As thrilling as it continues to be to try to find a Nvidia 50-series card at MSRP or below, the thought of dropping anywhere close to a grand on a hardware upgrade still makes me squirm. I'm all about the less swish though still important hardware upgrades, such as storage—because gourd knows my backlog of Steam games is only growing and my SSD space is only shrinking.
1 TB can only take you so far, but as I've said before that's usually enough space for your operating system to camp out plus a few smaller titles in your regular game rotation. Quick boot times and fast access to my latest indie obsessions? Yes please! So the fact that the 1 TB capacity of the Silicon Power UD90 SSD is currently only $50 from Newegg is worth shouting about.
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Colleagues with long memories have pointed out to me just what a significant discount this is. The UD90 SSD launched about three years ago, around the same time as the WD Black SN850X 1TB drive. However, the Silicon Power UD90 is now about half the price it was back then, and though the SN850X has enjoyed a significant price cut in that time too, you're still looking at parting with about $85 for it.
Why? Simply put, the WD Black SN850X is the faster 1 TB drive, offering a read speed of up to 7,300 MB/s. However, that doesn't mean the Silicon Power UD90 is any kind of slouch. Sure, its read speed is markedly slower, only cresting up to 5,000 MB/s—but for 50 bucks I would personally take the hit. And you're hardly going to notice a difference between those speeds when it comes to gaming.
Though I've not yet had the chance to go hands-on with this drive myself, I'm also heartened by the fact our colleagues at sister site Tom's Hardware also rate this "value champion." Though the team over there do note this 1 TB can get a wee bit toasty. If temps are a concern, you can pick up the Silicon Power UD90 with a heatsink from Newegg for only about $10 more.
If you've already perused our best SSD for gaming guide, then you already know there's faster and far chillier drives out there. However, even our top budget pick, the Biwin Black Opal NV7400, will still set you back about $75 from Amazon.
Yes, the Silicon Power UD90 1 TB SSD has had to make some notable compromises to wiggle its way under the $50 price bar. But given that's likely as low as most SSDs can go, I would be happy to see it shimmy its way into my rig.
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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