With memory prices skyrocketing to an all-time high, the next best upgrade to give your PC a noticeable performance boost is a fast and responsive SSD. The WD Black SN850X, for instance, is a great choice, as it offers peak PCIe 4.0 speeds and is currently down to $139 for the 2TB storage model at Walmart. That’s a $28 discount off its listed price of $167, making it an even better value for anyone looking to build a new PC or upgrade storage on their existing PC or laptop.
The WD Black SN850X may not be the newest SSD on the market, but it should still hold up well in modern systems. It uses a 112-layer BiCS5 TLC NAND paired with Western Digital’s in-house controller, and the drive delivers impressive sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,300 MB/s and 6,600 MB/s, respectively, putting it near the top of PCIe Gen 4 performance charts. It also meets all of Sony’s requirements for use as additional storage on the PlayStation 5 and is our top recommendation for the Best SSDs for the PS5.
In our testing of the WD Black SN850X, we found that its performance goes beyond raw throughput. The drive’s expanded pSLC cache, which is close to 600GB on the 2TB model, allows it to handle long, continuous write workloads far better than the previous-gen SN850. Thermal behavior was also notable; under heavy testing, the drive climbed into the 78-85°C range, which is safe but makes a heatsink strongly recommended for sustained performance.
Power efficiency is also pretty good, which is crucial when using the drive in a laptop. The SN850X draws around 1 watt during idle states and an average of 4 watts when copying a 50GB folder. Overall, it is one of the more consistent and well-balanced Gen 4 SSDs we've tested.
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