Will a Gen5 SSD make my games load faster than Gen4?

Not meaningfully in 2026. Game loading is mostly random reads, where Gen4 and Gen5 feel the same. Gen5's advantage is sustained large-file throughput, which gaming does not stress.

Is a DRAM-less SSD a bad buy?

For a light secondary drive it can be fine, but for a boot or primary drive a model with DRAM holds performance better under sustained writes. The premium drives all include it.

Do I still need a SATA SSD?

Only as cheap bulk storage. A SATA SSD is much cheaper per terabyte and far faster than a hard drive, making it a great home for a large game library alongside a fast NVMe boot drive.

NVMe Gen5 vs Gen4 vs SATA: Which SSD Is Worth It?

The big sequential-speed numbers on the box are the least important thing about an SSD.

SSD marketing is a sequential-speed arms race — 7,000 MB/s, 14,000 MB/s — and those headline numbers are almost irrelevant to how fast your PC actually feels. Here is what to care about instead.

Why the big numbers mislead

The huge sequential read/write figures on the box describe one specific task: moving a single enormous file in one continuous stream. Real-world computing — booting, launching apps, loading game levels — is mostly small, scattered "random" reads. There, all modern NVMe drives feel similar, and the gap between a fast Gen4 drive and a flagship Gen5 drive is something you will see in a benchmark, not in daily use.

Gen4 is the sweet spot for almost everyone

A good PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive like the Samsung 990 Pro or WD Black SN850X is the right pick for the vast majority of builds. They are fast, run cool, are widely supported, and cost far less than Gen5. For gaming, a Windows boot drive, and general work, Gen4 is the smart default and where your money goes furthest.

Tip — For a gaming and OS drive, a 2TB Gen4 NVMe is the value sweet spot in 2026 — big enough for a real library, fast enough that you will never feel limited.

When Gen5 is actually worth it

PCIe 5.0 drives like the Crucial T705 and Samsung 9100 Pro post enormous sequential numbers (14,000 MB/s and up). That throughput genuinely helps a narrow set of workloads: moving very large files constantly, professional video editing with huge raw footage, or specific data and AI workflows. The trade-offs are a higher price and more heat — many Gen5 drives want a substantial heatsink. For pure gaming, Gen5 does not meaningfully shorten load times today. Buy it for a job, not for a number.

Where SATA still belongs

The classic SATA SSD — the Crucial MX500 is the textbook example — caps out around 550 MB/s, a fraction of NVMe. But it is cheap, reliable, and far faster than any hard drive. It is the perfect home for a big, cheap game library or bulk storage where you do not need NVMe speed. Many builders run a fast NVMe boot drive plus a roomy SATA SSD for everything else.

The specs that actually matter

Capacity: buy 2TB if you can. Games are enormous now and a half-full drive ages better than a nearly-full one.
DRAM cache: drives with their own DRAM (like the 990 Pro and SN850X) hold up better under sustained load than cheaper DRAM-less drives. It is the spec budget drives quietly cut.
Endurance (TBW): "terabytes written" is the warranty-rated lifespan. A 1,200 TBW rating on a 2TB drive is far more writing than a normal user will ever do — do not lose sleep over it, but it is a quality signal.
Form factor: confirm your motherboard has a free M.2 slot of the right generation, and that a big Gen5 heatsink will fit under your GPU.

Bottom line: a 2TB Gen4 NVMe with DRAM is the right drive for almost everyone. Step up to Gen5 only if you have a specific high-throughput workload, and add a SATA SSD when you need cheap bulk space.