How much difference does a dram cache make?

[Dipto16]

Suppose I have 2 identical SSDs. One with dram cache and one without. How much faster would the one with the dram cache be?

[Semper]

Under certain situations, it's possible for a DRAM-less drive to perform worse than a modern respectable HDD.
Compare an SSD to an HDD, add a somewhat larger performance gap, and you have your answer.

[Aimi]

Well in that case they're not identical.

But really, your question is kinda vague. Are you worried about large file transfers? Or are you only concerned with say, load times of a game? Because in some cases the DRAM cache might not offer a lot of difference.

[ShadowChaser]

It's not really about 'fast' because at the end of the day your transfer rates on budget SSDs are in the same ballpark. In terms of 'snappiness' having a DRAM cache on a SATA SSD is practically a must as it will access your data faster. For NVMe it is not a big concern since most DRAM-less NVMe drives utilize HMB anyway.