It is inevitable that one must pay a premium for the fastest and highest capacity SSDs on the market. Right now, for example, the 2TB versions of Samsung's 980 Pro and WD's Black SN850 are both marked down to their lowest prices ever.

These are two of the fastest SSDs on the market. Both are PCIe 4.0 models, and unlike the original Gen 4 SSDs, which had a top speed of 5,000 MB/sec (which is incredibly fast), these are rated to reach speeds near 7,000 MB/sec.

Samsung rates the 2TB 980 Pro (on sale for $349.99, an $80 savings on Amazon) at exactly this speed for sequential read performance and 5,100MB/sec for sequential write performance. 980 Pro can handle 128 I/O queues simultaneously with the new The 980 Pro is Samsung's first driveline to feature the new Elpis controller, which can handle 128 I/O queues simultaneously. It also boasts Samsung's 6th generation V-NAND flash memory.

The endurance rating is also four times higher than the 500GB model we reviewed, at 1,200 TBW (terabytes written). Samsung warrants this drive to that point or for five years, whichever comes first (almost certainly the latter).

Also on sale is WD's SN850, one of the best SSDs for gaming, which drops from $449.99 to $379.99 on Amazon and has exactly the same sequential read and write ratings as the 980 Pro (7,000 MB/s and 5,100 MB/sec).

The only caveat is that this drive gets hot, and the heatsinked version is quite expensive. Amazon's suggested price is $529.99. If you decide to go this route, we recommend buying directly from WD for $469.99.

Heatsinks are not absolutely necessary (some motherboards come with M.2 drive covers/heatsinks), but they do help with long transfers. Throttling occurs when the controller chip heats up.

That said, the 1TB model we reviewed saw excellent performance, very close to ATTO rated speeds; like the 980 Pro, the Black SN850 is a great performance-oriented drive to add to a high-end gaming PC.