We tested the impact of SSD speed on gaming performance in 11 titles — we analyzed from SATA to PCIe 5.0 to see whether upgrading to a faster NVMe SSD would have an impact
We tested gaming performance with both NVMe and SATA SSDs across 11 games to determine if upgrading to a faster drive is worth it.
In a recent study, scientists analyzed the impact of solid-state drive (SSD) speeds on gaming performance across 11 popular titles, ranging from SATA to PCIe 5.0. SSDs have become increasingly important in PC gaming since the launch of consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, which feature high-speed NVMe SSDs. Modern games often list SSDs as a minimum system requirement, but there is debate about whether upgrading to a faster SSD truly improves gaming performance.
This article aims to examine SSD activity during gameplay and determine if higher storage speeds result in a better gaming experience. While loading times are significant, they differ slightly between SSD types, with PCIe NVMe drives slightly outperforming SATA SSDs. The majority of storage activity in games consists of random read operations, as game assets are streamed into memory.
Microsoft's DirectStorage recommendations suggest using block sizes of at least 32k and high queue depths to maximize storage throughput. However, most games operate at relatively low queue depths, and SSDs can become fully utilized while transferring data at lower bandwidths. The study did not include traditional hard drives, as they typically cause performance issues in modern games.
Testing was conducted at maximum game settings, and SSD activity was measured using HWiNFO with the lowest polling rate possible. The test system featured a high-end GPU, CPU, and memory configuration.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Hardware's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
