Which SSD is Better to Choose in 2021? (Loading Games)

SSD M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 (Samsung 970 EVO Plus) vs M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 (Samsung 980 PRO) vs SSD SATA III (Samsung 870 EVO)

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Games :

All 3 SSDs were almost completely filled (~70GB free of 1TB)

System:
Windows 10 Pro

[TestingGames]

Games :
CYBERPUNK 2077 - 0:06
Days Gone - 0:28
Assassin's Creed Valhalla - 0:50
Horizon Zero Dawn - 1:12
Microsoft Flight Simulator - 1:28
Hitman 3 - 1:53
Red Dead Redemption 2 - 2:10



System:
Windows 10 Pro

[MaTtRoSiTy]

So in reality if you have any semi decent SSD you're doing just fine and the difference is pretty much unnoticeable in most cases

[xxzmk]

To sum it up: M.2 PCI-e 4.0 wins, but generally just get the one which is marketed cheaper. It is sometimes not worth it for just 1-2 seconds of waiting time.

[bb]

Hitman 3 seems to be the only game optimized for high performance SSD's, which makes sense since they they said they reworked the engine to take advantage of it. Wish more developers would do the same. No doubt more games and engines will eventually once the crossgen era has ended.

[fynerboi]

Seeing the 0.1% and 1% low fps would be great too ^^ I know thats a lot of work but if you have time.. it'd be interesting to see if the speed of the ssd actually changes them or not (on W11 with direct storage things might get a lil spicier even :) looking forward to that too).

[mcrazza]

Wait till when Windows 11 comes out and redo the test. The DirectStorage feature will take full advantage of NVMe SSDs. Xbox Series X|S owners are already familiar with DS and its speed gains.

[jimmysgameclips]

I would love to see this test again when that direct storage tech in Windows 11 gets going, the thingy that the PS5 has

[melonhuskantilgbt]

1:09
when pcie3 is faster than pcie4

[ClayJitsu]

should have an HDD to compare, like having a regular person running in the olympics next to the athletes as a comparison

[nicholaswicks]

I have a 980evo 2tb and it’s been great

[Coxy-b]

PC I/O architecture isn't there at the moment to take advantage of M.2 PCIe.4.0.
The only platform where these SSD speeds can really shine is PS5 and even then only 2 or 3 games really take advantage of the tech due to almost all 'new gen' games actually being last gen developed ports.

[Deathscythe]

got a 500 gb samsung 980 pro m.2 for windows, drivers, programs etc
and crucial mx500 2x 1tb sata ssd for games
and 2x toshiba 3tb hdd for movies, music, anime etc

[pesfreak]

The differences are pretty minor. So it depends on the money you have to pay. Where I live prices for PCIe 3.0 and SATA is almost the same and the price difference for PCIe 4.0 is pretty minor. I guess I would go PCIe 4.0 in that case but it depends on where you live of course.

[jek]

Excellent video, please do 11700 non k VS 11900k to see how big is the difference when both cpus are 8/16 and have 16 mb cache, because price difference is huge

[cg.maniac]

I just got two XPG Gammix S70 Gen4 NVMe SSDs (2TB each). Mainly because they were on offer and even cheaper than Gen3 SSDs for the Offer Period. The Samsung Evo 970 SSDs go for about INR 28, 000 and I got these for INR 20, 000.

[MacBjorn]

Interesting aspect of how they differ on application loading. But it's copy, read and write speeds of various types that will make more test

[kennethhicks]

Interesting how the difference in programing (files used/frequency) affects the times so much with top hardware (3.0 vs 4.0).

[brianmiller]

It’s been a year since this post, maybe I can update some of the inquires and my own experience I was having in choosing between Sata III SSD and M.2 NVMe 980 Pro. I have 5950X, Crosshair VIII Hero Dark, 3090 Stix and 1TB 860 Pro as OS and 2TB 870 EVO as a storage. For weeks or even months I have been contemplating if I should get 980 Pro and if that would make any difference in overall performance of my PC, I don't game, but I do load of compiling lot of different apps for encoding 4-8K videos so I finally pulled the trigger and few days ago I got 980 Pro 2TB.

After having this drive for a while and testing in different environments, even games which I dot play, but for the purpose of experimenting and now mind is made up. Unless you move a ton of files, there is really no performance gains in any aspect of home user, even for professionals if you don't move, read and write extreme amount of data and between 860 Pro 870 EVO and 980 Pro there is no difference that you will see to a naked eye. .
Apps will load only as fast as they can and how optimized they are, even then Sata 3SSD 550mb/s speed is beyond what any game or app can keep up with.

[Cooldudec]

I'm using samsung 970 Evo plus and it does make faster day to day computing but it doesn't boost gaming performance other than quick loading

[asmongoldsmouth]

*I have the 980 PRO on computer #1. I have the 980 on computer #2. I have 970 EVO SATA 2.5" M.2 drives on both computers. The difference almost doesn't exist. The PRO is for editing and compiling massive files. (Camera or screen recording filea at 4K that are 10 minutes or longer.) Sequential write/read. Not random.*