Would I notice upgrading my 960 Pro to a PCIe 5.0 SSD?

For normal desktop use, probably not. A faster drive’s headline advantage is sequential transfer speed, which matters most when you regularly move very large files. Booting, opening apps, and loading most games are unlikely to feel dramatically different from a healthy older NVMe drive.

If it’s feeling sluggish during writes, check the basics before buying anything: how much free space is left, and what the drive’s health information reports. A nearly full drive can be a more practical problem than its PCIe generation. If it’s healthy and you have enough room, there’s no urgent reason to replace it just for speed.

I’d treat this as a capacity upgrade, not a speed upgrade. Add a newer drive if you need more room or have a workload that pushes big files around often. Otherwise, keeping the 960 Pro and spending the money elsewhere is a pretty reasonable call.

PCIe 5.0 speeds look impressive in benchmarks, but the benefit depends on what is limiting your actual task. Game installs, for example, can involve downloading, unpacking, and other work that a faster SSD alone won’t eliminate. I’d buy based on capacity and price first, unless you already know your regular workload benefits from high sequential speeds.