New PC Build with two M.2 cards?

[Robert_388]

I was thinking of using one smaller one for boot and another, larger one for apps/games (specifically steam games). Does that make sense or should I just get one big one and put everything on it? This is on an 1800X ry system (got a good deal on a used chip) on a ASRock Taichi X370 mb. TIA.

 

[R_1]

I would suggest an M.2 NVME (crazy fast but pricier than SATA drives) drive for the windows boot drive, and an M.2 SATA (usually cheaper than an NVME but still fast) drive of much larger size for whatever else, and finally a hard drive for slow mass storage.

install windows with only the boot drive installed. windows likes to spread the wealth and may put needed boot files on another drive, pain in the donkey. if you ever format or remove that drive and you just killed windows. so ALWAYS install windows with only target drive installed.

 

[Robert_388]

I would suggest an M.2 NVME (crazy fast but pricier than SATA drives) drive for the windows boot drive, and an M.2 SATA (usually cheaper than an NVME but still fast) drive of much larger size for whatever else, and finally a hard drive for slow mass storage.

install windows with only the boot drive installed. windows likes to spread the wealth and may put needed boot files on another drive, pain in the donkey. if you ever format or remove that drive and you just killed windows. so ALWAYS install windows with only target drive installed.

I was just pricing NVMe m.2 pciex4 cards and the 960gb Corsair Force MP300 is not all that bad at $240 for what you get. I remember from the old days it was always better to have your windows on one drive and other stuff on the other so in case windows is doing something on one drive, your game or whatever doesn't have to wait for that. But with a really fast M.2 boot drive with also my steam library on it, would I really see any difference? BTW I have MANY MANY spinning drives for data (largely photos and videos) that will plug into the ten SATA3 connectors on the Taichi (I intend to populate all of them).

 

[R_1]

When the bus to main storage was 150Mbps not 2.5Gbps you wanted to have as much data on as many ports as possible. should not be an issue here if you get the 960Gb drive this will not be an issue at all, windows and the steam library and even more will fit and be fine.
The main thing you will notice with this drive is the loading times of large files, game levels, etc.

in my system on HDD Killing floor 2 takes 2.5-3 minutes to load into RAM, with an SATA SSD it takes 40 seconds to load. it should load faster if loading from an NVME drive. this is where the NVME will pay for itself over and over.

 

[Robert_388]

What I may do is start out with a smaller NVMe in the first M2 slot and try it out, then later add a bigger one to the second M2 slot and test to see if I can tell a difference after moving my steam library to the second drive. I tend to obsess about these little things, like even if the NVMe is super fast if windows wants something at the same time the game is loading the next set of textures or whatever, ... well just thinking about that i bet the only thing I could possibly even see would be a slight delay in texture fill rate or pop-in of stuff. The 480gb is only $140 (sorry the 960 is actually $280 not $240) and right now the windows and solidworks and photoshop and office and etc on my laptop SSD only comes to about 110gb, so I will still have plenty of room for some games. Then later I can add a second NVMe for use as a scratch disk (really I use my PC for 99% photo/video work and game on my xbone S) and try games on that to "test" if I can see any difference in performance/load times etc. Thanks for your insight btw.

 

[R_1]

http://www.thessdreview.com/featured/ssd-throughput-latency-iopsexplained/ Input/Output per second
I would give this a quick read over before buying any ssd. Remember you will want to keep 10-15% of the SSD free to maintain acceptable performance.

I would bite the bullet on the 480GB

 

[TheRealDudeWeHate]

so i appreciate all the advice there has been so i changed the build a bit.
[PCPartPicker part list](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3Jcmvn) / [Price breakdown by merchant](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/3Jcmvn/by_merchant/)

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [Intel - Core i3-8350K 4 GHz Quad-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/fCs8TW/intel-core-i3-8350k-40ghz-quad-core-processor-bx80684i38350k) | $169.00 @ Amazon
**CPU Cooler** | [Corsair - H110i 113 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3XyxFT/corsair-cpu-cooler-cw9060026ww) | $89.99 @ Newegg
**Motherboard** | [MSI - Z390-A PRO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/qpL48d/msi-z390-a-pro-atx-lga1151-motherboard-z390-a-pro) | $128.49 @ SuperBiiz
**Memory** | [Kingston - HyperX Fury 16 GB (1 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/6v448d/kingston-hyperx-fury-16gb-1-x-16gb-ddr4-2666-memory-hx426c16fr16) | $132.39 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [ADATA - XPG SX850 256 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hbQG3C/adata-xpg-sx850-256gb-25-solid-state-drive-ssd-sx850-256g) | $44.00 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [Samsung - 860 Evo 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/6yKcCJ/samsung-860-evo-500gb-25-solid-state-drive-mz-76e500bam) | $72.99 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [Samsung - 860 Evo 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/6yKcCJ/samsung-860-evo-500gb-25-solid-state-drive-mz-76e500bam) | $72.99 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [Seagate - Surveillance HDD 1 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/hJx9TW/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st1000vx001) | $93.99 @ Amazon
**Video Card** | [Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB Dual Series Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/fPFXsY/asus-geforce-gtx-1070-8gb-dual-video-card-dual-gtx1070-o8g) | $334.89 @ OutletPC
**Case** | [Phanteks - Eclipse P350X (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/w766Mp/phanteks-eclipse-p350x-atx-mid-tower-case-ph-ec350ptg_dbk) | $76.98 @ Newegg
**Power Supply** | [EVGA - 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/rt8H99/evga-power-supply-210gq0750) | $83.20 @ Amazon
| *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $1378.91
| Mail-in rebates | -$80.00
| **Total** | **$1298.91**