Do PC games need an SSD?

For a long time an SSD was a quality-of-life upgrade for games: faster loading, nothing more. That has changed, and several current titles now list one as a hard requirement.

Why it became a requirement

Modern open-world games stream assets continuously as you move. When you drive quickly through a city, the game is loading and unloading textures and geometry in real time. A mechanical drive cannot supply data fast enough for that, and the result is visible: textures appear late, or the game stutters while it waits.

Cyberpunk 2077 lists an SSD in both tiers after its 2.0 update. Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3 and Armored Core VI all require one.

SATA SSD or NVMe?

For games specifically, the difference between a SATA SSD and an NVMe drive is much smaller than the raw sequential numbers suggest. Both are enormously faster than a hard drive at the small random reads games actually do.

An NVMe drive is worth it if you also do video editing or work with large files, where sequential throughput genuinely matters. For gaming alone, a SATA SSD clears the requirement.

How much space to plan for

Install sizes have grown sharply:

• Call of Duty titles and Cyberpunk 2077 sit around 70–100 GB
• Red Dead Redemption 2 asks for 150 GB
• Several titles exceed 100 GB after updates

Two practical notes: leave headroom beyond the published figure, because patches frequently need free space to apply, and SSDs slow down noticeably when nearly full. Aim to keep at least 10–15% free.

A reasonable setup

A 1 TB SSD for the operating system and the games you are currently playing, with a hard drive for archives and media, remains a sensible and inexpensive arrangement.