[SOLVED] Looking to upgrade, but don't know if I need to...

[RJGray]

Howdy!

I currently have the H81H3-M Motherboard, manual here, and I'm looking into upgrading it so that I can add an SSD. I've never had an SSD before, and from what I read, the m.2 versions are about 4x faster than the 2.5 inch versions. So I'm looking into getting a new Mobo that will support m.2 SSD.

But my quandary is, do I need to upgrade, and would the upgrade be worth it?

Currently, this is my setup.

CPU - Intel Core i7-4790k
RAM - 2 x 8GB or 16 GB
GPU - AMD Radeon RX 590 Fatboy (covers up 2 slots beneath it's own, bottom fans)
PSU - 650 Watt Seasonic Platinum
HDD - Dual Sata III Disk Drives, both at 500 GB space, 1xHDD 1xSSHD (Not combined, HDD is currently Boot Drive)
Monitor - Single monitor, DYNEX, 2560x1440 QHD max resolution (Primarily set to 1360x768 resolution)
Mobo - ECS H81H3-M (220mm x 244mm or 9.6in x 8.7in)
OS - Windows 10
Case - Acer Veriton M2 Series (manually removed built-in HDD holders to make space for GPU) (Front and left side ventilation)
Cooling - single CPU fan + Stock GPU fans (2x on GPU) + nearby AC Unit (Bgears b-Blaster 2 Ball Bearing High Speed Extreme Airflow Fan Here) (AC unit regulates between 65-68 F and is located less than 3 feet above and 2 feet beside facing the left side of the Case)

I also don't know, if I do upgrade, if I should get a motherboard with 2 more ram slots (total 4 slots) as I still have my old 2 x 4GB ram sticks that I might be able to add in addition to the 2 x 8GB Ram I already have for a total of 24 GB RAM. But again, I don't know if it's worth it.

I definitely wish to upgrade my Boot Disk Drive(s) to be SSD as currently startup times average around 73-78 seconds and disk usage is constantly at 100% during startup (fine most other times though). And I definitely wish to keep the LGA1150 CPU type as my i7 4790K is only about 68% worse than the i9 9900k according to PC Benchmark (whatever that means). As for getting more ram or getting an m.2 + new motherboard instead of a SATA III SSD, I know not if it's needed or worth it.

Any suggestions there are welcomed.

Oh, and before you recommend an addon or m.2 PCIe adapter, because of the 590 fatboy, all the slots that would allow for addons are covered and unusable, and only 2 Sata slots of the 4 I have are open and used. So any addons are not feasible at the moment unless they are USB based, and I'd be outright replacing my HDD Boot drive with the SSD.

Ultimate goal is smooth VR (With the Oculus Rift S) and roughly QHD resolution, as well as faster startup times (ideally less than 30 seconds, if possible? I've never experienced a PC start up faster than 50 seconds though, so I don't know what's considered a fast startup speed.)

Also, I'm only looking at 1TB or higher for SSD sizes, and the new SSD, whatever kind I get, will without a doubt become my new Boot Drive. And if I get a new Mobo, I'd use both the HDD and SSHD as a backup Striped drive (I guess it's a form or RAID? Dunno if that's true or not).

My overall budget for this is ideally less than $200, but can go as high as $350 for now.

So thanks in advance for the help, and here's hoping the results aren't too expensive! lol

 

[GarrettL]

If I were you I'd wait on upgrading for a couple more months, lots of new toys coming out in the fall. Your PC is older but still capable.

You can add an SSD to your system, it will work fine.

For reference;

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3AMz-xZ2VM

 

[RJGray]

So according to the video, everyone who I've seen saying that the m.2 is 4x faster than an SSD has either been plain wrong or been referring to the difference between SSD and HDD? and the m.2 isn't actually all that better than a SATA II connected SSD?

Or does it just not even matter at this point in time, or makes nearly no difference due to diminishing returns?

Lovely. Someone ought to tell 'em.

 

[GarrettL]

M2 NVMe are faster, depends on what your doing with it.

 

[Karadjgne]

There's a difference. A Sata ssd is @ 5x faster than a 7200rpm hdd. A 3rd gen pcie NVMe is @ 2x faster than a Sata ssd. A 4th gen pcie NVMe is @ 1.5x faster than a 3rd gen pcie NVMe.

But that's just the drive. Has nothing to do with the form. There's 3.5" Sata, 2.5" Sata, M.2 Sata and they are all the same thing. Identical specs. The difference is the form factor. The 2.5/3.5 Sata have a case and require a power plug and a data plug. M.2 is just the same but without the case, plugs directly into the motherboard IF the motherboard has a M.2 SATA port. Some don't. They have a M.2 Pcie NVMe port. Some have a single port that is both types. Some have 2 ports, one for each or one port for either and one port is just pcie NVMe.

It can get confusing, but you have to look up the motherboard specs which tells you (or in the manual) which is which.

But that's only concerning M.2, which is only a concern IF your motherboard is equipped. If it is not, like older series such as your H81, then all you need is a standard Sata type SSD that plugs in exactly like a normal hdd. Like this from Samsung :


But understand, actual speeds are a relative thing. A ssd can shove data to the cpu far faster than it can use it in a game, so often you don't see much, if any difference. Except for things like load times when moving between maps or drops or even starting the game.

Skyrim with mods could take upto 2 minutes with me going from inside a building to outside, just with area map loading. With ssd it averages about 10 seconds instead. CSGO took 20-30 seconds for a drop when going into Office, with ssd it's closer to 5 seconds at most, which is great because I'm in with the group, they aren't already half dead by the time I get there. Might not improve the game play much, but sure makes it a lot more fun when you can play the game and not waste half your time waiting in limbo.

 

[RJGray]

Thanks for all the replies so far!

I was looking for performance and how it actually handles, not the specs. I get and see that the numbers say that there can be up to multiple thousands of MB/s, and those are 4-5x or more than sata 3 SSDs. But after about a week of intensive research and learning a lot, the general consensus is that the point of diminishing returns is present and that m.2 SSDs have surpassed that point by a large margin. Apparently, once one hits around 400-600 MB/s average R/W speeds, there's next to no difference in performance in games or movies, and at times none whatsoever when you go above that, regardless of how high one goes. And roughly half that speed for random R/W speeds for the point of diminishing returns from what I can tell.

This also explains why the price for m.2s is the same as or slightly lower than the SATA 3 SSDs, as they now have surplus and technology that cannot improve upon anything beyond numbers and location of the drive itself, and that ultimately do little to nothing to enhance any experience, be it gaming, load times, boot times, or other.

That's why I chose the response I did as the best answer, as it also showed one source of many that helped prove their point. But again, thank you all the same!