2023 is finally the year where 2TB PS5 SSD upgrades are actually worth the price. Last year, prices for 1TB PS5 SSDs averaged around $150, whereas 2TB SSDs hovered closer to $300. This year, we’re seeing 1TB SSDs trickle below the $70 price point and 2TB SSDs can drop to $100 or lower (like the Silicon Power 2TB SSD w/Heatsink for $96). Note that you can’t use any old SSD and expect it to perform well on the PS5 console. You’ll want to pick up a PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 solid-state drive with at least a 5,500MB/s read speed to match the PS5’s internal drive.
TL;DR – The Best PS5 SSD Deals Right Now
Note that Sony recommends a heatsink attached to your SSD and not all SSDs listed here have pre-installed heatsinks. For the ones that do, we’ll be sure to mention it. For the ones that don’t, all you have to do is purchase your own heatsink (like this one for $9) and install it yourself. For our top recommended picks for 2023, check out our full breakdown for the Best PS5 SSDs.
Silicon Power 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $87.97
The Silicon Power XS70 SSD with a preinstalled robust aluminum heatsink costs well under $100. The aluminum heatsink is still slim enough to fit in the PS5 without obstruction. It boasts transfer speeds of up to 7300MB/s read and 6800MB/s write, comfortably faster than the 5500MB/s minimum recommended requirement. It actually performs a little better than the Crucial P5 Plus, the original WD Black SN850, and the Samsung 980 Pro, although that won’t make a difference in your PS5.
Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $119.99
The Crucial P5 Plus is an excellent choice for your PS5 upgrade. Besides the Silicon Power SSD mentioned above, this is the second least expensive SSD that fulfills both requirements of meeting the minimum speed threshold and including a preinstalled PS5-compatible heatsink. Crucial is also a more recognizable brand than Silicon Power and that might be worth the higher cost.
Nextorage 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink for $129.99
There’s an interesting story behind this drive. Nextorage was actually originally created by Sony as an SSD division catered to the PS5 console. For whatever reason, Sony decided to ditch that idea and sold this business to another stakeholder in the company, Phison (they make memory controllers found in SSDs from Seagate, Corsair, and Sabrent, and more). Phison eventually accomplished the goal of releasing an SSD catered specifically for the PS5 console in the form of this product right here.
WD Black SN850X 2TB PS5 SSD $134.49
The WD Black SN850X is an upgrade over the original SN850 and is currently WD’s fastest PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD available. This particular model has a beefy preinstalled heatsink that fits within the PS5 bay.
Adata Premium 2TB M.2 PS5 SSD for $94.99
The Adata Premium SSD boasts transfer speeds of up to 6,100MB/s, which is more than fast enough to surpass the PS5’s recommended minimum speed threshold of 5,500MB/s. Yes, there are faster SSDs out there, but if your intention is to put this in your PS5, then that extra speed is worthless because you’re bottlenecked by the stock PS5 SSD. Better to save that money and put it to better use. It also includes a thin aluminum heatspreader… too thin to be appropriately called a heatsink, but still enough for the PS5 console.
Corsair MP600 PRO LPX 2TB PS5 SSD with Heatsink $120
Corsair is a very well known brand for DIY PC builders. Corsair makes some of the best gaming products on the market, and that includes solid-state memory like RAM and SSDs. The MP600 Pro is Corsair’s fastest M.2 SSD and the “LPX” model is “optimized for PS5” because it includes a rugged preinstalled heatsink that is slim enough to fit in the PS5 bay without any issues. We like this RAM so much, we rated it the best PS5 SSD for 2023.
Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PS5 SSD for $119
Looking for a fast and inexpensive M.2 SSD from a brand that you recognize? Here’s your answer. Amazon is offering the Samsung 980 PRO 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe Gen 4 solid state drive for only $119.99. In terms of performance, it’s no longer the fastest SSD on the market (the 990 Pro is), but it’s still a very fast drive. It certainly more than meets the minimum 5600MB/s speed requirement to be used as a PS5 storage upgrade, with speeds of up to 7,100MB/s.
What if the SSD Doesn’t Include a Heatsink?
Sony recommends you install an SSD that has an attached heatsink. If the SSD you purchase doesn’t include one, it’s simple enough to buy one for about $10 on Amazon and add it yourself. Most of these heatsinks are just attached using an adhesive like thermal tape.
Budget to Best: PS5 SSDs
There may be other SSD deals out there, but these are the PS5 SSDs we’ve tried ourselves and highly recommend. They also double up as outstanding boot drives for your gaming PC, in case you don’t need additional storage for your PS5 console.
