95% of PC users are still happy with the speed of PCIe 3.0 SSDs
By ForGeeks
The SSD market has already moved to the PCIe 5.0 standard, with speeds of up to 14,000 MB/s on some models. For the vast majority of PC users, however, these numbers remain purely theoretical. From running Windows and applications to gaming, a quality PCIe 3.0 SSD is virtually indistinguishable from fifth-generation flagship drives in real-world day-to-day operations.
Why Giant Speeds Don’t Gain
SSD marketing is centered on sequential read and write speeds, which are what’s on the boxes labeled “10,000+ MB/s”. These speeds reflect the drive’s ability to read a single large file. But real-world PC scenarios almost never involve this type of workload.
Operating systems, browsers, games, and most applications handle thousands of small files. This is where random 4K reads become the key metric – the speed at which small blocks of data scattered across the drive are processed. They determine how responsive the system is, how fast games load levels, how fast programs run, and how fast multitasking is performed.
PCIe 3.0 vs PCIe 5.0 in real-world use
Despite the huge jump in sequential speeds between generations, the random 4K read performance of today’s drives varies little. Even flagship PCIe 5.0 models often show values comparable to good PCIe 3.0 SSDs – the difference is usually in the 10-15% range.
In practice, this means that game load times, application launches, and system performance look almost identical. For the user who doesn’t move huge files on a daily basis, there is little difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 in the PC experience – even with modern games.
At the end of the day, the difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 5.0 is almost nonexistent.
Additional benefits of PCIe 3.0 drives
Besides similar real-world performance, PCIe 3.0 SSDs have a number of practical advantages. One of the main ones is heat dissipation. PCIe 5.0 drives often require massive heatsinks or even active cooling to avoid trotting. PCIe 3.0 models are noticeably cooler and easier to fit into compact cases and slim notebooks.
Temperature also has a direct impact on lifespan. A drive that operates consistently at 40°C will, on average, last longer than a device that regularly heats up to 70-75°C. This makes cooler SSDs an attractive choice for systems that are designed to last.
Price and capacity over speed
Another key argument is cost. For the price of a single terabyte of PCIe 5.0 storage, you can often buy 3-4 TB of quality PCIe 3.0 SSDs. For most users, the increase in storage is much more noticeable than the increase in sequential speed, which is rarely used in practice.
Even if you don’t go for maximum capacity, the price difference between generations can be invested in components that really make a difference in the user experience: a more powerful graphics card, a better processor, additional RAM, or a better monitor.
When PCIe 5.0 is really needed
The high speeds of PCIe 5.0 make sense for a narrow range of applications. Working with 8K video, constantly moving huge data sets, professional analytics, or specific server scenarios do benefit from maximum bandwidth. But these tasks only affect a small fraction of users.
