the Nextorage drives on discount all the time, but even at regular retail prices they represent huge value for money.
❌ You want high speeds from every possible angle: The Nextorage NEM-PA drives have absolutely fantastic real-world performance, but benchmark hounds will notice the 4K numbers and PC Mark synthetic results are a little behind the pack.
Looking for lots and lots of storage, with no compromises on performance and for a great price? You'd struggle to do better than this Nextorage drive, which comes in a variety of well-priced high-capacity specifications—making it an easy pick for the best high-capacity NVMe drive in this list.
If you're unfamiliar with the name, we don't really blame you. In a market dominated by big players with heavy brand recognition, Nextorage is still the new kid on the block, although make no mistake, it still comes with a pedigree you might not expect.
See, Sony initially created Nextorage to manufacture SSD drives for its PlayStation consoles, until Phison, creator of some of the fastest storage controllers in the business, took a controlling stake in the company.
Soon after, Nextorage debuted drives making use of the Phison E18 controller, and it's the very same chip that graces some of the fastest drives we've had the pleasure to review.
So, as you'd expect, this drive is quick. Very quick. We tested the 2 TB model and found that it was an excellent performer, demonstrating read and write speeds that put many drives to shame. It's rated for 7,300 MB/s reads and 6,900 MB/s writes and delivers them with aplomb, but it also managed to sustain 625 GB of writes before dropping performance, thanks to the fact that a full one-third of the NAND flash can be used in high-speed SLC cache mode.
Still, it's not just performance you're looking for here, its capacity, and when it comes to the 2 TB and 4 TB versions of these drives performance remains very similar between the two, while also often demonstrating a very competitive price compared to the closest competition.
SSD prices have been on the rise recently, but we still regularly see these capacious drives at prices that make you do a double-take. That makes them a fantastic way of adding huge amounts of lightning-fast storage capacity to your machine without breaking the bank.
You'll find variants using very substantial heatsinks and some with none at all, but if you've got room for it in your machine we're happy to report that the heatsink version runs remarkably cool. Still, if you're looking for something more compact then the heatsink-less models should still run plenty cool, which means they'll be delivering great performance even in a laptop configuration.
Big storage, big performance, very competitive prices. Yep, Nextorage may not have made a name for itself just yet, but with this sort of hardware, it really won't be long.
Read our full Nextorage NEM-PA 2 TB review.
The best 2230 SSD
✅ You want a better SSD for your Steam Deck: Double the capacity of Valve's best offering and lots more performance. What's not to like?
✅ You don't want to spend a lot of money: M.2 2230 format SSDs are usually quite a lot more expensive than 2280 ones, but this Lexar is nicely priced.
❌ You need more than 1TB: Although 1TB is a decent amount of storage, the competition has larger capacities on offer. Lexar needs to up its game a bit here.
A year ago, Lexar was practically unheard of, but these days it's very competitive in the world of SSDs, thanks to lots of fast, spacious models, all with good prices. This 1 TB 2230 SSD is one such example, and this is why the Lexar Play 2230 is the best SSD for Steam Deck.
Surprisingly, Lexar isn't using slow components to keep the price down—Micron TLC NAND flash memory and a Silicon Motion SM2269XT controller are good quality and very speedy. In testing, we found that Lexar's performance claims were 100% accurate and while sequential read/writes of 5,400 and 4,700 MB/s aren't cutting edge, they're more than fast enough for any handheld PC.
The Lexar Play also has a large SLC cache (the portion of the flash memory that acts as a buffer for data), around 240 GB in size. What that means is it will transfer at 4,700 MB/s until that amount of data has been written, before dropping in performance (to around half that rate). Perfect for rapid game installations.
Better still is the fact that the Play 2230 stays nice and cool when doing all of this and in our tests, we recorded average operating temperatures around 40°C and a peak of 53°C. So there's no need to worry about your Steam Deck getting hot with a bigger SSD.
There's only one downside to the Lexar Play 2230 and that's the storage capacity. There's only a 1 TB model on offer and there's plenty of competition with larger capacities, such as our previous recommendation for Steam Deck, the Sabrent Rocket 2230. Hopefully, Lexar will address this in the near future.
Fortunately, 1 TB is still plenty enough storage for most PC gamers on the go. Add in the boost in performance, for relatively little money, and you've got the perfect SSD upgrade for your Steam Deck.
Read our full Lexar Play 2230 1 TB SSD review.
The best M.2 SSD for PS5
Our favorite Silicon Power XS70 SSD config:
✅ You're looking for the best drive for your PS5 : Several SSDs have been built to fit in a PlayStation 5, but this one stands out with its excellent thermals and speeds despite its small heatsink.
