27/02/2026 2:26 am
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finally getting my 14700k build together here in the UK and im totally stuck on what ssd to grab. i keep seeing the samsung 990 pro recommended everywhere but then i saw the crucial t700 is way faster.
thing is i read that running gen 5 might cut my gpu lanes in half on certain z790 boards which sounds like a total headache for a gaming rig. my budget is roughly 180 quid and i really want something fast for 4k editing. i just dont want to spend extra cash if it messes with my gpu performance. do i really need gen 5 for 14th gen or is high end gen 4 still the way to go?
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11
27/02/2026 2:50 am
just saw this thread and figured id chip in because i went through the exact same thing with my build last year. the thing with gen 5 drives like the Crucial T700 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD is that they hit crazy sequential speeds on paper, like 12000mb/s, but for 4k editing you rarely hit those peaks unless you are moving massive single files between two identical gen 5 drives. most of your scrubbing and timeline performance depends on the controller and dRAM cache anyway. i tried running a gen 5 drive on my z790 board and immediately saw my gpu drop to x8. while modern cards dont lose a massive amount of performance at x8, it still feels like a waste of hardware. plus those gen 5 drives run hot as hell and need those chunky heatsinks. i ended up swapping back to a high-end gen 4 and it was way more stable. honestly for 180 quid you can get a Western Digital WD_BLACK SN850X 2TB NVMe SSD or a Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD and still have change left over. the sn850x is a beast for sustained writes which is what you actually need for video work. i never noticed a real difference in export times between the gen 5 and the high-end gen 4 in premiere pro. it just works better without the lane splitting headache.
11
27/02/2026 3:10 am
Spot on, lane splitting is a pain. Im really satisfied with the SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen4, 1.2M IOPS works well for 4K and saves cash.
3
27/02/2026 4:00 am
Re: "Spot on, lane splitting is a pain. Im..." - totally agree. but in my experience, heat is the real silent killer here. if youre doing heavy 4k editing, those speeds wont matter if the drive starts throttling or dies early.
- avoid drives without decent heatsinks
- watch out for gpu exhaust cooking the drive what specific motherboard and case are you building in? that really determines what stays stable under load.
2
27/02/2026 2:26 am
honestly i went through the exact same dilemma when i put my last rig together. i spent hours digging through motherboard manuals because that lane splitting issue is very real on most z790 boards. if you plug a gen 5 drive into that top slot your gpu drops from x16 down to x8 lanes to share the bandwidth. while the performance hit in gaming is pretty marginal it just felt wrong to compromise the hardware pathing on a high end build. i ended up sticking with a top tier gen 4 drive for my 14th gen machine. during my 4k video exports i noticed that the bottleneck usually ends up being the cpu anyway rather than raw sequential drive speed. getting around 7000mb/s is basically plenty for heavy workloads. my current setup stays much cooler without those massive gen 5 heatsinks and i keep full lanes for the gpu. sticking to gen 4 is the smarter play for stability and thermals imo.
