I'm building a new PC with an ASUS TUF Gaming B850-E motherboard and an XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT. PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives are noticeably more expensive than PCIe 4.0 models, and I'm wondering whether the extra speed is actually useful. Will this motherboard run a Gen 5 SSD at full speed, and would I notice any meaningful benefit in gaming or everyday use?
3 Answers
Gen 5 makes sense for specific workloads such as frequent large-file transfers, high-resolution video editing, heavy scratch-disk use, or some data-intensive AI applications. For gaming, even Gen 3 is generally fast enough, so spending the extra money on capacity, a reliable model, or other components will usually provide more value. Gen 5 drives also tend to run hotter and may need a substantial heatsink.
Check the motherboard manual for the exact M.2 slot details before buying. The board may support a Gen 5 drive, but the available speed and PCIe lane sharing can depend on which slot you use and how the GPU and other expansion devices are installed. In any case, a Gen 4 SSD should work well for this system unless you already know you have a workload that benefits from maximum sequential bandwidth.
For gaming and normal desktop use, a good PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive is usually the better choice. The advertised speeds are sequential transfer rates, which mainly matter when moving very large files. Game loading and everyday tasks depend more on random access and latency, where the practical difference between modern Gen 4 and Gen 5 drives is usually tiny.
For most people, extra storage capacity is more useful than a small improvement in SSD speed. A quality Gen 4 drive with DRAM and good endurance would be a sensible choice here.