M.2 Prices have plummeted. Should I go for an NVMe Gen 4 or wait for Gen 5?

[JuicyMullet]

Budget (including currency): $400

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

Hey everyone, 

So prices almost seem too good to be true for SSDs right now. I've got a new GPU, and this year I'm looking to upgrade my MoBo, SSD, CPU and RAM. M.2 prices are insanely low right now, and I was wanting everyone's opinion of if I should just go ahead and get a new Gen 4 M.2 while the prices are so low, or wait for a Gen 5. There doesn't appear to be that much of a real world difference in the two, but I'm not overly technical about such things, so I wouldn't want to miss out on any huge gaming benefit when it comes to Gen 5 if it really is that much better. 

So do I spring for the Gen 4, or wait for more Gen 5s to come out this year? My main concern is gaming loading speeds and as much storage as possible. 

[Qyygle]

Nobody can tell the difference betweeen gen 4 and gen 5 atm. Going gen 5 doesn't gain anything over a cheaper gen4 drive at this time. There's no games which gain support for direct storage, you need more expensive mother boards, and pay more for the same size.

 

Unless you spend your day transferring gigs of files over and over, go with the Gen4 pricing and get as much as you can.

[JuicyMullet]

Just now, Qyygle said:

Nobody can tell the difference betweeen gen 4 and gen 5 atm. Going gen 5 doesn't gain anything over a cheaper gen4 drive at this time. There's no games which gain support for direct storage, you need more expensive mother boards, and pay more for the same size.

 

Unless you spend your day transferring gigs of files over and over, go with the Gen4 pricing and get as much as you can.

Thanks. I did see that the Forspoken game had direct storage, but that LTT saw no noticable difference in the loading times between Gen 4 and 5. 

[filpo]

Just now, JuicyMullet said:

Thanks. I did see that the Forspoken game had direct storage, but that LTT saw no noticable difference in the loading times between Gen 4 and 5. 

Ye don't go for gen 5. It gets much hotter for no observable reason. Maybe some BIG file transfers will be quicker but a fast 980 pro will still (and still is) heaps fast

[cautiouslyoptimistic]

you can compare gen3 m.2 speed to gen4, see if theres much speed to be gained in directStorage usecases.

I doubt it, plus there the thermal issues may limit the drives to AIC instead of M.2 format. Thats what I've seen from CES coverages.

I don't think M.2 drive prices "plummeted", just competitions accross the board. I think the current prices will stay for quite a bit, since consumers are in no hurry to buy them and enterprise use is limited on alot of these drives.

[JuicyMullet]

3 minutes ago, filpo said:

Ye don't go for gen 5. It gets much hotter for no observable reason. Maybe some BIG file transfers will be quicker but a fast 980 pro will still (and still is) heaps fast

Thanks guys. I was hoping this would be the consensus. The prices are amazing right now, and while I won't have the MoBo to support the speed for a while, I can at least save some money and snag a super fast SSD that's triple the speed of what I'm using now. 

[Poinkachu]

13 minutes ago, JuicyMullet said:

Thanks guys. I was hoping this would be the consensus. The prices are amazing right now, and while I won't have the MoBo to support the speed for a while, I can at least save some money and snag a super fast SSD that's triple the speed of what I'm using now. 

For now, and I think 1-2 years ahead, there isn't even an easily noticeable difference between Gen3 and Gen4 for gaming.

Even comparing SSD & Gen3 NVME, it is quite hard to tell the difference.

[brob]

I'd buy more PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 storage for the price of PCIe 5.0. Or just bank the savings.

[Paul Angelo Cabrera]

PCIE 3.0 Storage even is good today. Gen 5.0 is just massive overkill.