If I hadn't bought one already, I'd get this budget SSD to use in my next-gen build.

Do you feel it in the air? It's the collective anticipation for next-gen gaming PCs. With it comes the possibility of a system upgrade, which could be aided by a drive such as the Lexar NM790.

We have AMD Zen 5 CPUs and are on the lookout to see if a 9000-series X3D chips, such as the rumored 9800X3D is available. We're also looking forward to the arrival of Intel Arrow Lake CPUs.

There are also the upcoming Nvidia Blackwell graphic cards, like the apparent RTX5080 and 5090, which can't keep themselves out from leaky benchmarks. There's a new hardware generation on the horizon.

What can you do with this? Many gamers will want to build new systems. Many people are still holding onto old components. A new generation of CPUs and GPUs is a good excuse to upgrade.

It doesn't have to be cutting-edge. SSDs are one component of a PC that does not need to be next-generation or cutting-edge. PCIe 4.0 drives are still very reasonable and will be for a long time.

If I was building a new rig, I would choose the Lexar NM790. It's currently available at Amazon for $75 for the 1 TB model (saving $25) or $140 for the 2 TB model (saving $50). These are 25% and 26% off, respectively. Both versions are at the top of my value chart.

This is the SSD that I use in my own gaming rig. It's also the one that we rate as the best NVMe SSD under $100 for gaming. Even at full price, it's a very snappy SSD.

It's true that it's not cache-less. But, this doesn't really matter anymore. SSDs use a portion TLC DRAM to act as a pseudo SLC cache. This should allow for faster operation, even when file transfers are up to a quarter of a drive's capacity. This covers almost all scenarios. Gaming is also read-heavy, so DRAM isn't relevant.

All of this means that the NM790 is able to achieve a low price without sacrificing many features that will be important to anyone. It does this while maintaining some pretty high speeds. PCIe 5.0 isn't worth the cost - although there are improvements, they are still a long way from being recommended to average users - and the NM790 has PCIe 4.0 speeds of 6,500 MB/s and 7,400 MB/s for reading. These are more than enough for everyday use. In my own experience, I have never felt the NM790's performance was a bottleneck.

This is a great budget SSD to consider when building a new system for a next generation CPU or GPU. I would choose the 2 TB model myself because it will give me more room for installing games. However, the 1 TB model is great for a budget-friendly build.