✅ If you want a set and forget solution: The Silicon Power XS70 is a no-fuss solution to a potentially fussy problem. It's an all-round great drive for the PS5 that fits in perfectly with no major caveats.
❌ You want included software for a PC install: The XS70 makes for an excellent PC SSD as well, but if you're looking for cloning software or indeed, any SSD software at all, you'll want to find a third-party solution.
While the PlayStation 5 does make use of a rather snazzy Gen 4 drive, there will be many of you hoping to fit your console with something larger to fit as many games as possible on to your shiny console machine of dreams. That being the case, we recommend the Silicon Power 2 TB XS70 as our top pick for the best PS5 NVMe SSD.
For a start, it's a superb performer. Thanks to some Micron 176-layer TLC NAND and a controller that needs little introduction, the Phison E18, alongside 2 GB of DDR4 RAM, the XS70 makes for a potent drive in any setup with the appropriate M2 slot. 7,300 MB/s sequential reads and 6,800 MB/s writes puts it well up there with some of the faster drives we've tested, along with some excellent random read performance.
But honestly, if you're just looking for a big and powerful drive to stick straight into your PS5, close the casing and forget about it, you're going to ideally want something designed with PlayStation compatibility in mind, and that's exactly what Silicon Power has created here.
There's no hardware encryption on offer, but really what you need is great performance and well-controlled thermals, and the PlayStation 5 compatible heatsink here is a superb performer in that regard. It's very efficient, and we saw top temps of a mere 63°C, which is a great result for a Gen 4 drive with this level of performance.
Its small packaging reminds us of a flash drive, but when it comes to what this drive is capable of delivering then a simple USB stick this is not. Those of you planning on installing one in a PC may bemoan the lack of software support ecosystem, but console users will care not one jot.
You'll simply want a very fast drive in the right form factor that you can set, forget, and use on the regular to keep your PlayStation stocked with games, and here Silicon Power has really judged the market very well indeed.
It's not big, but it is clever, and if you really want to make the most of your console experience by installing a very fast drive designed to sit right at the heart of your PS5 without a single complaint, then this right here is the SSD for you.
Read our full Silicon Power 2 TB XS70 review.
The best PCIe 5
✅ You want a warp drive for your solid state storage: Gen 5 drives are shockingly fast. Too fast, really, for most gamers, but if that's what you want, then nothing else will beat one.
❌ You're expecting games to be much faster: You might notice some loading times are a bit quicker but in general, you'll be left wondering what you've just spent all your money on.
❌ You like value for money: Super-fast hardware is always expensive but Gen 4 drives are just as good and a lot cheaper.
The best PCIe 5.0 SSD is the Teamgroup T-Force Z540. Not because it's ridiculously fast (which it is), not because it doesn't get really hot (which it does)—it's the only one on the market, right now, that doesn't carry an enormous price tag.
We can't really recommend that you actually buy a Gen 5 drive, but when you look at the performance figures, it's not hard to see why you'd be tempted. The Z540 is rated for up to 12,400 MB/s and 11,800 MB/s for sequential read/writes for the 2 TB and 4TB versions, whereas the 1 TB model is a little slower, with figures of 11,700 MB/s and 9,500 MB/s respectively.
That makes it between 70 and 90% faster than the best Gen 4 drives you can buy. That's great, of course, but unfortunately, your gaming PC isn't going to turn into a performance monster if you install one of these drives.
At the moment, games are developed for PCs and consoles with average Gen 4 SSDs, at best, so you just won't get a big jump in loading times or frame rates with a PCIe 5.0 drive. Not even Windows loads all that much quicker.
The Teamgroup Z540 only makes sense for users who work in scenarios that involve reading and writing mountains of data, such as high-resolution video editing. Rather than getting a RAID add-in card and setting up a pair of Gen 4 SSDs, you could drop in a single PCIe 5.0 drive to get the same kind of performance—provided your motherboard supports it, of course.
Something else you'll need to be mindful of is heat. All Gen 5 SSDs get very hot when running at full pelt, so a decent heatsink plus fan is a must. Or at the least, a large M.2 heatsink on the motherboard with plenty of air flowing over it.
The best aspect of the Teamgroup Z540 is the price, though—the 1 TB drive is around $50 more than a typical high-end Gen 4 drive, though the 2 TB and 4 TB models are quite a lot more expensive. Even so, they're all significantly cheaper than most other Gen 5 models, so if you really want a warp drive in your gaming PC, the Z540 is the only sensible option.
Read our full Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2 TB SSD review.
Also tested
How to spot the best deals
Where are the best SSD deals?
