Discussion Are nvme a scam for those who do gaming?

[djsolidsnake86]

In recent years it has been seen that the m2 nvme have a high risk of failure, due to high temperatures (main cause of malfunction in the electronics) of both the memories and the controller, although they are dissipated, and the real tests of games and applications do not show particular advantages compared to a sata ssd, not even in a game like ratched and clank that uses direct storage, the difference is a few tenths of a second compared to a sata ssd, and in the future with the increase of ram in video cards probably the direct storage will become even more useless than it is now
sata ssds are extremely reliable and keep temperatures down, and they run everything really well
i had 2 nvme that both failed, while i have a sata ssd that from 2017 still has 88% life remaining
after this reflection, I ask you, are nvme in all respects a scam for those who do gaming?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E35aClzXZBI
nvme faster speed is only in benchmarks, in real life the speed is same, so what is the advantage to choose a higher risk failure storage compared to sata ssd?

 

[Colif]

depends on if direct storage takes off

What is DirectStorage in Windows 11?

DirectStorage is a new API for Windows 11 game developers to create more expansive games and improve load times. Here's what you need to know.

www.groovypost.com

How to Use DirectStorage in Windows 11

DirectStorage can speed up your games on Windows 11, and you don’t need to do anything to turn it on. Check to see if your PC supports DirectStorage through the Xbox Game Bar.

www.lifewire.com

otherwise, mostly yes. The speed advantages are shown more in boot times. and loading really big files, not lots of little ones.

vram isn't really growing right now, some companies seem to think 8gb is still enough

 

[Cyberat_88]

Yes, Linus did this test 3 years ago, albeit before PCIE 5.0, but no substantial differences are seen in other more modern tests. 1sec. delay and 10 out of 250FPS does not justify the 3x price for hardware.
Now that I am looking for an 8TB drive standard, for 2024/5. Justification is nil for gaming.
Now if the question is can I use an NVME for cache only, like Pagefile.sys. ? That remains to be answered.
The NVME still remains in the Corporate Industrial bracket for now, in benefits and pricing.

 

[Colif]

i would use an nvme for windows... its what I use mine for. Boot times are almost instant. Good place for page file as well obviously.

It isn't really helpful for games if you already running off a ssd.

nvme aren't that expensive, they aren't something to be bought in future, you can get cheap ones now.

 

[djsolidsnake86]

i would use an nvme for windows... its what I use mine for. Boot times are almost instant. Good place for page file as well obviously.

It isn't really helpful for games if you already running off a ssd.

nvme aren't that expensive, they aren't something to be bought in future, you can get cheap ones now.

but also windows on ssd is the same, and i think also pagefile

 

[Cyberat_88]

Now ? Now I need 4tb and running on 6tb, no way am I shelling $1000 for 8tb.
SATA 3 8TB sits at $400, does just as well for a majority of people, not just me.

 

[Moonstick2]

My current setup has Windows/data on a 512 GB SATA SSD, games on a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 NMVe, plus a couple of other SSDs.

In the next couple of months I'll be in the market for a 2 TB drive for games and moving my OS/data to the 1 TB I've got. I'd consider a SATA 2TB drive for being less fiddly to install and with little tangible difference in speed, but I expected them to be cheaper and instead decent ones on offer are in the £80 - £90 region, same as decent 4.0 NMVes on offer. With DirectStorage a very real possibility for widespread adoption given the Xbox link, I'll struggle to justify choosing SATA over NMVe.

The only disk failure I've had was a reliable-brand SATA SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

1. Not showing a marked difference in games does not make them "scams". Especially now that there is just about price parity with SATA III SSDs.

2. What source do you have for "In recent years it has been seen that the m2 nvme have a high risk of failure"
Seeing as most people with an NVMe have it as their OS drive, that puts more use on it vs just a game drive.

