Is It Time to Upgrade to PCIe 5.0 SSDs for Gaming or Is PCIe 4.0 Still the Sweet Spot?

• Aj

  Aurelio jin

  8/4/25, 10:00 PM

  Hey everyone!

  I’ve been building PCs since the SATA days and recently noticed a lot of buzz around PCIe Gen 5 SSDs — blazing speeds, insane benchmarks. But realistically speaking:

  • For gaming, do we see any load-time benefits over Gen 4 drives like the Rocket 4 Plus?

  • Are there thermal tradeoffs? Gen 5 drives seem to need some serious cooling.

  • And is it even worth it unless you're doing massive file transfers or 8K editing?

  Would love to hear your thoughts — especially from folks who already made the switch.

  Bonus Q: Anyone tried Gen 5 drives with Sabrent's newest enclosures or heatsinks?

  Thanks in advance!

  0 likes 0 likes Liked Like

  ---

  2
  Posts

  45
  Views

  Reply

  ---

• S

  Sabrent Staff

  8/5/25, 1:47 PM

  @Aurelio jin You won't see much load time difference between Gen 4 and 5. At least for now. DirectStorage may make faster storage more relevant in the future. Gen 5 drives are already starting not to need active cooling and we have something like that coming out that could even work in a laptop. Gen 5 is still more niche, though. We are and have been testing Gen 5 with all our current and upcoming products to make sure any transition is smooth, with a good example being our upcoming Thunderbolt 5 products.

  0 likes 0 likes Liked Like

  ---