Western Digital’s gaming arm, WD_BLACK has this week announced three new high performance SSD storage solutions designed from the ground up for gamers.
The three new products introduced this week include WD_BLACK’s first NVMe SSD with next-gen PCIe Gen4 technology, a bootable Gen3 x8 add-in-card and a Thunderbolt 3-powered NVMe SSD gaming dock.
Innovative, high-performance storage solutions are essential to keep up with this ever-changing landscape. Our latest WD_BLACK products have been purpose-built to allow gamers to meet the increasingly high standards of future games and gaming platforms. We’ve optimised these products to not only provide more storage for gamers but to elevate the gaming experience as a whole. Jim Welsh, Senior VP at Western Digital
WD_BLACK SN850 NVMe SSD
This PCIe Gen4 technology will deliver read/writes speeds of up to 7000/5300MB/s on their 1TB model. The SSD has been optimised for top tier and high-intensive gaming to deliver the best performance possible out of your PC. The fast speeds promise to deliver faster game load times and transfer files faster than ever before.
The SSD includes a heatsink model which includes RGB lighting designed to cut down on thermal throttling. The non-heatsink model will be available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities, starting at $225 at select Western Digital retailers, resellers, and system integrators starting in December 2020. The heatsink model is not expect to be available until Q1 2021.
WD_BLACK AN1500 NVMe SSD Add-in-Card
This bootable plug and play add-in card is one of the fastest PCIe Gen3 x8 products on the market. It is powered by two internal SSDs in RAID 0 and PCIe Gen3 x8 technology resulting in read write speeds of up to 6500/4100MB/s — on the 2TB and 4TB models.
Once again RGB lighting is included with this add-in card and is customisable on your PC to match your other lighting. There is also an integrated heatsink to combat that dreaded thermal throttling. The WD_BLACK AN1500 NVMe SSD Add-in-Card is available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities starting at $399 from 22 October from all the same places as the SN850.
WD_BLACK D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD
This high-performance gaming dock is compact, includes a heatsink design and is designed to transform a Thunderbolt 3-compatible laptop into a gaming station. Offering the superfast speeds of the NVMe technology it offers more capacity for games along with multiple ports for accessories — all powered by that Thunderbolt 3 cable.
As with their other new products this WD_BLACK product offers customisable RGB lighting controlled using the WD_BLACK Dashboard on your Windows 10 PC. The WD_BLACK Game Dock will be available in 1TB and 2TB models starting at $849 for the SSD model and $549 for the non-SSD option in December this year at select Western Digital retailers including Officeworks, Amazon, Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi.
As with all products we recommend you do your research on any new product before making a purchase. WD_BLACK are pushing for your gaming dollars and are worth considering given the promises their products make. Will you be adding any of these to your gaming setup?
