PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs

A PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive reaches around 3,500MB/s — slower than the 4.0 and 5.0 generations, and still six times faster than a SATA SSD.

That gap is the important one. In everyday use — booting, launching applications, loading games — the difference between PCIe 3.0 and 5.0 is barely perceptible, while the difference between SATA and any NVMe drive is obvious. Sequential speed only shows itself in large sustained file transfers.

So PCIe 3.0 is the right deliberate choice in three cases: an older motherboard whose M.2 slots are Gen 3 anyway, where a faster drive would be capped to the same speed; a budget build where the saving buys more capacity; and secondary storage for a games library or media, where peak speed changes nothing.

These drives also run cooler than the fastest Gen 5 models, which need heatsinks.

Check the length your machine takes — nearly all are 2280, but compact laptops sometimes need 2230 or 2242.

The range covers Patriot, Team Group, ADATA and PNY. See all NVMe SSDs.