PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro owners, as well as most PC users, don’t need to get worked up about PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Sure, they boast much faster advertised speeds than PS5-ready PCIe 4.0 models, which are reasonably affordable these days — 2 TB costs around $150— and come in different storage configurations and styles. But, most mainstream gaming devices and PCs aren’t built to take advantage of PCIe 5.0 speeds. The ones that are compatible haven’t given me enough reasons to get jealous … yet.
I say this as someone who has the new Samsung 9100 Pro in-hand (out today), but can’t actually take full advantage of its ludicrous speeds. My newly-rebuilt PC supports PCIe 5.0 SSDs, but there are other bottlenecks in my system (such as the PCIe 3.0 SSDs I use for game installs and the OS) that would provide an imperfect view of the 9100 Pro’s performance. While I love to find excuses to upgrade my PC, testing videos I’ve seen indicate that the PCIe 5.0 storage isn’t worth overhauling my system for.
As seen from this video from the YouTube channel Testing Games that shows PC game loading times with PCIe 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 SSDs next to each other, the results aren’t a night-and-day difference in the newer tech’s favor. We’re talking one to three seconds in terms of loading speed, depending on the game (sometimes more, sometimes less). This 2024 video from Linus Tech Tips shows scenarios in which PCIe 5.0 is merely on par with PCIe 4.0 in PCs (and in some rare cases, slightly behind). Regardless, it’s important to note that neither of the testing videos above include Samsung’s new 9100 Pro, so it’s not fair to assume its performance without having put it through its paces. I look forward to seeing if this one changes the narrative.
To put the 9100 Pro’s speed improvements in context, it’s fun to compare it to Samsung’s first PCIe 4.0 SSD, the 980 Pro. Samsung’s new 9110 Pro doubles the 980 Pro’s sequential read speed (14,800 MB/s vs. 7,000 MB/s) and nearly triples its sequential write speed (13,400 MB/s vs. 5,000 MB/s). Sequential gains are nice, but since most workloads (and games) access data randomly, random read /write speeds are more important to consider. Those are improved in the 9100 Pro, too, even when compared to the last-gen 990 Pro. The $219.99 (1 TB with heatsink) starting price makes sense given the speed increases, though it’s astronomical in price compared to the 990 Pro, which currently costs $179.99 at Amazon for the 2 TB heatsink model.
It’s unclear as to whether Samsung is done making improved versions of PCIe 4.0-based SSDs, since the 990 Pro approached the theoretical speed limit. But if you’re questioning whether you should get a Samsung 990 Pro or any other competing PCIe 4.0 SSD with comparable read / write speeds, I’d suggest following your budget.
If you have a large budget, it’s not completely (only slightly) unreasonable to buy the 9100 Pro if you plan to eventually upgrade to a PCIe 5.0 system down the line. This and all PCIe 5.0 SSDs are backwards compatible in PCIe 4.0 hardware, including the PS5, albeit with slower data transfer speeds than advertised. There are tangible benefits to having faster storage when it comes to moving data around (assuming your hardware can take full advantage of it), but even so, it doesn’t usually improve gameplay as much as a new graphics card and processor upgrade can. If you play online multiplayer games primarily, those won’t be a great showcase of the 9100 Pro’s prowess as you’ll load into the game at the same speed as everyone else.
