Samsung 9100 PRO PCIe 5.0 SSD with Heatsink Review

PCIe 5.0 SSDs have been around for a little while now, but there is still a fairly simple question surrounding them for gamers: do you actually need one? PCIe 4.0 SSDs are already incredibly fast. A good PCIe 4.0 drive can load Windows in seconds, launch games quickly and make a traditional hard drive feel like something from another era. So, on the surface, it can be difficult to justify spending more money on an even faster SSD when the one already sitting in your PC feels perfectly fine. After putting Samsung's 9100 PRO with Heatsink through its paces alongside a Crucial P310 PCIe 4.0 SSD, however, it becomes much easier to see where the latest generation of storage is heading.

PCIe 5.0 Performance

The Samsung 9100 PRO with Heatsink uses the PCIe 5.0 x4 interface and NVMe 2.0, with Samsung's own controller and V-NAND TLC memory. Depending on capacity, Samsung rates the drive at up to 14,800MB/s sequential read and 13,400MB/s sequential write, with the 1TB model rated slightly lower at 14,700MB/s read and 13,300MB/s write. The higher-capacity models are capable of reaching the full 14,800MB/s read and 13,400MB/s write figures. These are, quite frankly, ridiculous numbers for consumer storage, particularly when you consider how quickly SSD technology has progressed over the last few years.

In our testing, the 9100 PRO achieved an impressive 12,403.58MB/s read and 13,141.85MB/s write. To put those numbers into perspective, we ran the exact same test on a Crucial P310 PCIe 4.0 SSD, which achieved 2,029.05MB/s read and 1,438.70MB/s write. That puts the Samsung at roughly 6 times faster for read performance and around 9 times faster for write performance in our testing.

It is important to point out that the Crucial P310 is already a very capable SSD. For a gamer looking for fast, reliable storage, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the P310, and most people would be perfectly happy with its performance. PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage has already reached the point where it feels exceptionally fast for everyday computing. The problem for the P310 is simply that when it is put directly beside the Samsung 9100 PRO, it gets absolutely blown out of the water. Going from just over 2GB/s read performance to almost 9.5GB/s, while going from around 1.4GB/s write performance to more than 10GB/s, is an enormous generational leap.

That doesn't mean the 9100 PRO is going to make every single thing on your PC 4 or 7 times faster, though. Storage performance doesn't quite work that way. Your CPU, GPU, game engine and the software you're running all have a role to play, and many everyday tasks simply don't require the enormous bandwidth that the 9100 PRO provides. Opening a web browser, launching Discord or booting Windows isn't going to suddenly feel seven times faster. Where the difference becomes much more interesting is when the PC needs to move large amounts of data, and

modern gaming is increasingly becoming one of those workloads.

Check out our comparison to some of the top rated SSD's available today: (This comparison compares my real world results, against the advertised max speeds of other top drives)

Now compare that to Actual reported numbers using the AS SSD benchmark tool

What Does It Actually Mean for Gamers?

Modern games are absolutely enormous. It is now completely normal for a major AAA release to take up 100GB or more of storage, and once high-resolution textures, updates and additional downloadable content are taken into account, some games can consume considerably more. That means we're constantly asking our storage to download, install, unpack, move and update enormous amounts of data.

This is where the Samsung 9100 PRO starts to make much more sense than simply looking at its benchmark score. Imagine downloading a 150GB game, moving a huge game library between drives, installing a massive update or transferring hundreds of gigabytes of recorded gameplay. A good PCIe 4.0 SSD such as the P310 will already handle these tasks significantly faster than a SATA SSD or traditional hard drive, but the 9100 PRO has vastly more bandwidth available when the workload is capable of using it.

The same applies to game installation. Installing a modern game isn't always as simple as downloading one large file and writing it directly to the SSD. There can be a considerable amount of decompression, file creation and data movement happening during the installation process. A faster SSD can help reduce the amount of time spent waiting for storage-heavy parts of that process. The same can happen when a large game update needs to reorganise or rewrite a significant amount of existing game data. It won't make every update instantly complete, because your internet connection and CPU can still become the limiting factor, but once the data reaches the PC, the 9100 PRO gives it a huge amount of storage bandwidth to work with.

The same principle applies to moving games between drives. Anyone who has ever bought a new SSD and decided to move their entire Steam, Epic Games or Xbox library across will know just how much data can be involved. Moving several hundred gigabytes can become a surprisingly lengthy process, particularly when you're dealing with a slower drive. The 9100 PRO is designed for exactly this kind of heavy data movement, and this is where the enormous difference between PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 starts to become something you can actually appreciate rather than simply seeing a bigger number in a benchmark.

DirectStorage and the Future of PC Gaming

One of the most interesting technologies that makes the Samsung 9100 PRO particularly appealing to gamers is Microsoft DirectStorage. If you've never looked into DirectStorage before, the easiest way to explain it is that it allows compatible games to make much better use of modern NVMe storage by improving the way game data is transferred from the SSD towards the GPU, while reducing some of the traditional CPU overhead involved in that process.

