Two years since the first gaming-focused PCIe 5.0 SSDs showed up, there are some encouraging signs that these drives might eventually develop something approaching a point. Consider the Crucial T700, one of the first 5.0 SSDs to escape the data centre and make a break for our PCs: more expensive than the best PCIe 4.0 models, and slower than them at loading games. Useless. Now, though, we have drives like the PNY CS2150 bringing down the entry fee, as well as the new Samsung 9100 Pro to finally – finally – deliver a performance improvement.
Still, there’s a way to go before PCIe 5.0 storage becomes the new standard, and honestly, that could take another two years or more. For all the CS2150’s cost-cutting and the all the 9100 Pro’s speed, neither make for compelling all-rounders like their 4.0 cousins do.
The 9100 Pro, in particular, demonstrates the format’s foibles as vividly as its strengths. For sequential reading and writing of yer files, it’s outstanding, blasting ahead of elite PCIe 4.0 drives like the WD Black SN850X and Samsung’s own 990 Pro by miles. I tried it out on the recently updated (and naturally PCIe 5.0-ready) RPS Test Rig, along with re-tests of the older SSDs:
The first problem is that while sequential speeds make for great front-of-the-box specs, most applications rarely work by accessing data in such a neat, ordered way – least of all games. They’re much more likely to grab data from files that are spread out across the drive, a process that slows even the nippiest of NVMe SSDs right down. So it is with the 9100 Pro, which has enough raw power to maintain its read speed lead over the 990 Pro and Black SN850X when dealing with randomised files, but now only by a few MB/s rather than thousands.
If bits of game data were stored and accessed sequentially, as if they were immaculately organised papyrus scrolls in the Library of Alexandria, PCIe 5.0 SSDs would be great. Sadly, in reality it’s more like they’re in the Self-Storage Unit of James Archer, scattered semi-randomly under heaps of folded-up cardboard boxes and formerly reviewed keyboards. The result is that when it comes to cutting game load times, as a good SSD should, PCIe 5.0 just isn’t all that better than PCIe 4.0. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the 9100 Pro did fire up a save file in 6.3s, but the 990 Pro and WD Black were barely behind with 6.5s each. Hey, I just said there was a performance improvement. I didn’t say it was a big one.
The second problem is price. The 9100 Pro isn’t out yet but early listings put it at £170 / $200 for the base 1TB version, £246 / $300 for the 2TB version I tested, and £458 / $550 for the chunkiest 4TB version. Or, you could have a 1TB WD Black SN850X for £78 / $92. I want faster storage – who doesn’t? – but more than twice the outlay for mere fractions of seconds snipped off load screens isn’t the kind of trade most of us should be making. The CS2150 is far more budget-friendly at £96 / $100 for 1TB, though that’s not much faster than its PCIe 4.0 rivals even on sequential speeds.
(Don’t forget, also, the cost of prepping an older build for a PCIe 5.0 upgrade. Mid-range and low-end motherboards still don’t seem to include 5.0-compliant M.2 slots as standard, so premium mobos remain the only way to go.)
There’s still clear progress from the likes the T700, which fumbled games performance so badly that even budget 4.0 SSDs like the WD Blue SN5000 have since outpaced its load times. There’s probably also some hyper-niche application for the 9100 Pro that could make it worth investing in: if your gaming PC doubles as a daily workstation, say, and you can take advantage of its higher top speeds by regularly transferring single, large files around.
For a straight-up games rig, though? Even if these SSDs are crawling in the right direction, that’s going to stay a much harder sell.