It's the fastest at the FFXIV game load and PCMark10's full storage test, and it isn't exactly sluggish in straight throughput either-managing 5,920MB/s reads and 5,021MB/s writes in AS SSD. And while it's true that the SN850 trails slightly in some of the synthetic benchmarks, we put more weight on the real-world tests, and here the SN850 is head and shoulders above anything else in this group test. The Phison E18-powered Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus has higher quoted sequential read and write figures. Thanks to the latest generation of PCIe interface, you will not find a faster, more reliable NVMe drive today. With the release of the SN850, Western Digital gets to add another trophy to its cabinet-the fastest PCIe SSD around.
Western Digital has released some quality drives lately, with the SN750 being a mainstay of our best SSD for gaming guide and the likes of the SN550 offering incredible value for money. And remember, larger drives perform better thanks to more controller channels being used at higher capacities, so buy a big a drive if you can. Each drive we've looked at is available in a range of capacities with prices to match. We've tested loads of NVMe SSDs recently to find the very best options out there. As long as you have an M.2 slot on your motherboard, NVMe is the place to be.
A speedy 1TB NVMe SSD might only set you back $120, which isn't much more than you'd pay for a clunky old SATA SSD. Thankfully, the SSD market is fierce right now, so great deals on quality SSDs are not uncommon. What that means, is storage is about to get a lot more important for gaming PCs. Even modern consoles are touting some of the best NVMe SSDs-both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 boast speedy NVMe SSDs and you don't want to get left behind by the consoles now, do you? The technology that makes the most of the Xbox's storage (DirectStorage) will be finding its way onto our systems soon.