How To Install a New PS5 SSD
It’s extremely easy! Removing the case cover is completely toolless. In fact, the only screw you have to remove is the one that keeps the cover for the SSD bay in place. You don’t even put it back when you’re done. Sony has a quick and easy YouTube video guide.
What’s the ultimate power fantasy for you? If it’s getting inside a robot and delivering a metallic, explosive world of pain to your enemies, then you’re probably a mecha fan.
From Gundam to Evangelion, mecha have been hugely popular in culture — particularly in anime — for years. And mech video games have followed suit, capturing every kid’s desire of climbing inside a robot and piloting it to your heart’s content.
This week’s Destiny 2 Showcase event featured a bevy of news for Bungie’s ongoing sci-fi action MMO, from new features coming to the game to the launch of a brand-new Season, as well as an in-depth look at the next expansion, Destiny 2: The Final Shape, arriving in February 2024. If you missed the event but want to check it out for yourself, here’s the replay. In the meantime, here are five exciting ways that Destiny 2 will be changing in the future that every Guardian will want to know about.
The Final Shape
The Witness has arrived and with it, the gears for Guardians’ epic confrontation have been set in motion. Indeed, The Final Shape expansion for Destiny 2 is the concluding chapter in the Light and Darkness saga, which has been ongoing since the launch of the original Destiny in 2014. Years of build-up and foreshadowing have led to this conflict and now, in The Final Shape, Destiny 2 players will take the fight directly to the Witness in a bid to foil its nefarious plans for the universe.
“[The Witness] sees a lack of purpose, no meaning [in the universe],” said Destiny 2 creative director James Tsai, during the Showcase event. “It wants to fix all of that. It’s trying to put the universe in this frozen perfection, where everything’s just exactly how it thinks it’s supposed to be. That is the Final Shape.”
To accomplish this, the Witness plans to use the Traveler’s Light to reshape the universe as it sees fit. In The Final Shape campaign, Guardians will follow the Witness into The Pale Heart—a brand-new destination in Destiny 2—where they will encounter a surreal world that is being reshaped both by the Witness itself and the memories of Guardians’ own experiences as well. Longtime players will notice numerous callbacks to Destiny moments of the past, such as the Tower from the original Destiny.
Alongside longtime Vanguard allies like Ikora Rey, Commander Zavala, and the returning Cayde-6 (once again voiced by actor Nathan Fillion), players will pursue the Witness through the campaign in preparation for the confrontation that will come during the raid that will be launching after The Final Shape’s release. Just how will the story end and the final conflict go down? Well, Guardian, you’ll have to experience that for yourself when The Final Shape unfolds, beginning on February 27, 2024.
All That Power
A Guardian’s Power level has been a long-standing metric for player progression in Destiny 2; a shorthand to help players understand one another’s experience level, as well as a key to accessing high-level challenging content in the game. As part of The Final Shape expansion, the Destiny team is looking to shake things up with Power, to make things easier to understand and to allow players to play together in more activities, regardless of Power levels.
With this revamped Power system, there will be a certain number of activities that will be Power fixed, meaning that players of different Power levels will be able to jump in and play. In addition, a new feature called Fireteam Power will allow players to bring along friends into any dungeon or raid in the game regardless of their Power level. With Fireteam Power, the player with the highest Power level in the event will automatically raise the Power level of their fellow fireteam members, giving access to some of Destiny’s most rewarding (and most challenging) content to more players than ever before. Certain events—such as Nightfall strikes and raids—will still utilize Power level requirements and will be the focus on the traditional Destiny Power climb that many players continue to enjoy.
Fireteam Finder
If the changes to Power are all about letting players of different skill and experience levels enjoy adventures together, the upcoming Fireteam Finder feature, coming in November 2023, will let Guardians find one another, connect, and team up easier than ever before and completely inside the game.
One of the key components to the Fireteam Finder feature, showed off during the Destiny 2 Showcase event, is the new tag system, which will let players assign themselves tags that will describe their play style and general gameplay preferences, as well as inclusion tags such as tags for colorblind or hearing-impaired players.
Once a Fireteam Finder listing goes live, players will be put into a lobby where they can chat with other others who are also looking for a group to play with. “We wanted to make it as convenient and as easy as possible for players to not just sit and stare at a screen for a long time while their listing actually fills up,” said Destiny 2 Social Systems Design Lead May Ling Tan.
Timeline Reflections
Available now for all Destiny 2 players, Timeline Reflections is a new feature that exists to help players catch up with Destiny’s long-running narrative. Timeline Reflections are designed to give a new player (or someone looking for a quick refresher) a rundown of some of the most important moments in recent Destiny history.
