Gen 3 v gen 4

bris · 19 Jul 2020 at 09:19

I am just in the process of putting my new build together and I will be wanting 2 NVME drives.

Outside of benchmarks will the speed difference gen 3 and gen 4 in real world terms be noticeable to the average person to justify the extra cost? I will be using the drives to fill an extensive Steam library.

Minstadave · 19 Jul 2020 at 09:25

Absolutely not. Just buy a high quality 3rd Gen drive, but avoid QLC based drives if you're moving large amounts of data between NVME drives.

Quartz · 19 Jul 2020 at 10:37

bris said:
Outside of benchmarks will the speed difference gen 3 and gen 4 in real world terms be noticeable to the average person to justify the extra cost? I will be using the drives to fill an extensive Steam library.

Not for that purpose. You will, however, see some benefit when PS5 games get ported and streaming textures becomes a thing.

Vimes · 19 Jul 2020 at 11:10

In real world terms there are negligible difference in the loading, playing times comparing NVME against that of SATA SSD's.

Says the guy who is waiting delivery of his 2TB NVME drive, lol.

in the above video the last game load times are..........spookily similar, errr exactly the same..!

bris · 19 Jul 2020 at 11:16

Thanks guys, my original build cost had gen4 drives with a ryzen 5 3600x, i will now use gen 3 and can up the ryzen to a 7 3700x.

I do already have sata ssd's but will be putting other stuff on them, like the music library etc so they will get used regardless. The drives I will get will be needed as it's the old style hard drives I will be replacing.

HACO · 20 Jul 2020 at 12:04

Current PCIe 4 drives (based on Phison E16 controller) are not that much better than PCIe 3 ones. It was an attempt to get a PCIe 4 controller out as soon as possible. Next gen ones (Samsung 980 series or Phison E18 based ones) will be significantly better.

I'm still using my 5-year-old SSD which works fine for all I need, waiting for the next generation before I spend big money.