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Storage is the easiest place to overspend on a gaming build, because the performance gap between a $50 drive and a $200 one barely shows up in load times. PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSDs have been on the market long enough that last-generation flagships are trading well below launch pricing, while still delivering speeds that saturate what most games actually need. GameRath may earn a commission if you buy through links on this page.
What's the difference between a DRAM-less and a DRAM-cached NVMe SSD? A DRAM-cached SSD carries dedicated onboard memory to track where data lives on the drive, which keeps performance consistent during large, sustained write operations. A DRAM-less SSD instead borrows a small slice of the host system's RAM through Host Memory Buffer technology, which lowers manufacturing cost and barely affects everyday gaming use, but causes write speeds to drop noticeably once a large file transfer exceeds the drive's fast SLC cache. For most gaming builds — where reads (game loads, asset streaming) matter far more than sustained large writes — that trade-off is one worth making for the savings.
WD Black SN770
The WD Black SN770 is the drive we keep coming back to for budget and mid-range builds. It launched at $129.99 for the 1TB capacity and has settled into a much lower street price since, commonly discounted well under $100 and occasionally dipping toward the $45-$60 range during bigger sales events. Its DRAM-less design means sustained large writes will slow down eventually, but for game installs and everyday use it holds its own against pricier Gen4 drives. Our full review covers exactly where that limitation does and doesn't show up.
Samsung and Crucial alternatives
If you want a second option to compare against, Samsung's mid-range NVMe lineup (the 990 EVO Plus series) typically lands in a similar ballpark for 1TB capacities once discounted, with the advantage of Samsung's own DRAM-cache tuning on select SKUs and generally well-regarded firmware reliability. Crucial's P3 Plus line usually undercuts both on price — often the cheapest Gen4 option in this tier — at the cost of lower sustained write speeds, making it a better fit for a secondary game drive than a primary OS/boot drive. None of these three is a bad pick at sale pricing; the right one comes down to whether you're chasing the lowest price, the most consistent sustained performance, or a specific capacity point.
What to check before buying
A few things matter more than the headline price:
- Capacity tier matters for speed. On DRAM-less drives especially, the 250GB and 500GB capacities are meaningfully slower than 1TB and 2TB versions of the same model — don't assume the smaller size just saves money with no trade-off.
- Heatsink or bare drive. Most budget Gen4 SSDs ship without a factory heatsink. Check whether your motherboard's M.2 slot includes one, or budget a cheap aftermarket heatsink for sustained workloads.
- Warranty and endurance (TBW). A 5-year warranty and 600TBW-class rating is the current baseline for this tier — treat anything meaningfully lower as a red flag on a "deal" listing.
Bottom line
At current pricing, a 1TB Gen4 NVMe SSD is one of the easiest upgrades to justify on a gaming PC — fast enough that you'll never notice it's the budget option. If you're assembling a full build around one, our budget gaming PC build guide breaks down where storage fits into the overall budget split. Prices on all three of these move with retailer sales cycles, so it's worth checking current listings rather than assuming last month's price still holds.
Not sure a discount is real? Our Best Gaming Deals hub rounds up GPUs, peripherals and free games and shows how to spot a real deal.
