A lot has been said about Gen5 SSDs, and how most user workloads haven't yet caught up with the performance these high-end drives offer. This remains true even in 2025. Even when PCIe 5.0 drives are getting cheaper and easier to cool than before, they're still not impressive enough to consider over high-end Gen4 NVMe SSDs. Currently, they're only really useful for productivity users and those who are already on a newer platform and want some sort of future-proofing. For me, however, PCIe 5.0 SSDs are still a no-go.

5 Gen5 SSDs aren't getting cheaper

It's all about the value per dollar

It'd be lovely to have a high-end SSD with blistering read/write speeds exceeding 14,000MB/s, but the cost-benefit analysis doesn't work in its favor. If you look at the popular Gen5 and Gen4 drives (not even the highest-end models), you'll easily see that the former cost twice as much as the latter. Whether you're considering a 1TB or 2TB SSD for your system, it's still prohibitively pricey to opt for a Gen5 drive.

When you can get the WD Black 7100 for around $75, why would you consider the Crucial T705 for around $140, especially when the 7,000MB/s+ speeds of the Gen4 drive are more than enough for almost everything? The prices of Gen5 drives have come down, and you can get 10,000MB/s drives for under $100, but those models further sour the value proposition for Gen5 drives.

4 I'm not a productivity savant

The latest Gen5 drives might boast the fastest sequential speeds to date, but that does nothing for me. I'm not transferring large files on a daily or even monthly basis, nor am I running productivity applications like video editing, 3D rendering, or heavy-duty simulations. There's no point spending a premium on a Gen5 if I'm not benefiting from the extra performance. And there are no signs that I'll suddenly become a productivity user next year or even the year after that.

Power users will find Gen5 drives useful, and the premium they pay will easily be justified, especially if they're making money from their PC. I'm not doing any such thing, or at least not in a way that's directly related to the speed of my SSD. I'm perfectly fine with my WD Black SN770 and its 5,000MB/s+ speeds. My PC boots fast and is snappy without a Gen5 SSD, so there's no reason for me to consider a Gen5 SSD anytime soon.

3 Most of them are a pain to keep cool

A needless problem to have

Besides the expensive prices and wasted performance of Gen5 SSDs, they're also pretty hard to cool. Thermal throttling is a genuine concern on Gen5 SSDs, unlike most Gen4 and Gen3 drives. This is why you see many PCIe 5.0 SSDs bundled with bulky, overbuilt heatsinks, often with a small fan to keep the heat away from the drive. Even for normal functioning without massive loads, Gen5 SSDs need such advanced cooling solutions to keep them from throttling themselves.

Not only is this an avoidable problem, but the bulky form factor of Gen5 SSDs also hinders your graphics card and CPU cooler, below and above the M.2 slot. And even if they don't, depending on the model, why should I deal with an SSD that can't keep cool when there's no upside to it? PCIe 5.0 drives have improved in terms of their operating temperatures, but there's still a long way to go before they can become as commonplace as Gen4 drives.

2 I'll need a full platform upgrade

Not happening anytime soon

Another roadblock in my Gen4 to Gen5 migration is that I'm on an AM4 system right now. Getting a Gen5 drive will mean moving to AM5 — a complete platform upgrade involving a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM. And that's something that I'm not keen on, at least not this year. It's a huge investment just to be able to use a faster SSD, the performance of which I won't even notice. Besides, moving from AM4 to AM5 isn't even that transformational for gaming performance in general, so it's really a tough sell.

PCIe 5.0, DDR5, and all the other latest-gen benefits of modern platforms are great, but my AM4 isn't outdated by any standard. I know I'll eventually make the switch, but I'm not about to jump the gun just because a Gen5 SSD will look better on my system.

1 There's no performance incentive for gaming

And that's the bottom line, because...you know

If a new Gen5 SSD isn't going to improve my gaming experience in any tangible way, there's little incentive for me to care about it. Games still haven't caught up with Gen5 speeds — DirectStorage was supposed to accelerate that, but it's taking longer than it was supposed to. Only a handful of games actually use that technology right now, so I can safely stay with my Gen4 SSD for a few more years.

Many users have even reported worse FPS after using DirectStorage on their Gen5 SSD, prompting them to delete the DirectStorage DLL. It'll take a long time before games are developed from the ground up to take advantage of DirectStorage — developers need significant adoption of Gen5 SSDs before prioritizing serious DirectStorage implementation.

I'm waiting for the Gen5 SSD era

Gen5 drives have been around for years, but their time has not yet arrived, at least for most users. I'm excited about the time they'll be cheap, cool, and useful enough for the average user to consider over a Gen4 SSD. It'll be great to see games take advantage of those blazing-fast speeds, and not having to pay double for the privilege will certainly feel good. Until then, I have no plans to upgrade from my Gen4 SSD.