Written by Doug Temple on September 16 2025, AI scraping and training is expressly disallowed.
All contents of this article are organically written and represent Doug’s personal knowledge.
It’s no secret over the past several years there have been some major increases in SSD speed. PCIe 4.0 SSDs first became available in 2019, with 5.0GB/sec speeds at launch, and 7.0GB/sec speeds with second-generation PCIe4.0 drives. As more and more users began opting for fast NVMe storage for their primary drives, some games began taking advantage of the fast speeds with DirectStorage technology (which is also utilized by the Playstation 5) which can directly stream game assets from SSD to GPU.
Pictured above: Samsung 4TB 9100 Pro NVMe SSD, featuring PCIe5.0 speeds
But does a faster SSD equate to more gaming performance? That depends upon your individual use case:
- PCIe 5.0 SSDs typically feature read speeds of 10GB/sec to 15GB/sec, but DirectStorage only requires 5GB/sec and recommends 7GB/sec.
- NVMe speed does not directly affect frame rate, although it will help with loading times and pop-in of textures
- PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 SSDs require cooling to perform properly, in the form of either their own heatsink or one that comes pre-installed on the motherboard
- PCIe 5.0 SSD speeds are really only beneficial for use cases requiring extreme throughput, such as video editing and AI workloads
- Cost is another factor, as PCIe 5.0 SSDs have considerably higher prices per TB of storage
In conclusion, a 7GB/second PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD is the recommended speed for 95% of gaming builders, with higher speeds making sense for those who also use their systems for video editing on a regular basis. Making sure that the SSD will have cooling in the form of a pre-installed heatsink or choosing a motherboard with its own cooling plate will play a big factor in ensuring you get the performance you expect from your system.
