oldnconfuzed :
I'm looking to reduce wait times associated with start-up, changing characters, and especially loading zones in a game (Elder Scrolls Online). Money isn't a huge consideration (within logical reason). Assume high-end "everything else" (CPU, Graphics, etc). Do I want:
1) a 970 Pro (Windows + Game)
2) a 970 Evo (I keep reading that the differences might be "unnoticeable"
3) two 970 Evos in Raid 0
4) an Optane 900P
My current system runs older "non-M.2 NVMe" SSD's (2 in raid 0) ... so I'm well versed in the difference between them and a hard drive.
Thanks kindly in advance!
Definitely not two Evos in RAID0 (RAID is very silly for most SSD use cases), and the Pro won't help much either over the Evo. If you are capable of returning it within 14 days at no loss,
and your motherboard either has one of those very rare U2 connectors or your PCIe lanes can handle the Optane 900P/905P PCIe without gimping your graphics card from 16x to 8x, you could try if Optane helps much. Stuff it in the PC, format it, install / copy your game there, see if it's much better, return for a refund.
Overall though, unless your SSDs are of the particularly slow variety, neither the Optane nor the 970 Evo
should be a huge improvement for game load times over an existing SSD setup.