[SOLVED] I'm building a gaming pc for my nephew. Will a Samsung 960 pro M.2 512GB, stick thing be ok to just run the operating system, or should I go for a 1TB

[GregHad]

So far I've got him a Asus TUF B450 board, Ryzen 7 3800X , he already has a good graphics card(I don't remember the model or power).... I'm 59 years old, I used to build back in the days of Celerons and Cyrinx..lol. I just don't know too much about these M.2 things, with having a dedicated ssd running only windows. Is this correct? Am I on the right track? Also will 512GB be enough? Many thanks in advance.

 

[Darkbreeze]

512GB is more than enough for 90% of users, for the OS and installed applications, IF you are not planning to also put the game files there as well. 512GB is not nearly enough for game storage, but you don't want the game storage on the primary SSD unless it's absolutely necessary anyhow. A secondary drive of 1TB or larger, preferably also an SSD but sometimes budget dictates that drive must be a mechanical spinning drive, would be preferable. For the OS and applications though, 512GB, or even 240-250GB in many cases, is plenty. Very few people install more than 150GB worth of OS and applications even factoring in regular updates to the OS and software over time.

I would advise not going with a cheap M.2 drive though AND you want to make SURE it is an NVME PCI M.2 drive, because there are also SATA M.2 drives and they can look the same, but are much slower just as a standard SSD.

To be honest, for gaming, a regular SATA 2.5" SSD for the OS is perfectly fine. M.2 NVME speeds aren't going to benefit a gamer much in terms of FPS or performance. Only map and level loading, or boot times, will be affected. Those times are really only that good if going from NVME to NVME on large file transfers and there is some benefit in real world random performance of the OS as well. Overall though, unless you can get it cheaper than a standard 2.5" SATA III SSD, it might not be worth it AND if you do get an NVME M.2 drive I would recommend that you stick to Samsung, Sandisk, Crucial, Western digital or Intel.

 

[GregHad]

Thanks a lot for that, it makes more sense to me now.
Have a great day, Cheers Greg

 

[Darkbreeze]

For sure. My pleasure. Anytime.