3. Many of us out here have been saying for years that the game difference is minimal vs SATA III SSD. There are several other videos that show the same result. The big performance jump was from HDD to solid state.
Still doesn't make them 'scams'.

 

[Cyberat_88]

I'll see your "price parity" and raise you a "big fat liar":

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare?CompareItemList=20-236-906%2C20-147-784&compareall=true

 

[Cyberat_88]

SCAMS !

 

[USAFRet]

I'll see your "price parity" and raise you a "big fat liar":

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare?CompareItemList=20-236-906%2C20-147-784&compareall=true

You and I both know we're talking about reasonable sizes.

1TB Samsung 970 EVO

Amazon.com

$50

1TB Samsung 870 EVO

Amazon.com

$60

 

[PC Tailor]

1. Not showing a marked difference in games does not make them "scams". Especially now that there is just about price parity with SATA III SSDs.

2. What source do you have for "In recent years it has been seen that the m2 nvme have a high risk of failure"
Seeing as most people with an NVMe have it as their OS drive, that puts more use on it vs just a game drive.

3. Many of us out here have been saying for years that the game difference is minimal vs SATA III SSD. There are several other videos that show the same result. The big performance jump was from HDD to solid state.
Still doesn't make them 'scams'.

This is absolutely the correct answer. Many of us have stated for a long time (especially on these forums) that you will see no significant difference between the 2 in gaming application. You may however see some differences in large data transfers between PCI(e) to PCI(e) bus transfers. On paper they are faster, in application they are still limited by the next process/hardware.

But this does not mean they are scams at all, just perhaps most users can't get the "optimal" use out of it (yet), doesn't mean it won't in the future or that those in more specialist applications aren't getting value from it.

NVMe offers faster load times and smoother gameplay in gaming due to its high-speed data transfer, significantly reducing loading screens and enhancing overall gaming performance

Only on paper. Not in application. And the effect at least won't be large enough to be of practical impact.

It's kind of the equivalent of race cars, yes a Bugatti can go 250mph+ when being tested, but doesn't mean on the road it can really do anything above 70mph.

 

[Zerk2012]

I'll see your "price parity" and raise you a "big fat liar":

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare?CompareItemList=20-236-906%2C20-147-784&compareall=true

Amazon.com

 

[Eximo]

I certainly noticed going from a SATA SSD to NVMe in game load times back when I switched to a 7700k. Back then it was pretty easy to tell who had an NMVe drive, a SATA SSD, or a Hard drive by ready status in certain titles.

Talking maybe 10 seconds vs 20 vs 40+ to load a map in. So the useful effect was zero.

The storage speed is there, you just need a use case to exploit it.

PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 NVMe drives are more problematic, as they don't make that big a difference at all for gaming. But that doesn't mean I am not going to buy them.

 

[wyliec2]

I completely agree with the knowledgeable replies here:

1) Most applications won't have a significant user experience difference between SATA and NVMe SSD. There is a speed difference, but the type of operations and transfer sizes seldom leverage the speed capabilities.

2) Prices for SATA and NVMe SSDs are largely equivalent for 1 TB and 2 TB sizes. 4 TB is getting close as well. This makes it a no-brainer in choosing NVMe over SATA.

3) The last six PCs I've built all have been NVMe for the OS drive. Given the number of IO operations on the OS drive, it's easy to rationalize NVMe.

I do a lot of HD and UHD video manipulation (20 - 100 GB files). Many applications are IO-bound and there is a noticeable difference between the 570-580 MB/s of SATA SSDs and the 2X or 3X better performance of NVMe.

FWIW - While I've seen actual speeds around 2000 MB/s on Gen 4 NVMe to Gen 4 NVMe transfers in day-to-day use, I've never seen anything approaching the 3500-7500 MB/s speed shown in specs. In my main PCs, one has 3 NVMe drives (2 Gen 4) and the other has 4 NVMe drives (3 Gen 4). I am a believer in heat sinks.

I don't lose any sleep fretting over Gen 5 NVMe!!! Yet???

