SK Hynix Gold S31 1TB SSD Review

Game Load Time Testing

Game Load Time Testing
To test game load times we used the benchmark for the game title Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers that was released in July 2019. We bumped up the resolution from 1080P to 1440P, but other than that we left all the settings at their stock values. Pretty much every SSD on the market today claims to be aimed at gamers, so this test shows you how the drives we tested perform on an actual game title in a series that every gamer has heard of.

Benchmark Results: This is one of our favorite tests in our SSD test suite as far too many companies say they have a great gaming drive. As you can see from the chart above the game load time varies more than one might expect. A traditional hard drive loads the levels in just under 30 seconds whereas the slowest SATA III SSD loads them in under 20 seconds and the only M.2 NVMe drive on the PCIe interface finishes in way under 14 seconds. The SK Hynix Gold S31 finishes in just under 16 seconds and was about a second slower than the Samsung SSD 860 PRO 2TB drive. It did manage to out perform the WD Blue 3D 1TB SSD and the Samsung SSD 860 QVO by around two seconds, which is impressive for a companies first consumer drive.

Let’s wrap up this review!