This is important because modern games are becoming incredibly complex. Think about a large open-world game where you're travelling through a detailed city or landscape. The game needs to constantly bring textures, geometry, audio and other assets into memory as you move around. Older games were often designed around much slower storage, which is one of the reasons developers had to rely on loading screens, corridors, elevators and other artificial transitions to give the game enough time to load the next section of the world.

With much faster NVMe storage and technologies such as DirectStorage, developers have considerably more freedom. Instead of relying entirely on obvious loading transitions, games can increasingly stream assets into the world as they are needed. The faster the storage, the more bandwidth there is available to move those assets.

It is important not to misunderstand what DirectStorage does, though. Installing a PCIe 5.0 SSD doesn't automatically make every DirectStorage-compatible game five times faster. The game needs to support the technology, and the CPU, GPU, memory and game engine all play a part in the final result. There are also differences in how individual games use storage. Some games may see a noticeable improvement, while others may show very little difference between a high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD and a PCIe 5.0 drive.

What the 9100 PRO does provide is an enormous amount of storage performance sitting there ready to be used. As more games are designed around fast NVMe storage and more developers look towards technologies such as DirectStorage, having a drive capable of delivering this level of bandwidth means your storage is unlikely to be the component holding the process back.

This is one of the biggest reasons we see the 9100 PRO as a particularly interesting gaming drive. You're not simply buying it for the games available today. You're buying into the direction PC gaming is heading, where enormous game worlds and high-resolution assets increasingly need to be streamed and managed quickly.

The biggest result from our DirectStorage testing was the impact of combining DirectStorage with GDeflate compression. The Samsung 9100 Pro reached 21.24 GB/s when moving data from storage directly towards VRAM, compared with 6.20 GB/s with DirectStorage disabled. That's a 242.6% increase in measured bandwidth, showing just how dramatically modern storage and GPU-assisted decompression can change the way game data is moved through a PC.

Should You Use It as Your OS Drive or Game Drive?

This is probably one of the more interesting questions for someone upgrading an existing PC. Technically, there is absolutely nothing wrong with installing Windows on the 9100 PRO. In fact, if you're building a new high-end gaming PC from scratch, we'd have no problem making it the primary drive and putting Windows, applications and games all on the same SSD.

However, if you already own a good PCIe 4.0 SSD, there is a strong argument for keeping that drive as your Windows and everyday applications drive and using the 9100 PRO primarily for your games and other demanding workloads. Windows simply doesn't require 10GB/s-plus storage bandwidth to feel fast. A good PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD is already extremely responsive, and moving Windows from something like the P310 to the 9100 PRO isn't going to suddenly transform your desktop experience.

Games are a different story. As storage requirements increase and technologies such as DirectStorage become more common, there is more potential for games to take advantage of the additional bandwidth. That makes the 9100 PRO particularly attractive as a dedicated game drive. You could have Windows and your everyday applications running perfectly happily from the P310 while installing your biggest and most demanding games on the 9100 PRO.

For a brand-new PC, however, we'd simply put everything on the 9100 PRO. If you're already spending the money on a high-end PCIe 5.0 drive, there is no reason not to enjoy the simplicity of having your operating system, applications and games all benefiting from the same extremely fast storage.

What About Actual Game Loading Times?

This is where it is worth keeping expectations realistic. Seeing the 9100 PRO achieve the read performance it did compared with 2,029.05MB/s from the P310 does not mean a game that takes 20 seconds to load on the P310 will suddenly load in four seconds on the Samsung.

Game loading is much more complicated than simply reading one giant file as quickly as possible. The CPU, GPU, game engine, asset decompression and the way the game has been programmed all influence how quickly a game can get you into the action.

There will absolutely be games and situations where the additional storage performance makes a difference, but there will also be plenty where the difference between a good PCIe 4.0 SSD and the 9100 PRO is relatively small. That's not a failure of the Samsung drive. It is simply a limitation of the workload.

Where the 9100 PRO's performance becomes more compelling is in the broader storage experience. Installing a huge game, moving a large library, unpacking files, transferring recordings or handling large updates are all situations where having substantially more storage bandwidth can be useful.

As developers increasingly build games around faster storage, we also expect the importance of this bandwidth to grow.

The particular 9100 PRO we're testing is the Heatsink version, and that's an important distinction. PCIe 5.0 SSDs can generate significantly more heat than previous-generation drives when they're being pushed hard, so having Samsung's purpose-built heatsink already attached is a welcome feature. The heatsink is designed to help manage the heat produced by the SSD's controller and NAND, allowing the drive to maintain its performance during demanding workloads. That is particularly useful when you're moving hundreds of gigabytes of data, installing large games, transferring video files or performing other sustained operations.