In the US:
Amazon - Up to 50% off internal and external SSDs
Walmart - Deals on internal and external SSDs
B&H Photo - Save up to $50 on NVMe SSDs
Best Buy - Great prices on Samsung SSDs
Newegg - Plenty of NVMe SSDs
In the UK:
Amazon UK - Save on HDDs, SDDs, and external drives
Scan - SATA drives as low as £21
Box - Save up to £82 on Western Digital SN750 NVMe SSDs
Ebuyer - 500GB SSDs starting from £34.98
Overclockers - Save up to £51 on Samsung SSDs
Currys - Save £33.00 on WD Black SN750
Laptops Direct - Save on SSDs for your laptop
How we test NVMe SSDs
We put every SSD we get in the PC Gamer labs through their paces in various benchmarks made up of a mix of synthetic tests and real-world applications. To ascertain a drives sequential throughput, we use ATTO SSD Benchmark for compressible data (a best-case scenario) and AS SSD for incompressible data (more realistic). We also test random throughput with AS SSD and a combination of CrystalDiskMark 7.0 and Anvil Pro.
When it comes to the real-world tests, we time how long it takes to copy a 30GB game install across the drive and use PCMark10 and Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, which includes a level load test.
We also check operating temperatures to ensure that the drive isn't getting too hot and throttling. That's becoming more of an issue with faster and faster drives. PCIe 5.0 drives appear to require a lot more cooling than previous generations, which does make you wonder if the extra speed is really worth it yet.
M.2 SSD FAQ
Can I fit an M.2 SSD on my motherboard?
The M.2 socket has been included on motherboards of all kinds for many years now, so the chances are that there's a spare slot sitting inside your existing gaming PC. Check out your motherboard's specs page online before pulling the trigger on an NVMe SSD purchase, though, to be sure. Those harboring a board that's a few years old now, do yourself a favor and make sure it supports booting from an NVMe drive first. Not all older motherboards do, especially if you're going back multiple CPU generations (maybe a full upgrade's due, if so).
What is NVMe, exactly?
The NVMe, or Non-Volatile Memory Express interface, has been designed specifically with solid state drives in mind. In contrast, SATA, the previous interface in charge, was built to cater to most HDDs. The thought is, at the time, that no storage would ever need to exceed its lofty max bandwidth. To the surprise of a few, new storage mediums such as solid state absolutely blaze past SATA's max bandwidth, and so a new protocol in NVMe was born.
That makes NVMe SSDs the perfect storage tech for gaming.
Running on the same basic interface as your graphics card, NVMe SSDs deliver more raw bandwidth and performance than any SATA-based SSD could ever offer. They're also a lot smaller than any other hard drive or SSD too, which all means that the best NVMe SSDs are perfect for either that small form factor build you always wanted or a monstrous high-end gaming PC build.
What PCIe generation should I look for?
Right now, PCIe 4.0 is the go-to PCIe generation. That's because it offers a high speed at a reasonable cost. The newest SSDs on the market offer PCIe 5.0 capability, which doubles the theoretical bandwidth an SSD can run at. However, these are few and far between and awfully expensive. Also the first drives of any PCIe generation tend to end up much slower than what that generation is truly capable of.
Here are the rough speeds for each PCIe generation over x4 lanes:
PCIe 1.0: 1 GB/s
PCIe 2.0: 2 GB/s
PCIe 3.0: 4 GB/s
PCIe 4.0: 8 GB/s
PCIe 5.0: 16 GB/s
What's so special about NVMe?
The old storage paradigm was built on the idea of spinning disks. When SSDs hit the mainstream consumer market back in 2007, they reset our expectations for storage. Moving from the mechanical world of hard drives to the silicon world of SSDs brought rapid improvements in performance, technology, capacities, and reliability. SSDs quickly saturated the various SATA connections, and so faster alternatives were needed, but the interface was only part of the problem.
The AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) command protocol was designed for much slower media (i.e., spinning magnetic disks). AHCI is inefficient with modern SSDs, so a new standard was developed: NVMHCI (Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface). Combine NVMHCI with a fast PCIe interface, and you have NVMe, Non-Volatile Memory Express. It's a much-improved interface developed around the needs of flash memory rather than spinning disks.
What's NVMe performance like in the real world?
If you're copying a game from one drive to another or validating game files in Steam, faster NVMe drives make a difference. They can also shave off a second or two when it comes time to load a game level, but the more significant difference is against hard drives, where even a slower SATA SSD is much faster. Go beyond a certain point, and all SSDs start to feel similar.
In other words, while the speed freak in me loves what NVMe brings to the table, I recognize that in practice, it's sometimes not needed. If you're looking to build something on a very, very tight budget, good SATA SSDs remain a useable option, with prices now falling below 10 cents per GB.
NVMe drives, however, are now the default pick for a modern machine, and prices are still very affordable. With budget NVMe prices now matching SATA drives, most new builds should seriously consider whether the extra power and data cables of SATA are necessary.
