I remember when prices collapsed for solid state drives. It started slow at first, but before we knew it, most PCIe 4.0 SSDs were tumbling into our shopping baskets with nary a second thought. Fond memories. Thankfully, any attempt to increase Gen4 SSD prices since then have largely failed, with drives like the Biwin Black Opal NV7400 making sure of that.
The NV7400 is powered by the same controller as our previous pick for the best budget SSD, Lexar’s NM790. This is MaxioTech’s MAP1602A. The NV7400 pairs this with either Micron or YMTC 232-Layer TLC NAND, whereas the Lexar only uses the latter. Effectively, though, they’re pretty similar. Though by virtue of the NV7400’s recent release—the NM790 came out in 2023—Biwin is able to offer a price tag on it that’s lower than Lexar’s best sale price today. Just $120 or £108 for 2 TB at MSRP.
That’s $0.06 per gigabyte, or in other words, a mighty fine price tag to pay for a speedy solid state drive.
And speedy it is. The NV7400 is named as such for a reason, it reaches 7400 MB/s in sequential read tests. 7370 MB/s in our tests but we’ll give it that. That’s way up there with the best that PCIe 4.0 SSDs can offer today, and all in a drive that we would consider truly competitive on a budget.
Though random read/write speeds aren’t anything to write home about (see what I did there?) as these are quite a bit off the pace of other PCIe 4.0 drives. This does matter, as well, as while everyone talks a big game with sequential speeds, it’s random 4K speeds that make the biggest difference for gaming.
But we can overlook the drop-off in random tests, due to the high capacity and low price tag. Plus it still loads Final Fantasy XIV in 7.4 seconds, or roughly the same time as any other PCIe 4.0 drive we’ve tested recently, so it’s not the end of the world for extra game storage.
You can read our full Biwin Black Opal NV7400 review for the bigger picture, or check out our guide below to the best SSDs for gaming today. PCIe 5.0 drives are the hot ticket today, and they’re finally gaining in random read/write tests and coming down in price to make them worth consideration for gamers. Though you still won’t find anything near as good value as this.
Quick list
The best SSDs for gaming
Best overall1. WD Black SN7100
Best overall
The WD Black SN7100 has pretty much everything you could want out of a gaming SSD. Just like its predecessor, the SN850X, it offers fantastic Gen 4 performance for a very reasonable price.
Best budget2. Biwin Black Opal NV7400
Best budget
The best budget SSD is the Biwin Black Opal NV7400. Why? Its low price-per-GB, of course! It’s also pretty quick compared to other budget Gen4 drives.
Best PCIe 53. WD Black SN8100
Best PCIe 5 SSD
This SSD is incredibly fast and surprisingly doesn’t break the bank compared to some other PCIe 5.0 drives, although it’s admittedly more expensive than a Gen 4 drive. Plus, in addition to being monstrously fast, it also keeps surprisingly cool.
Best budget PCIe 5.04. Crucial P510
Best budget PCIe 5.0 SSD
While this Crucial drive might not be setting our Gen 5 NVMe benchmarks aflame, it also stays remarkably cool under pressure, and is available for very reasonable prices.
Best 4 TB5. Team Group MP44
Best 4 TB
If you want masses of high-speed NVMe storage for a not-so-massive price, then Team Group’s MP44 is the obvious choice. It’s very similar to the NM790 and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Best 8 TB6. WD Black SN850X 8 TB
Best 8 TB
One of the best SSDs for gaming has also been released in an 8 TB configuration, many moons after the smaller drives appeared. It’s an ultra-sized (and ultra-priced) single drive, but it’s more of a storage monster than a speed demon for gaming.
Best 2230 SSD7. Lexar Play 2230
Best 2230 SSD
Need more storage in your Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, etc? Well, this 1 TB 2230 from Lexar is the one to get. Fast, cool, and great value for money. Shame there isn’t a bigger version at the moment.
Best for PS58. Silicon Power XS70 2TB SSD
Best for PS5
The latest Phison controller in combination with some high-performance NAND flash memory makes the Silicon Power XS70 an extremely fast drive for Sony’s PlayStation 5.
Best SATA9. Crucial MX500
The best SATA
If you can’t fit an NVMe SSD inside your PC, or you’ve too many already, then a SATA drive is still a solid option for speedy, non-essential storage. This Crucial is still a lot quicker than any hard drive, that’s for certain.
From PCGamer latest via this RSS feed