The heatsink doesn't make the 9100 PRO faster than the standard version. The underlying SSD hardware and performance specifications remain the same. Instead, it helps the drive manage the heat generated while operating at these extremely high speeds.

For gamers, this is particularly convenient because you don't need to worry as much about whether your motherboard's M.2 heatsink is adequate. Samsung has already integrated the cooling solution into the drive, creating a package that is essentially ready to install and use. The heatsink version is also designed to remain relatively compact, with the 1TB, 2TB and 4TB versions measuring 8.88mm thick. Samsung also lists the heatsink model as suitable for systems including PCs and PlayStation 5.

Productivity Performance

Although this is primarily a gaming-focused SSD, there are plenty of productivity workloads where the 9100 PRO's performance can be useful. Video editing is an obvious example. Working with 4K and 8K footage means dealing with enormous files, and moving those files around can quickly become one of the slower parts of a workflow. Importing footage, transferring projects, working with large media libraries and moving finished files can all benefit from extremely fast storage.

The same applies to photographers working with large RAW files, content creators managing recorded gameplay, developers working with large projects and anyone who regularly deals with virtual machines or other large datasets.

The write performance is particularly impressive here. Our write result is way faster than the 1,438.70MB/s achieved by the P310 in the same test. When you're writing hundreds of gigabytes rather than simply launching an application, this kind of performance can genuinely save time.

For someone who primarily browses the internet, plays games and uses their PC for everyday tasks, however, we wouldn't suggest buying the 9100 PRO purely because it will make Windows feel faster. That's not where its real strength lies.

Is PCIe 5.0 Worth It?

Ultimately, this comes down to what you're expecting from your SSD.

If you already own a good PCIe 4.0 SSD such as the Crucial P310, there is no reason to panic and replace it. The P310 is still a very capable drive, and for traditional gaming and everyday PC use, it remains more than fast enough.

But if you're building a new high-end gaming PC, looking for a dedicated game drive or regularly work with enormous files, the Samsung 9100 PRO is a very different proposition. The performance gap is enormous, and you're getting storage that has considerably more bandwidth than even very fast PCIe 4.0 drives.

The biggest advantage is arguably not what the 9100 PRO can do today, but what it will be capable of handling as software catches up with the hardware. DirectStorage is still developing within the PC gaming ecosystem, but the overall direction is clear. Games are getting larger, game worlds are becoming more detailed and developers have access to increasingly fast storage.

That means there is a very good chance that the enormous bandwidth offered by drives such as the 9100 PRO will become increasingly useful over the lifespan of the drive.

The Samsung 9100 PRO with Heatsink is an impressive demonstration of just how far consumer storage has come. Our read & write results are enormous compared with the Crucial P310, and seeing those two drives side by side makes the generational difference incredibly easy to understand.

The P310 deserves plenty of credit because it remains a very capable PCIe 4.0 SSD. For the average gamer, it is still more than fast enough, and we'd have no problem recommending it to someone looking for excellent storage without necessarily chasing the latest technology. But when the two drives are put directly against each other, the Samsung 9100 PRO absolutely blows the P310 out of the water.

The 9100 PRO isn't going to give your graphics card more FPS, and it isn't going to magically make every game load several times faster. What it does is provide an enormous amount of storage bandwidth for the situations where your PC can actually take advantage of it. Large game installations, file transfers, game libraries, content creation, video editing and future technologies such as DirectStorage are where the drive's capabilities become much more meaningful.

For an existing PC with a good PCIe 4.0 SSD, we'd seriously consider keeping that drive for Windows and everyday applications while putting the 9100 PRO in as a dedicated game drive. For a new high-end gaming PC, there is little reason not to make the 9100 PRO your primary drive and enjoy having Windows, applications and games all sitting on exceptionally fast storage.

The integrated heatsink is also a nice touch. PCIe 5.0 drives can run hot under heavy workloads, and having Samsung's purpose-built cooling solution already attached means you can install the drive without having to worry about sourcing additional cooling or whether your motherboard's M.2 heatsink is up to the task.

Please note, the link above is for the non heatsync version of this SSD due to availability of the heatsync version at the monent.

Ultimately, the Samsung 9100 PRO is less about making today's games dramatically faster and more about preparing your PC for where gaming is heading. PCIe 4.0 remains perfectly capable today, but the 9100 PRO gives you considerably more headroom and the kind of performance that modern game engines are increasingly being designed to take advantage of.

The Samsung 9100 PRO with Heatsink is a futureproof addition to any gaming setup. It is incredibly fast, exceptionally capable and gives high-end PC builders the storage performance to match the rest of a modern gaming system. While a drive like the Crucial P310 proves that PCIe 4.0 is still very much capable of delivering an excellent gaming experience, the 9100 PRO shows us what comes next. And based on our testing, what's next is seriously fast. The only real downside I see, is the current market, this SSD is currently priced out of most peoples markets, and for that reason, I give it a 9/10.