tbh 3aas_as is spot on. those prices are hard to swallow for a drive that most people will never actually saturate. gen 5 is cool and all, but unless you are doing heavy 8k video editing or massive database work, the real-world difference over a solid gen 4 drive is pretty negligible for gaming or general office stuff. if you are building a rig right now and want to stay on a budget, you are way better off picking up something like the Samsung 990 PRO 2TB PCIe 4.0 or even the WD Black SN850X 2TB NVMe. you will get basically the same snappy feel for way less cash. plus, these gen 5 drives like the 9100 pro or the Crucial T700 2TB PCIe 5.0 run super hot. you basically need a massive heatsink or active cooling just to keep them from throttling under load. definitely not worth the premium yet imo.

ngl ive been building rigs long enough to know that chasing the newest pcie gen right at launch usually means paying a huge premium for speed you cant even feel. These gen 5 drives like the 9100 PRO are beasts but they run hot as hell. Most people dont realize that unless youre moving massive 100gb files every day you wont see the difference between this and a top tier gen 4 drive in actual use. The reality is that pcie 5.0 has some trade-offs right now:

• extreme heat that requires huge heatsinks or even active fans
• very high price per gigabyte compared to mature tech
• diminishing returns because windows and most games still arent optimized for these speeds I am really happy with the SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB NVMe Gen4 personally. It is fast, stable, and way more affordable than these new ones. Another one i recommend often is the WD_BLACK SN850X 4TB NVMe SSD because the price per gb is much better and it handles heavy gaming loads like a champ. No complaints with either of those after months of heavy use. You get the reliability of a mature platform without the thermal headaches... basically gives you more budget to put toward a better gpu or more ram. Let me know if you need more info on how to set these up tho.

Expensive.