Three playable missions make up the core of the Timeline Reflections feature at launch, covering crucial moments from Destiny 2: Forsaken, Destiny 2: Beyond Light, and Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. These missions feature short jolts of gameplay plus cinematic summaries of these pivotal moments, allowing players to grasp the legendary status of Cayde-6, the compelling lure of Stasis, and the deadly ramifications of The Witch Queen’s Light-bearing minions, the Lucent Hive.
“We worked closely with the cinematics team to create a one-minute intro video for each mission to quickly contextualize why you were going there, as well as a one-minute outro video to reinforce the key narrative takeaways,” said Destiny 2 Design Lead Kevin O’Hara. “This meant the player didn’t have to play through the entire mission, just the juicy center to get a good flavor of exciting combat before moving on to the next one.
“Players who play these won’t be able say, ‘Now I know everything that happened over the last ten years,’” O’Hara said. “But they should be able to say, ‘I know who the Witness is, what it has been up to, and I’m ready to take it on!’”
Season of the Witch
If The Final Shape is part of Destiny 2’s near future, and Timeline Reflections are meant to help Guardians catch up with Destiny’s past, Season of the Witch is very much the present. The new Season, now in Destiny 2, finds Guardians fighting alongside and on behalf of their ally Eris Morn as they work to track down the Witness.
To kick off the Season, the Witch Queen’s Ghost, Immaru, presents Eris with a deal: Help Savathûn defeat her sister, the Hive god of war Xivu Arath, and she will provide the key needed to follow the Witness into what waits inside the Traveler. There begins an epic Season full of harnessing mysterious cosmic powers and thrilling adventures against the relentless Hive.
Season of the Witch will feature two new activities. The first, Altars of Summoning, is a three-person activity where players use Hive magic to summon multiple waves of challenging, high-density opponents, conquer them, claim their power, and tithe it to Eris Morn as she prepares for her showdown with Xivu Arath. Savathûn’s Spire is a three-person matchmade activity where players will journey into the Witch Queen’s spired reliquary, the mysterious tower where she conducted experiments when learning to wield the Light.
In both Seasonal activities, players will be able to use the Deck of Whispers, a mysterious deck of cards players can collect over the course of the Season. At the start of each activity, one card will be chosen at random from each player’s assembled deck, offering buffs for all players in the activity. The Deck of Whispers offers an arcane twist to the traditional Guardian progression system in Destiny 2 and will be a crucial part of buildcrafting throughout the Season.
When they aren’t building decks or facing down scores of Hive enemies, Guardians will also be able to take on the next reprised raid—Crota’s End—which will arrive on September 1. In Crota’s End, Guardians will confront the brother of Xivu Arath and Savathûn: the demi-god Crota. To celebrate the launch of this reprised raid, Bungie will be holding a World First race for Destiny players everywhere to compete to be the first fireteam to finish the raid.
A brand-new Season available now, quality of life features arriving in the near future, and a climactic confrontation ten years in the making coming on the horizon. Check out the Destiny 2 Showcase if you missed it live, and we’ll see you online, Guardians!
Pre-order now to instantly unlock the new Tessellation Exotic Fusion Rifle, Exotic Ghost Shell, emblem, and emote.
Includes the new campaign, new destination, three new Supers, The Final Shape Dungeon Key, the new and instantly unlocked Tessellation Exotic Fusion Rifle, one Secret Stash delivered during each Episode, an Exotic Sparrow, and all three Episodes in the year of The Final Shape.
Campaign
The Final Shape looms—a nightmarish calcification of reality into the Witness’s twisted design. Embark on a perilous journey into the heart of the Traveler, rally the Vanguard, and end the War of Light and Darkness.
New Supers
Defeating the Witness will require untold power. Arc Hunters, Void Titans, and Solar Warlocks; master a new Super within your arsenal and confront oblivion.
New Destination
Adventure through an impossible landscape that bends time and space. Follow the Witness and behold what lies within the Traveler.
105 GB hard drive storage space required as of November 10, 2020. Subject to change. Requires broadband internet. After November 10, 2020 see www.destinythegame.com/size-requirements for current requirements prior to purchase.
Destiny 2 may contain flashing patterns and images that may produce adverse effects for a small percentage of people sensitive to them.
Bungie, Inc. makes no guarantee regarding the availability of online play or features and may modify or discontinue online services with reasonable notice at any time. Using the software constitutes acceptance of the Destiny Software License Agreement available at www.bungie.net/sla.
