stop buying the fastest SSD for gaming — in 2026 it's a waste of money, and here's the proof

Gen5 SSDs hit 12,000 MB/s and cost a fortune. In games, they load less than a second faster than a Gen4 drive. Here's the SSD you should actually… Aliteq Ravi Malhotra · Hardware Editor

Best buy: a quality Gen4 NVMe (Samsung 990 Pro, WD Black SN850X) — 7,000+ MB/s, the gaming sweet spot.

Gen4 vs Gen5 in games: under a 1-second load difference — not worth the price or heat.

Capacity beats speed — get 2TB Gen4 over 1TB Gen5; modern games are 100-150GB each.

Load times plateau above ~5,000 MB/s — anything faster is imperceptible in games.

Gen5 only makes sense for DirectStorage-heavy titles plus content creation on the same drive.

A 2TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe (Samsung 990 Pro or WD Black SN850X) is the best SSD for gaming — it loads games within a second of a Gen5 drive that costs far more and runs hotter. Buy Gen4, buy 2TB for…

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