Now is a great time to give your gaming PC a load more space for game installs, as this SSD deal enables you to pick up a 1TB WD Blue SN580 drive for just $64.99. That saves you a good $15 on the normal price of $79.99, and this isn’t a slow PCIe 3.0 drive either. The WD Blue SN580 uses the PCIe 4.0 interface to get decent read and write speeds, and we’ve found it to be a great budget drive for a gaming rig.
Indeed, in our WD Blue SN580 review we described the drive as “a solid choice of SSD for gamers on tight budgets,” and at this price it’s even cheaper. What’s more, this WD drive doesn’t need a heatsink to keep cool, and it’s listed on our best SSD for gaming guide.
In terms of headline speeds, the WD Blue SN580 hit a peak sequential read speed of 4,183MB/s in our tests, and a write speed of 4,174MB/s, and while that’s nowhere near as quick as the top speeds from the latest high-speed PCIe 5.0 drives, such as the Crucial T705, it’s ahead of the speed of any PCIe 3.0 drives. These figures are also only important when it comes to transferring lots of files in one go, and they relate little to real-world and gaming performance.
Unlike the latest super-fast SSDs, the WD Blue SN580 in this SSD deal also runs cool enough to not need a heatsink, even when it’s running at full speed. This makes it a great upgrade if your motherboard doesn’t come with M.2 heatsinks, saving you from needing to buy one yourself.
Bear in mind that your motherboard’s M.2 connector will need to support the 4x PCIe 4.0 (or PCIe 5.0) interface to run this drive at full speed, but you can still slot into a PCIe 3.0 slot – it just won’t run quite as quickly.
If you’ve never upgraded your SSD before, make sure you read our full guide on how to install an SSD first, which takes you through every step of the process of fitting an M.2 SSD. You can also check out our best external SSD guide if you’re looking for a drive you can connect via USB.