Best PCIe 4.0 SSD

Most computers and storage drives still use the common SATA or PCIe 3.0 interfaces to distribute their data bits, but if you are lucky enough to have a relatively modern PC, you may be able to upgrade to a solid state drive (SSD). ) built on the blazing fast PCIe 4.0 protocol. We have tested several PCIe 4.0 SSDs, and the best one to cross our labs so far is the Samsung 980 Pro in a field of tough competitors.

“The Samsung 980 Pro is a great NVMe SSD, the fastest we’ve tested using the PCIe 4.0 bus,” we said in our review (although it has since been superseded by the much more expensive Seagate FireCuda 530). “If you have the luck or the intelligence to own a next-generation Ryzen system, it is the one you want.”

Best PCIe 4.0 SSD: Samsung 980 Pro

Enough actually, although it’s worth noting that Intel’s new 11th Gen Core “Rocket Lake” processors also support PCIe 4.0 now, joining AMD’s Ryzen 3000 and Ryzen 5000 desktop chips. Support for PCIe 4.0 is becoming commonplace on the latest PC platforms. You will also need a motherboard that supports PCIe 4.0 support. If you install a PCIe 4.0 SSD in a computer that is not PCIe 4.0 compliant, the drive will work through the slower PCIe 3.0 interface.

PCIe 4.0 SSDs are more expensive than their PCIe 3.0-based rivals – the Samsung 980 Pro costs $ 90 for 250GB, $ 120 for 500GB, $ 181 for 1TB, or $ 342 for 2TB of capacity at Amazon, but the difference in performance can melt your face. Traditional SATA SSDs exceed 600 megabytes transferred per second, while our favorite PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD, the SK Hynix Gold P31, boosts it to 3.5 GBps read and write speeds. The Samsung 980 takes both out of the water, beating the 7GBps read and 5GBps write speeds in our synthetic tests. Truly remarkable.

Those blazing fast speeds make the biggest difference during file transfers. If you’re moving a lot of data, you’ll love the Samsung 980 Pro, which can do those tasks before you know it.

However, if you’re mostly limited to gaming and normal daily tasks, you might be better off with a standard SATA or PCIe 3.0 drive. Upgrading from a small mechanical hard drive to any SSD can give you a huge increase in quality of life with faster boot speeds, game load times, and application performance. Most of those crucial benefits don’t get tangibly faster if you opt for a PCIe 4.0 model instead of a slower (but still faster) SATA or PCIe 3.0 drive, though that could change when the radical and inspired DirectStorage API Microsoft’s Xbox is released for Windows. games later this year.

Fear not: modern PCIe 4.0 SSDs won’t die any faster despite their blazing speeds. “The drives have a five-year limited warranty,” we said in our review of the 980 Pro. “The limit is 150 TBW per 256 GB nominal capacity. TBW stands for TeraBytes Written for the life of the drive. That rating is a bit low for a premium-priced unit. Still, it represents 41 GB written per day for 10 years, much more data than the average user will write (reads don’t count). “

The benefits of the 980 Pro don’t end there. Samsung’s “Magician” suite of tools and features continues to be one of the best SSD management apps out there.

While the Samsung 980 Pro is the best PCIe 4.0 you can buy, we’ve also reviewed other exceptional options. The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus NVMe SSD actually outperforms Samsung’s drive in some tests and comes in a gigantic 4TB version. You can buy it for $ 180 for 1TB, $ 359 for 2TB, and $ 900 for 4TB. The WD Black SN850, on the other hand, compares quite a bit to the 980 Pro. However, Samsung’s SSD costs a bit less for some capacities and is “the best in all respects, but by a fairly narrow margin.” That combination gives Samsung the edge. And the Adata XPG Gammix S70 Blade goes hand-in-hand with the competitively priced 980 Pro, although given Adata’s recent decision to quietly upgrade some SSDs with slower internals, we’re still giving Samsung top honors.

The aforementioned Seagate FireCuda 530 actually beats all of these options. “Not only did it outperform the best of the rest in our synthetic and real-world benchmarks, it did so by a healthy margin in various tests,” we said in our review. You pay substantially more for that performance though, at $ 132 for 500GB, $ 255 for 1TB, and $ 540 for 2TB models. You can also get a massive 4TB version for an equally great price of $ 1,000. However, most people don’t need that much speed and therefore shouldn’t spend that much even on the ultra-fast FireCuda.

Bottom line? The Samsung 980 Pro is the best PCIe 4.0 SSD for most people, if you can benefit from the blazing fast speeds of PCIe 4.0. Be sure to check out our guide to the best SSDs for a broader view of all types of solid state drives, along with practical buying tips to keep in mind as you shop on your own.

Editor’s Note: Last updated to include information on the Adata XPG Gammix S70 Blade.