PCIe Gen 5 vs Gen 4: Are the new SSDs worth the extra money?

PCIe Gen 5 SSDs are just around the corner, and they are set to bring another massive transfer speed bump over the last-gen Gen 4 drives. However, the new storage devices cost way more than their last-gen counterparts, which were already pretty pricey, to begin with.

Motherboards supporting the Gen 5 standard have been available for quite some time now. It is worth noting that most of them are pretty costly and will set gamers back by at least $150. However, the new SSDs promise blazing-fast speeds, and some high-end models can be over twice as fast as the storage device powering the PlayStation 5.

This leaves gamers with one question — is the significant investment in the next-gen SSDs worth it? Let's try to answer the question in this article.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the opinions of the writer

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Are PCIe Gen 5 SSDs simply a waste of money?

The latest PCIe 5.0 drives aren't mainstream yet. They are a new technology with limited support and stupendous pricing, much like DDR5's early days. Thus, only early adopters and enthusiasts have jumped on the hype train, with most average users going for Gen 4 or Gen 3 drives.

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What hardware supports PCIe Gen 5 SSDs and GPUs?

At the moment, only the latest motherboards and CPUs in the market support PCIe Gen 5 SSDs. There isn't a single Gen 5 GPU on the market, and we aren't expecting any launches before Fall 2024.

The following CPU generations support Gen 5 SSDs:

1. Intel 12th gen Alder Lake
2. Intel 13th gen Raptor Lake
3. AMD Ryzen 7000

The following motherboard chipsets support Gen 5 drives:

1. Intel B660
2. Intel Z690
3. Intel B760
4. Intel Z790
5. AMD B650E
6. AMD X670
7. AMD X670E

It is worth noting that these motherboard chipsets support Gen 5, which doesn't mean that every SKU based on them will bundle support for the latest SSDs. Check the specifications of the exact motherboard you're buying to ensure that the latest drives can run at full speed.

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PCIe Gen 5 specs and do you need one

On paper, PCIe Gen 5 seems like a massive step up from the last-gen SSDs. The new drives are twice as fast as Gen 4, continuing the trend of PCIe speed improvements over the last few years.

As a result, new Gen 5 SSDs launching in the market can easily go above 10,000 MB/s. While the advertised maximum is even higher and is somewhere close to the 16 GB/s mark, the currently available Gen 5 drives are already almost 40-50% faster than the last gen, which should mean they are a huge upgrade.

PCIe Generation	Transfer bandwidth	Max. Giga transfers	Operating frequency
PCIe 1.0 x32	8GB/s	2.5GT/s	2.5GHz
PCIe 2.0 x32	16GB/s	5GT/s	5GHz
PCIe 3.0 x32	32GB/s	8GT/s	8GHz
PCIe 4.0 x32	64GB/s	16GT/s	16GHz
PCIe 5.0 x32	128GB/s	32GT/s	32GHz

However, there are a lot of factors contributing to whether you, the user, will feel the difference. The table above shows the maximum capabilities of the PCIe Gen 5 interface. It is a theoretical limit. Multiple factors like controller and 3D NAND flash quality control how much performance an NVMe SSD can deliver.

Higher speeds also result in more issues like increased heat output, and poor yields on NAND and SKU differentiation. This would again require extra R&D, thereby increasing the price.

Thus, most Gen 5 drives on the market today are way less powerful than the advertised maximum.

In addition, games can't even fully utilize the potential of Gen 4 SSDs as of today. Although some of the latest titles will benefit from a Gen 4 SSD, most games run fine on even Gen 3 SSDs with sequential reads and write speeds of more than 3,000 MB/s. Thus, storage drives with almost thrice their speed won't significantly impact gaming performance either.

However, the future has something exciting for the upcoming new drives. With more games utilizing Microsoft's Direct Storage every day, faster SSDs can impact loading times in ways never thought of before.

Both PlayStation and Xbox are also expected to launch their mid-cycle console refreshers sometime this year or in 2024. These machines will bundle faster drives, thereby pushing more developers to utilize the new technology to come up with better experiences for gamers.

However, for now, PCIe Gen 5 is just solid technology that most gamers don't require unless they are copy-paste freaks.