PC gamers want the smoothest experience possible, which usually means investing in top-tier hardware. While graphics cards and CPUs actually make a big difference, there’s one component that gets way more attention than it deserves: SSDs.
Most of the time, spending more on an SSD won’t make games load faster or play better. Allow me to explain.
Any PCIe NVMe drive is already more than fast enough for gaming
Switching from SATA to NVMe M.2 SSDs made a significant improvement in system performance. Everything from our operating system to load times in games became noticeably faster. This is because PCIe uses multiple high-speed lanes to transfer data simultaneously, compared to the much slower SATA single channel and older AHCI protocol.
However, beyond NVMe SSDs becoming the norm in most gaming PCs, which happened years ago, we haven’t actually seen any major improvements. Essentially, modern games are no longer storage-bound, and as we are still waiting for technologies like DirectStorage to see widespread adoption, the limiting factor in game loading times is almost entirely software.
Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
On paper, a PCIe Gen 5 x4 NVMe SSD can reach up to 16GB/s, Gen 4 x4 up to 8GB/s, and Gen 3 x4 up to 4GB/s—each new generation doubling the maximum bandwidth. In practice, real-world speeds get close to these numbers, but the theoretical maximum actually doesn’t matter in real-world gaming performance.
It might be hard to believe, but a PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD offers essentially no practical benefit over Gen 4 for gaming, despite costing significantly more. Even Gen 4 drives provide only marginal improvements over Gen 3, with real-world performance differences that are hardly noticeable in most games.
My colleague Patrick pitted one of the fastest NVMes on the market, the Samsung 9100 PRO, against PCIe Gen 3 and Gen 4 NVMe SSDs and found that the results were nearly identical:
Hardware Unboxed has also conducted some excellent tests, comparing various PCIe Gen 3, Gen 4, and Gen 5 SSDs, along with a USB SSD, a couple of SATA SSDs, and a couple of SATA HDDs.
In the vast majority of games, the differences between PCIe Gen 3, Gen 4, and Gen 5 SSDs were at most one to two seconds, or around 10–15%.
There was a slight improvement in first load times when comparing PCIe SSDs, the portable USB SSD, and the two SATA SSDs. Unsurprisingly, the HDDs were by far the slowest and probably the only drives that many of us would deem unusable.
Credit: Jordan Gloor / How-To Geek
Generally speaking, the biggest advantage faster NVMe SSDs offer is in storage-heavy tasks that happen outside of games, such as verifying game files or moving games between drives.
Even then, we’re only talking about a difference of a few seconds, and since these tasks happen outside of gameplay and are not performed frequently, they’re hardly relevant. You probably aren’t even sitting at your desk while moving or verifying game files.
It’s also worth noting that once a game’s files have been loaded from the SSD into your system RAM, the performance of the SSD becomes much less relevant, especially if you have all the RAM that the game might need (which tops out at around 32GB or more in modern AAA titles). In other words, a faster NVMe is unlikely to make a meaningful difference in loading save files or even new scenes.
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You Don’t Need 64GB of RAM to Futureproof your Gaming Computer
If you want your computer to be able to play any game in the next five years, 32GB will do fine.
By the way, not all M.2 SSDs are created equal. Some drives use the M.2 form factor but run on the slower SATA interface instead of the much faster PCIe NVMe protocol. While these are mostly phased out, you should still double-check that an M.2 SSD is indeed an NVMe before placing your order.
Even DRAM matters far less than people think
Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
DRAM is one of the most overhyped features in SSDs of all time.
It’s essentially ultra-fast volatile memory—the same type that makes up your system RAM—that an SSD can use as a cache for faster reads and writes while also reducing wear. It can make a noticeable difference when an SSD is nearly full.
However, in practice, paying extra for a DRAM-equipped SSD in a gaming PC isn’t really worth it. The Hardware Unboxed benchmarks mentioned earlier show no noticeable improvement between DRAM and DRAM-less SSDs, so actively seeking out and paying extra for DRAM just doesn’t make sense.
A budget NVMe is usually the smartest choice
PC gamers are unlikely to see any noticeable performance benefit from expensive SSDs, and PCIe Gen 5 drives are particularly poor value.
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Stop buying PCIe 5.0 SSDs for your gaming PC
Doubling what you spend probably won’t double your performance.
Capacity matters far more than raw speed. With SSD prices gradually creeping up and games taking more disk space than ever, you’re better off spending more on a larger drive rather than a faster one. Plus, SSDs perform best and stay healthiest when used at no more than 80–90% of their capacity.
That said, this isn’t a recommendation to hunt for the slowest PCIe Gen 3 SSD on the market. Unless you find one at an amazing clearance price, your best bet is usually a PCIe Gen 4 SSD.
It’s still faster than Gen 3—which could matter for future games optimized for ultra-fast storage—and it’s much more affordable than Gen 5. In short, PCIe Gen 4 drives hit the sweet spot between price and performance, making them the best option for gaming PCs. Just make sure to get at least 2TB.
Storage capacity
500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB
Hardware Interface
PCIe 4.0
The Crucial P310 is an M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD. It offers speeds of up to 7,100MB/s. It comes in various capacities, ranging from 500GB to 4TB, and it’s also available in variants with a dedicated heatsink.
