The best gaming SSD is cheaper than it's ever been for Cyber Monday

WD_Black SSD Cyber Monday deal
(Image credit: Western Digital)
WD_BLACK SN850X | 1TB | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300MB/s read | 6,300MB/s writes | $134.99 $99.99 at Newegg (save $35)

WD_BLACK SN850X | 1TB | PCIe 4.0 | 7,300MB/s read | 6,300MB/s writes | $134.99 $99.99 at Newegg (save $35)
The updated SN850X isn't hugely different from the non-X version, but it has a slightly different SanDisk controller and higher performance. The big thing, though, is that it runs much cooler, so you don't really need a heatsinked version. It's also cheaper than the older drive right now, too.

A great SSD will give you more room for your games and let you load them much faster at the same time. That's a win-win. So if you're looking for the best Black Friday SSD deal as we hurtle towards Cyber Monday, I'm happy to point you at a sweet 25% savings on what we consider to be the best PCIe 4.0 gaming SSD out there, the 1TB WD Black SN850X. The $99 price tag at Newegg isn't just a great deal, it's actually the lowest price we've ever seen on this SSD.

As an added bonus, this SSD runs cooler than the original SN850, so it doesn't need a heatsink. And oddly enough, the $35 savings actually makes the newer SN850X cheaper than the older SSD at the moment. Weird, but cool. It's the perfect time to grab the best SSD for gaming.

If you're still using an HDD, it's really time to upgrade. SSDs are genuinely a huge step up from the old spinning hard drives we used for so long, and you'll notice the improved loading times instantly when you fire up a game. You'll even be able to see the difference in speed when transferring files between drives. If you've already upgraded to an SSD then I'm preaching to the choir, but it's never a bad idea to add even more storage to your PC.

I have three SSDs in my PC now, each 1TB in size, which means I don't have to uninstall games or delete video capture files anywhere near as often as I used to. It's just plain nice to have that much space and the speed to access it. A TB of space can feel pretty luxurious, but considering the size of games these days (I'm not naming any names) you can fill up a big chunk of that terabyte pretty darn quickly. 

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

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