Skip the Mario SD Card: Save $50 on Switch 2 Storage Instead

Are you tempted by that adorable Super Mario microSD card for your Switch 2? We get it—the Fire Flower art is seriously cute. But hold up: picking it up right now means spending more than you need to.

The official 512GB Super Mario SD card is currently $149.99 on Amazon, down from its usual $199.99. That's a decent discount, sure. However, you can get the same 512GB of storage for your Switch 2 by paying just $99.99 with Samsung's P9 alternative. That's a $50 saving, and all you need to do is set aside your 'all my tech must be cute' mindset. Easy peasy.

Not only is the 512GB Samsung P9 cheaper than SanDisk's 512GB alternative today, but its current $99.99 pricing is the lowest it's been since February earlier this year. In the UK, it's £120 at Amazon.

There are actually differences besides looks between SanDisk and Samsung's 512GB-sized cards, and that's where their speeds are concerned. The SanDisk card, which sits at $149.99 at Amazon today, boasts read speeds of up to 880 MB/s and write speeds up to 650 MB/s. Meanwhile, the official Samsung online store states its 512GB capacity card provides sequential read speeds of 800 MB/s instead.

That means the SanDisk option is the faster option, but as someone who tests game storage, I can attest that these differences are going to be extremely minor in practice. Take the Samsung 256GB microSD Express Card that I reviewed last year, another 800 MB/s card, for example. Mario Kart World took 22 seconds on average to load from the card to its title screen during testing. Meanwhile, the 1TB PNY microSD Express Card took 20.39 seconds with its faster 890 MB/s read speeds. In practice, the faster card was only a few seconds ahead, and it was barely noticeable.

While the Fire Flower-branded card is faster, there's only going to be a few seconds' worth of difference. I'd much sooner recommend you pick up the cheaper card and save $50, even if it's the technically slower choice.

So, will you be grabbing the Samsung P9 and saving your cash, or does that Mario art still have a hold on you? Let us know in the comments!