SSD buying guide: NVMe vs SATA
5 min read · Updated 2026-10-06
NVMe for the boot drive
An M.2 NVMe SSD is the right boot drive for any new PC. PCIe Gen 4 drives cost about the same as Gen 3 now and are plenty fast for games. Gen 5 drives are faster in benchmarks, but games barely load faster and the drives run hot.
How much space?
- 500 GB: Windows and a couple of games only.
- 1 TB: the minimum for a gaming PC; many AAA games take 70–150 GB each.
- 2 TB: the sweet spot for a large game library.
Specs that matter
- DRAM cache or HMB: keeps speed consistent under heavy writes.
- TBW endurance: how much data the drive is rated to write; any modern 1 TB drive is fine for gaming.
- Heatsink: use the motherboard's M.2 heatsink for Gen 4/5 drives.
Where SATA and HDDs fit
SATA SSDs are good for adding storage to an older PC without free M.2 slots. Hard drives are cheapest per TB for backups, photos and video archives, but too slow for modern games.
