M.2 NVMe vs SSD vs HDD - Loading Times in Games 2025

SSD M.2 NVMe 1TB vs SSD SATA 3 1TB vs HDD 1TB - Game Loading Times

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Ad - 0:00
Games :
Horizon Forbidden West - 0:06
Starfield - 0:53
Assassin's Creed Mirage - 2:57
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora - 3:42
Alan Wake 2 - 5:41
Resident Evil 4 - 7:09

System:
Windows 11
MSI MPG X670E CARBON

[TestingGames]

Games :
Horizon Forbidden West - 0:06
Starfield - 0:53
Assassin's Creed Mirage - 2:57
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora - 3:42
Alan Wake 2 - 5:41
Resident Evil 4 - 7:09


System:
Windows 11
MSI MPG X670E CARBON

[MeatBallFreaks]

The advantage of using an HDD is that you can see your reflection in the screen in front of you and reflect on all the problems in your life

[riderdiago]

Advantages of HDD: "You have time to read the tips or part of the game's story"

SSD - M.2: *¡NO!*

[clubghz]

It's not just loading. HDD's have texture pop ins, stutters and fps drops in cpu heavy games.

[twentyeightO]

I'm more amazed by the fact that a SATA SSD (~600MBps) is only a couple seconds slower than a M.2 NVME (~7000MBps).

[MaTtRoSiTy]

OMG that Avatar HDD loading time! Damn....

[Darkswordz]

Rumor has it that Pandora is still loading...

[sangpenjelajahinternet]

HDD for gaming in 2024? NO.
HDD for personal data and important data? YES.

[DEZROYER]

I remembered the old days when i had a 120gb hdd and had to wait the Need for Speed Underground 2 to load... This with a 768mb of ram on Windows XP...

[Able_Archer_]

I don't know who you are, or where you're from, but literally *ANY* benchmark comparison I can imagine in my mind... you've posted. You branching out from GPU's is a fun distraction, and this one further proves that M.2 NVMe's aren't that much better than standard SataIII SSD's. 👌

Big thanks for all you do! 🙏

[warnacokelat]

I miss the time when booting up the PC means its time to load up the laundry and do the dishes.

[ExtremePL]

Its more than just loading in most of these games you would also have stuttering and pop in on HDD.

[demivik]

dude who invented ssd
you saved so much time

[dzanime]

SSD SATA offers good value for money with performance close to NVMe.

[divinedragon]

I would rather see a video comparing SSD M.2's speeds; example would be a 5000 MB/s vs 7000 MB/s. Or, perhaps be a Gen 3 + Gen 4 +Gen 5 comparison.

[shadowlemon]

HDDs are obsolete now (at least for gaming) yet here in the Philippines, a lot of gaming PCs, especially ones with Ryzen APUs still have 1TB HDDs and 128GB SSD

[Ичо-ых]

I didn’t thought what the SSD sata would have difference whit SSD NVME only 1 second

[Atrumoris]

While I do use a pretty decent gen 4 nvme for gaming, I am never ever going to use it to store anything important on it. There's just way too many horror stories of them failing to keep things long term. That's why I'm still using my HDD for all personal and work related stuff. You can get insane amount of storage for less money and they really don't need much to last you a lifetime. I am so grateful to see case manufacturers still include HDD racks to this day!

[pexxie]

Most applications don’t use multiple parallel disk threads or command queues, so will never benefit from the NVMe protocol. Developers have to explicitly parallelize their disk activity to use NVMe properly.

[gogetablue]

For Gaming:

Sata SSD and M.2 NVME has no real world difference. So you'll be fine with either of them.


M.2 NVME shows it's true power/purpose only if you need to process or transfer large amounts of files. For loading Games, Textures etc. This won't matter.


Conclusion: Still you should get M.2 NVME's as they are often the same in price with the Sata SSD one's but if you don't have a M.2 slot or you ran out. Buying Sata SSD is a fine alternative. Don't go HDD unless really needed (Like server PC's or sumthing)