NVMe SSDs

Every NVMe Spec, Explained

An SSD will not add frames to a game, but it decides how long you wait for the game to load, how the machine feels day to day, and how long the drive lasts under heavy writing. Here is what each column means and how much it is worth paying for.

Capacity

The one spec you cannot change later without buying another drive. Modern games run 50 to 150 GB each, so 1TB fills quickly and 2TB is the comfortable size for most gaming builds. Importance: highest. Capacity also affects performance: the smallest version of a drive family is usually slower at writing and rated for less total writing than its larger siblings, which is why every capacity has its own row here.

PCIe generation and lanes

How fast the drive can talk to the motherboard. PCIe 3.0 tops out near 3,500 MB/s, 4.0 near 7,400 MB/s and 5.0 near 14,000 MB/s. Lane count matters just as much as the generation: a 5.0 x2 drive uses half the lanes, so it lands around Gen4 speed, and we list it separately for that reason. Importance: lower than it looks. The difference in game load times between generations is small, because loading is mostly small random reads rather than one long transfer. A Gen5 drive also runs at Gen4 speed in a Gen4 slot, so check what your board provides before paying for one.

Cache: DRAM or DRAM-less

Whether the drive carries its own small memory chip for its address map. DRAM drives keep that map on board. DRAM-less drives borrow a slice of system memory instead, which the specification calls HMB. Importance: high, and rarely listed by retailers. The difference barely shows in a quick benchmark and shows clearly when the drive is nearly full, copying large amounts, or doing several things at once. For a boot drive, prefer DRAM. For a games library that is mostly read, DRAM-less is fine.

NAND type: TLC and QLC

How many bits each memory cell stores. TLC stores three and QLC four, which makes QLC cheaper per gigabyte but slower once its fast write buffer is full, and rated for less total writing. Importance: high for a boot or work drive, low for bulk storage. A star beside the type means the maker ships more than one configuration under the same model name, so you cannot be certain which one arrives. We score those as the weaker option.

Endurance (TBW)

How many terabytes the maker rates the drive to write over its life, and the figure the warranty is usually tied to. Importance: high on paper, low in practice for most people. A 1,200 TBW rating is about 660 GB of writing every day for five years, and a typical gaming PC writes a small fraction of that. It matters if you record video, run virtual machines or move large amounts of data daily. We score it per terabyte of capacity so that a big drive does not win simply by being big.

Rated speed, sequential and random

Sequential speed is one long uninterrupted transfer, which is the number on the box. Random speed, measured in IOPS, is many small scattered reads, which is what starting a game or an application actually does. Importance: random high, sequential low. Every figure here is the maker’s own rating rather than our measurement, and ratings are taken at the drive’s best case, so treat them as a ceiling.

Form factor and heatsink

Nearly every desktop NVMe drive is M.2 2280, meaning 22 mm wide and 80 mm long. Shorter 2230 drives exist for handhelds and some laptops. A heatsink version is the same drive with a cooler attached. Importance: check the length, then the clearance. Many motherboards now include their own M.2 cooler, in which case a drive with its own heatsink can physically clash. Heatsink versions share a page with the bare drive here, and the heatsink premium is available as a sortable column.

PS5 fit

Sony asks for a PCIe Gen4 drive with four lanes, at least 5,500 MB/s sequential read, and a total height of 11.25 mm or less including any cooler. Importance: absolute for a console, irrelevant for a PC. The filter here checks the maker’s own figures, and hides any drive whose speed we do not hold rather than guessing. Where a drive is a heatsink version we have no height for, the page says so instead of claiming it fits.

Warranty

How long the maker will replace the drive, usually capped by the endurance rating as well as the years. Most consumer drives carry three or five years. Importance: a signal more than a service. A five-year warranty on a drive at the same price as a three-year one is the maker betting more of its own money on the drive surviving.

Put together: pick the capacity, prefer a DRAM cache and TLC for a boot drive, check the PCIe generation your board actually provides, then sort by price per gigabyte inside that set and take the highest-scoring drive you can see the evidence for. What you save is better spent on the graphics card, where it buys frames.