Question NVME Support

Jun 6, 2019
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Thanks for the speedy reply. Where do I find a resource that tells which PCs would support this? I'm looking for a used PC on Ebay and this is feature i want.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Thanks for the speedy reply. Where do I find a resource that tells which PCs would support this? I'm looking for a used PC on Ebay and this is feature i want.
Why?
Any system of that vintage would not really benefit from an NVMe drive. It's like putting racing tires on a beat up 10 year old Honda Civic.
That performance is wasted.

What would you be using this system for?
 
Jun 6, 2019
4
0
10
I'm looking for a newer vintage PC, I just don't know how to tell if it supports NVME or not. I'm not that familiar with ASUS but it was recommended to me. I'm not tied to it however.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
I'm looking for a newer vintage PC, I just don't know how to tell if it supports NVME or not. I'm not that familiar with ASUS but it was recommended to me. I'm not tied to it however.
You have to look at the specific motherboard. For full NVMe support, avoid anything older than (Intel platform) a Z170.

But, in a "vintage PC", the NVMe is totally wasted.
Even on newer systems, unless you are doing large data moves between two of those drives...the single one is left waiting around for the rest of the system and other drives.
 
NVME storage, although impressive when it comes time to install WIndows 10 from USB media. is not quite otherwise the sole performance pinnacle factor you might be hoping for; certainly one does not acquire the latest X4 PCI-e lanes NMVE solution, and then assemble an older budget Z97-based rig around it, where often older chipsets might be limited to 1/4 or 1/2 speed ...

It would also be helpful to know the intended computer's primary purpose...(as others have already alluded to, storage technically 4x as fast often only shaves a few seconds from a game's launch time or even Windows boot time, and 28 seconds vs. 30 sec is hardly the equivalent of a parted Red Sea...)
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
NVMe is supported basically from Haswell refresh and newer, according to Samsung, pretty much Z97 and newer. NVMe has worked on some Z68/Z77 mobo's, as a bootable drive, but requires hijacking the bios code, installing raid drivers with NVMe modules etc and is about as reliable a procedure as surgery done by a blind man. Highly not recommended, stick to standard Sata drives.

Real difference between Sata and NVMe for boot is 1-3 seconds at best. For most applications, especially games, there's no difference at all. The only place NVMe is a serious benefit over Sata is in dealing with large file transfers, where individual files are 10Mb±, and with games the files are usually in the Kb size.

As someone already said, NVMe, 'meh'.