 

[Misgar]

I've had at least 5 SATA SSDs fail in the last few years. Mind you, most of them were cheap and cheerful consumer drives as opposed to much more expensive Enterprise class devices.

So far, none of my M.2 NVMe drives in any of my computers have failed (yet). Maybe I've been lucky or chosen better quality drives. There will always be some rogue units or less than perfect designs. Most drive manufacturers have at least one design they'd rather forget.

As for M.2 drives failng because they run too hot, people are slowly getting used to the i9-13900K sitting at 100C without dying and most M.2 drives throttle before they hit 90C.

Tjmax for Silicon semiconductors tend to lie in the range 125 to 150C.
https://www.infineon.com/dgdl/Infin...N.pdf?fileId=8ac78c8c7cdc391c017d071d497a2703

If an M.2 drive is indicating 70C, that's well within limits.

In the machine I'm using now, Hard Disk Sentinel shows the following temperatures:
Drive 1: 1TB Samsung 980PRO NVMe running at 59C, destination for a 50GB 4K video file during rendering
Drive 2: 1TB Samsung 980 NVMe at 51C, scratch drive for the video app
Drive 3: 1TB Kingston SKC3000S1024G NVMe at 48C, Windows OS and program drive
Drives 4 to 8, hard disks, 34C, 36C, 32C, 32C and 33C respectively.

All drives fail eventually. Just keep good backups.

 

[Bob.B]

In recent years it has been seen that the m2 nvme have a high risk of failure, due to high temperatures (main cause of malfunction in the electronics) of both the memories and the controller, although they are dissipated, and the real tests of games and applications do not show particular advantages compared to a sata ssd, not even in a game like ratched and clank that uses direct storage, the difference is a few tenths of a second compared to a sata ssd, and in the future with the increase of ram in video cards probably the direct storage will become even more useless than it is now
sata ssds are extremely reliable and keep temperatures down, and they run everything really well
i had 2 nvme that both failed, while i have a sata ssd that from 2017 still has 88% life remaining
after this reflection, I ask you, are nvme in all respects a scam for those who do gaming?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E35aClzXZBI
nvme faster speed is only in benchmarks, in real life the speed is same, so what is the advantage to choose a higher risk failure storage compared to sata ssd?

M.2 vs ssd......less cable clutter.

 

[PC Tailor]

M.2 vs ssd......less cable clutter.

M.2 vs 2.5" SSD specifically.
Plenty of M2 SATA SSDs that still don't have cable clutter.

 

[Bob.B]

M.2 vs 2.5" SSD specifically.
Plenty of M2 SATA SSDs that still don't have cable clutter.

Yup I just took a guess that the op was not talking about a m.2 sata.

 

[Colif]

May not mean much but another difference between m.2 and ssd is how long they are actually running for.

My Nvme and HDD are same age, installed on the same day:
My nvme thinks its 490 days old,
My hdd knows its 667 days old.
The difference is pcie can power down when not being used. In theory this could mean they last longer than ssd which can't power off.
Nvme is C drive so it makes it more impressive really.

 

[USAFRet]

The difference is pcie can power down when not being used. In theory this could mean they last longer than ssd which can't power off.

My 980 Pro and Crucial MX500 (2.5" SATA III) have been running 24/7 for about a year and a half.
Same system.

The 980 thinks 12,118 running hours.
The MX500 thinks 875 hours.

 

[Colif]

I guess my example doesn't work then.

 

[Cyberat_88]

M.2 vs ssd......less cable clutter.

Not paying 3x the price for less cable clutter. But you do have the point on this, if money is no object.

 

[Cyberat_88]

The utility of 1TB drives is over, for both work stations and gaming, price is a Factor.

 

[Bob.B]

Not paying 3x the price for less cable clutter. But you do have the point on this, if money is no object.

Yup cost is part of the mix.
You do some shopping and then make a choice.