Do M.2's make much sense for gaming PC's?

[elitose]

I recently bough a 512gb samsung 950 pro M.2 SSD. My intention was to use to boot my PC and my games faster than my 500gb 840 evo. However, I'm not feeling like my money was well spent. I double checked everything with benchmarks to verify that all my speeds were as advertised and that I set everything up properly to find that all is well and there were no hidden switches I failed to engage. So, though I did in fact set everything up properly and getting full advertised performance, I'm really considering returning it and getting my $350 back. Any input from anyone to help guide me in the right direction?

PS: My 840 evo actually boots my PC faster than my 950 pro.

 

[TbsToy]

Maybe you need to study the tech more. Benchmark speeds, work speeds and perceived everyday real world usage speeds are different.
W.P.

 

[Gingerbread]

840 evo shouldn't boot faster but that doesn't really matter. To begin with, in my honest opinion, SSDs are pointless for gaming. All you get is faster load speeds, you don't get additional performance which is valuable. That's why I prefer going for a 120gb ssd for an OS, every program I have and maybe the game I play at the moment (only single player games, SSD is useless for multiplayer games), since people mainly play one new game for a long time, then switch to another, and the SSD has the space for at least 2 AAA titles.
But right now with my old PC, I don't feel the need of an ssd at all. Sure my OS will boot faster and my chrome will load faster, but I boot once a day (and I brush my teeth while it boots so doesn't matter how long it takes be it 5 seconds or 2 minutes).

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, @elitose.

I couldn't agree more with @Gingerbread regarding SSDs and gaming. The only thing you gain is faster in-game loading screens and initial loading of your games. This is useful for games like Skyrim with tons of in-game loading screens (whenever you get in or out of a building, or fast travel, etc.)

As for your initial question, from what I understand you've tested the M.2 SSD extensively and everything seems fine in terms of speed? If this is the case, but you're still not getting the required results, you might want to try and update its firmware if there are firmware updates available for that model. You could also test it with a different computer, to confirm that it is the drive that's the cause for that and not your system.

On the other hand, if you have the option to return it and if you're not happy with the device, you could always go ahead and do that.

Please let us know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[elitose]

Hey there, @elitose.

I couldn't agree more with @Gingerbread regarding SSDs and gaming. The only thing you gain is faster in-game loading screens and initial loading of your games. This is useful for games like Skyrim with tons of in-game loading screens (whenever you get in or out of a building, or fast travel, etc.)

As for your initial question, from what I understand you've tested the M.2 SSD extensively and everything seems fine in terms of speed? If this is the case, but you're still not getting the required results, you might want to try and update its firmware if there are firmware updates available for that model. You could also test it with a different computer, to confirm that it is the drive that's the cause for that and not your system.

On the other hand, if you have the option to return it and if you're not happy with the device, you could always go ahead and do that.

Please let us know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

Everything in Crystal Disk Mark is showing the advertised speeds. The thing was a pain to set up, and now that I finally got it set up correctly I'm just lost as to why its not blowing me away. From what I researched the drive is aimed at working with large files such as those for video production. However, for smaller files, such as loading a game, the massive difference shown in the benchmark wont necessarily equate to a very noticeable difference. The analogy I saw used most was that of shaving time from what can be considered an "instant", a faster version of an "instant" will still be perceived as an "instant".

 

[Sakkura]

It might be booting slow by running with CSM enabled. But you'd have to reinstall Windows if you change that setting.