Last week, we asked you to share moments from the fantasy MMORPG Tower of Fantasy using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
call_me_xavii shares a white haired woman and man jumping away from a two-headed dog
dpruttz_vp shares a player riding a motorcycle across a neon-lit street
chic2ky shares a lake-view landscape surrounded by red leaved trees
xenobitz shares two characters talking in front of a large crescent moon light sculpture
shiyu_Eva shares a player swimming near a colorful coral reef
liuyixie shares a futuristic pyramid city structure floating above a desert.
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on August 30, 2023
Next week, we’re hopping into the mech world of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. Share epic moments using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
Kinetic Games has announced that it is delaying the console launch of its ghost-hunting horror title Phasmophobia following the outbreak of a fire in the studio’s office building.
“First and foremost, we’d like to thank you all for your support and that you are just as excited as we are for the console release,” read a message posted to the game’s official Twitter/X account. “Due to a recent fire incident in our office building, and unpredicted development issues, our ability to test and develop has been significantly impacted.”
Sadly, recent unfortunate developments have forced Kinetic Games to push back Phasmophobia’s console release a number of weeks.
“After careful consideration, we have made the tough decision to delay the console release, initially set for August, while we get everything sorted,” continued the post. “We are now aiming for a special launch during the week leading up to Halloween this October.”
Kinetic Games recently launched its Ascension update for the PC version of Phasmophobia, which brought a range of improvements to the game, including significant changes to the progression system, new unlocks, a prestige system, and more.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
Developer Galaxy Grove have announced that the minimalist railway game Station To Station is wheeling to release on October 3rd. That’s an already packed month for exciting games, but I’ll forgive this one based on how damned good those voxels look. Plus, a relaxing railway management game might be the perfect antidote for Big Game Burnout in the coming months.
At gamescom 2023, AMD announced a new pair of desktop graphics cards for its Radeon RX 7000 series designed for those looking to build a PC capable of running games at 1440p resolution.
The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT features 16GB of GDDR6 memory, a total board power of 263 watts, and 60 unified RDNA 3 computer units. The Radeon RX 7700 XT features 12GB of GDDR6 memory, 245 watts of total board power, and 54 unified RDNA 3 compute units. AMD touts that the RX 7800 XT and 7700 XXT will allow people to play games with an average FPS of 60 or more while running at 1440p resolution.
AMD claims that the Radeon RX 7800 XT can outperform Nvidia’s RTX 4070 GPU in games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and Hogwarts Legacy, but the testing should always be taken with a grain of salt.
AMD also took the time to share some new details on the third generation of FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). According to AMD, FSR 3 will introduce a new native anti-aliasing mode. No release date yet, but AMD says FSR 3 is “coming soon.”
AMD’s Radeon RX 7800 XT and 7700 XT will be available on September 6; no pricing has been shared yet.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Consistent with the spirit of the game, Baldur’s Gate 3’s first “major” patch notes are too large to even fit into Steam’s usual text character limit. Developer Larian instead published a portion of the patch details on a Steam blog and the rest on their forums, which were briefly down – probably either due to an online traffic jam or just, again, the patch’s sheer size. Regardless, we have well over three thousand words worth of details on today’s patch, which addresses around one thousand bugs and graces us with “Short King Summer” before it’s too late. But beware: there are some spoilers in the patch notes.
Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox will have cross-save compatibility not just with PC but also PlayStation 5 versions of the game when it launches later this year.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Xbox will indeed feature cross-save not only between Xbox and PC but also Xbox and PlayStation 5, thanks to our Larian accounts system,” Douse said.
For the avoidance of doubt, Xbox will indeed feature cross-save not only between Xbox and PC but also Xbox and PlayStation 5, thanks to our Larian accounts system. 👍
The state of the Xbox version was up in the air due to Microsoft’s policy that games must have feature parity between the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. Larian couldn’t get split-screen working on the latter, and Microsoft even sent engineers to try and solve the issue with no luck.
Making an exception to this rule, perhaps due to the incredible success of Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC, Microsoft has allowed Larian to include split-screen only on the more powerful console.
In our 10/10 review, IGN said: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Pokémon Sleep, the sleep-tracking app from The Pokémon Company and developer Select Button, has been downloaded over 10 million times worldwide. That’s rather a lot!
To celebrate, a free in-game gift is being issued to all users and will include 1000 Sleep Points, 1 Good Camp Ticket, 3 Ingredient Ticket S, and 5 Poké Biscuits. You’ll need to ensure that your app is fully updated, as the game is now rocking version 1.0.6.
