One SSD. Two flavours. Both good prices. Let's talk about the Lexar NM790 currently on offer over at Amazon.
For $110, you can get the non-heatsink version of the NM790. For $110, Prime members can get the version including a sleek black heatsink.
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👉OUR favorite Prime Day PC gaming deals👈
Lucky for them, but you only need a heatsink if your motherboard doesn't have one spare and your case's airflow is out of whack, or you're planning to plug this into the PS5. Most of the time, you should be good without one, so Prime membership be damned.
I reviewed the NM790 in October, 2023. It was a different time then, SSDs were at all-time low prices. Today, we're seeing the lowest price for this Lexar drive since 2023, as it and many other SSDs are no longer obnoxiously cheap. We might never get to those sorts of market lows again, at least not with AI on the rampage eating up all the storage and memory chips, but these sorts of deals are still relatively excellent.
The NM790 uses a controller/NAND combo that was slightly unknown at the time of release but relatively more common now: the MaxioTech MAP1602A and YMTC 232-layer. It's a DRAMless drive, making for slightly slower write speeds, but since many of the top drives for gaming ditch the DRAM today, that's no biggie.
In my testing, it performed as you might expect from a PCIe 4.0 drive rated to 7,400 MB/s seq. read and 6,500 MB/s seq. write. It reached those figures or close enough in CrystalDiskMark and it performed surprisingly well for random 4k speeds. If you really want to maximise those, then the excellent Sandisk WD_Black SN7100 is $130 on Amazon today. Though you are unlikely to spot the difference in action. I use the NM790 in my own machine as a bulk storage drive and it's great, no issues to report after a couple years use.
So, a quality drive for your consideration right there. Though If you wanted something to make the most out of a PCIe 5.0 slot, then I'd recommend checking out the excellent Crucial P510. It's $80 for 1 TB on Amazon today. That's another drive that impressed us in review.
If you're tough to please, head over to our October Prime Day SSD deals page for more. There's surely something there for you. And if not, maybe wait around until Black Friday for the best deals of the year. That's when they usually show up, though today's Prime Day deals are going to be pretty competitive, I reckon.
Check out Amazon's full list of Prime Day SSD deals
1. Best overall:
WD_Black SN7100
2. Best budget:
Biwin Black Opal NV7400
3. Best PCIe 5.0:
WD_Black SN8100
4. Best budget PCIe 5.0:
Crucial P510
5. Best 4 TB:
TeamGroup MP44
6. Best 8 TB:
WD_Black SN850X
7. Best M.2 2230:
Lexar Play 2230
8. Best for PS5:
Silicon Power XS70
9. Best SATA:
Crucial MX500
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