AMD Enthusiast Gaming Build: Hard Drive (SSD)
While all of the components we are selecting here today are what we would go with, and priced from vendors we trust, it is always a good idea to shop around as deals on these, or other good options, pop up from other reliable vendors all the time. With that said, let’s dive right into the next order of business.
Hard Drive (SSD)
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB $219.99 (Currently $189.99)
60 FPS
- Fast, Amazingly Fast
- Excellent Software
30 FPS
- Not As Efficient As Other Options
- Pricey
Hard Drive (SSD) Alternate
ADATA XPG SX8100 1TB $149.99 (Currently $129.99)
60 FPS
- Excellent Performance In General
- Realtek Controller
- Excellent Advertised Support
30 FPS
- Not Quite The Best At Everything, But Still Good
Do you like speed? Do you like hard drives? If you answered yes to both of these then you are looking at NVMe based options for your new system and our recommendation today reflects that. It may seem like a safe pick, but Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus 1TB drive is a safe pick because when all things are considered it carries on Samsung’s legacy in this market as it is one of the best options going. Indeed, as our own Brent Justice wrote about this drive “The best use case for this SSD is any enthusiast who must have the best PCIe Gen 3×4 NVMe 1.3 performance at an affordable price. It is extremely fast for small files and file transfer or data samples with smaller file sizes. It is able to pull its weight in write speed and outshone the competition we had it compared with today. If you will be writing a lot to the drive, this one is made for you.” So, blistering speed, reliability, and the NVMe form factor make this choice a no brainer if you have the cash to splash.
That said, if you are a bit more budget-conscious we can still get an NVMe based drive as prices have come down a bit since our last shot at his build guide. Thus, the ADATA XPG SX8100 1Tb nets us all of the performance benefits of NVMe drives, in general, while still being cheap enough to fit in our tight budget window. Sure, you won’t get Samsung 970 EVO type of performance or build, with this option, but you aren’t so far off that it will be obvious in day to day usage. That said, when we reviewed the 2TB version recently it was a damn impressive product so there is definitely a pedigree here even if it is not a Samsung 970 EVO pedigree.