Patriot Hellfire M.2 240GB NVMe SSD Review

[shrapnel_indie]

What you are saying is almost like saying "Hey, Minsweeper runs at 100 FPS with Intel's integrated graphics, so why test separate graphics cards?"

Except it's really not. I'm not saying Minesweeper is a close representative of the majority of games nor am I saying the Intel iGPU is a good analogue for most GPUs. I'm saying from a perceived user experience perspective, most flash drives perform close to each other.

Yes, some controllers and flash quality can theoretically perform much faster than others when all other restrictions are removed from the equation. So when you're using synthetic testing for IOPS and massive sequential read speed, you see a big gap. Those performance benefits aren't noticed near as much in real world unless you're moving mass data around. Basic functions like machine start up and application launch won't appear noticeably different. Look at the application specific benches Chris posted in the review. They're nearly flat.

If you still don't believe me, or don't believe Chris in how fast boot bloat happens, I tested my X99 testbed tonight with both a Samsung 840 Pro ( AHCI SATA ) and Toshiba RDV400 ( NVMe 3.0 x4 ). Using identical images I timed them from the boot drive select menu, thus removing POST and other delays. Best tool I had was a stopwatch on my phone. Both booted to Win10 desktop in 8 seconds, +/- 100 ms for my reflex response time. Is it possible the NVMe is 200 ms faster in booting? Sure. But that's only 2.5% improvement at best, not to mention it's within margin of error so it's largely irrelevant. You'd need a boot time of 40 seconds to get even a 1 second difference, which again wouldn't be noticeable.

Hmm, interesting data. My son is ready to upgrade from his 256G Samsung SSD. We were going to go with a 500GB 960 EVO. Maybe we should stick to a SATA M.2 to save a lot of money. Maybe get a 1TB SATA M.2.

Thanks.

For the most part, there may be so little difference (due to data size) between SATA and PCIe-NVMe that you'd never notice.

 

[RedJaron]

For the most part, there may be so little difference (due to data size) between SATA and PCIe-NVMe that you'd never notice.

This, right here, is the big part. When loading a lot of little files, it's not that big a deal. Same reason most people don't see performance gains between basic RAM and premium modules. Unless you're doing specific, high-traffic workloads, the extra bandwidth doesn't matter as much.

 

[awood28211]

I just picked this drive up and installed it into a brand new gaming build... So new I haven't even installed the OS yet. The benchmarks look very pleasing to me and the $279 price tag was acceptable... but there were other reasons to go with the M.2 drive. One, CLEAN build. As the only drive in the system (for now) there's no power or sata cable snaking through my box. This car mounts between the last 2 PCIe slots on my board. With 2x graphics cards and an pcie capture card, there's relatively little room (read: no room) to play around inside the box so going with a slot card wasn't appealing either. There are literally only the 2 gfx power cables over the span of my board and they feed directly down from the connection through holes in the mount plate and out of sight. TWO: I also went with the format because my case provides 2 intake fans exactly in front of the M.2 connection on my board. Cool air will always be flowing across the device and then onto the gfx cards...any thermal issues should have less impact this way.