[SOLVED] What does the Motherboard ad mean and NVMe ?

versionmanager

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Dec 19, 2016
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I have recently purchased a x570 Gigabyte Aorus Elite Motherboard. I intend to run Windows 10 and play modern day, 1st person shooter games. I will also be using Photoshop type programs in addition to MS Office apps.

I haven’t gotten the board yet but the advertisement lists:
“Dual Ultra-Fast NVMe PCIe 4.0/3.0 x4 M.2 & Thermal Guard”.

Does this mean the board has a slot for the NVMe and/or is this SSD already affixed to the board?

If the card is an add on, what vendor and card capacity would be best to meet my requirements? Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
Does the read/write speed factor in when playing games

Yes, and that is most notable during loading screens.

E.g when you have your game stored on a HDD, it will takes ages during loading screens since PC needs access to the game files to load another part of the game. And HDD being the slowest in regards of read/write times, it will take long time to load as well. SATA SSDs are up to 10 times faster than HDDs and most consumers are happy with SATA SSD. M.2 NVMe SSDs are up to 6 times faster than SATA SSDs and compared to the SATA SSDs, game loading times differ only few seconds.

Here is a good video showcasing the read/write speeds between HDD and SATA SSD;

View...

Aeacus

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Does this mean the board has a slot for the NVMe
Yes. And it has 2x slots for M.2 drives. Also, one of the slots has Thermal Guard heatsink included.

and/or is this SSD already affixed to the board?
No.

If the card is an add on, what vendor and card capacity would be best to meet my requirements?
Depends on your budget.

Any M.2 SSD suits into these two slots, both NVMe (PCIe) and ACHI (SATA) SSDs. (Specifically, any: Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4/x2 SSD.)
Though, NVMe SSDs are much faster and also cost a lot more than ACHI SSDs.

Here's further reading to help you pick M.2 NVMe SSD,
link: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ssds,3891.html

I'm personally using Samsung M.2 NVMe SSD (960 Evo, 500GB) since they have very good performance and solid reliability. Though, Samsung M.2 NVMe SSDs are priced on the higher side.
 

versionmanager

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Yes. And it has 2x slots for M.2 drives. Also, one of the slots has Thermal Guard heatsink included.


No.


Depends on your budget.

Any M.2 SSD suits into these two slots, both NVMe (PCIe) and ACHI (SATA) SSDs. (Specifically, any: Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4/x2 SSD.)
Though, NVMe SSDs are much faster and also cost a lot more than ACHI SSDs.

Here's further reading to help you pick M.2 NVMe SSD,
link: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ssds,3891.html

I'm personally using Samsung M.2 NVMe SSD (960 Evo, 500GB) since they have very good performance and solid reliability. Though, Samsung M.2 NVMe SSDs are priced on the higher side.
Will this the 960 EVO fit the bill?:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MFBLN7...subtag=tomshardware-us-5137391429810678000-20
 

Aeacus

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That price for the capacity is ridiculous.
If people want the best price per GB, they wouldn't be looking towards any M.2 NVMe SSDs since there have the worst price per GB ratio. Instead, they would be looking towards HDDs. People who are buying M.2 NVMe SSDs are looking for their very fast read and write speeds, rather than capacity.

Will this the 960 EVO fit the bill?

What you linked isn't the 960 Evo which i'm also using. Instead you linked 970 Evo Plus, which is successor to my SSD. It is better than my 960 Evo because when i bought my SSD 2 years ago, 970 series weren't out yet. 970 Evo Plus is good SSD but like with all good products, it is priced on the higher side.

Just for info, here is performance comparison of 970 Evo Plus (500GB) vs WD SN550 (1TB) linked by Nemesia above,
comparison: https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...g-970-Evo-NVMe-PCIe-M2-500GB/m994217vsm493995

Though, for $160, you can get 970 Evo (1TB), which has equal performance to 970 Evo Plus (500GB) but twice the storage capacity,
amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG/
comparison: https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...-Evo-Plus-NVMe-PCIe-M2-500GB/m494791vsm700020
 

versionmanager

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Dec 19, 2016
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If people want the best price per GB, they wouldn't be looking towards any M.2 NVMe SSDs since there have the worst price per GB ratio. Instead, they would be looking towards HDDs. People who are buying M.2 NVMe SSDs are looking for their very fast read and write speeds, rather than capacity.



What you linked isn't the 960 Evo which i'm also using. Instead you linked 970 Evo Plus, which is successor to my SSD. It is better than my 960 Evo because when i bought my SSD 2 years ago, 970 series weren't out yet. 970 Evo Plus is good SSD but like with all good products, it is priced on the higher side.

Just for info, here is performance comparison of 970 Evo Plus (500GB) vs WD SN550 (1TB) linked by Nemesia above,
comparison: https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...g-970-Evo-NVMe-PCIe-M2-500GB/m994217vsm493995

Though, for $160, you can get 970 Evo (1TB), which has equal performance to 970 Evo Plus (500GB) but twice the storage capacity,
amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG/
comparison: https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compa...-Evo-Plus-NVMe-PCIe-M2-500GB/m494791vsm700020
Does the read/write speed factor in when playing games and will the Game exectables be stored on this NVMe? If games are loaded here, would it be beneficial to get a 1.5 or 2 TB SSD?

What about when I plug in a Nvidia 3000 series equivalent GPU sometime in the future?
Will a quicker read/write factor of the system drive matter then?
 
Only talking about that 170 dollars 500GB. The 1TB 970 EVO PLUS is the same price. And seriously...even if you buy the samsung or the Western Digital you won't even see a difference in loading times. You will literally see no difference at all between the two when you load your OS or load your games or open an application. So it's up to you. A 1TB 100 dollars NVMe or an almost 200 dollars one for the same performance.

PCPartPicker Part List

Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($179.99 @ Adorama)
Total: $179.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-07 19:53 EDT-0400
 

Aeacus

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Does the read/write speed factor in when playing games

Yes, and that is most notable during loading screens.

E.g when you have your game stored on a HDD, it will takes ages during loading screens since PC needs access to the game files to load another part of the game. And HDD being the slowest in regards of read/write times, it will take long time to load as well. SATA SSDs are up to 10 times faster than HDDs and most consumers are happy with SATA SSD. M.2 NVMe SSDs are up to 6 times faster than SATA SSDs and compared to the SATA SSDs, game loading times differ only few seconds.

Here is a good video showcasing the read/write speeds between HDD and SATA SSD;

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j84eEjP-RL4


will the Game exectables be stored on this NVMe?
By default, new games are installed on the OS drive (C: ). However, you can change that within Steam settings.

For example, in my Haswell build (full specs with pics in my sig), i have Steam library and all games installed on D: drive since i like to keep games and OS on separate drives on that PC. On my main PC, Skylake (full specs also in my sig), i have Steam library installed on C: drive (960 Evo) since i don't install plethora of games at once.

If games are loaded here, would it be beneficial to get a 1.5 or 2 TB SSD?

1.5 and 2TB drives make sense only when you plan to install ALL or most of your Steam games on your storage drive and also keep all your pics/vids there. It's up to you how many games to install but i prefer to install few most played games and once i'm done with them, uninstall them and move to the next one.

For example: my Skylake build OS drive is 960 Evo in 500GB in size. Besides OS, i also have about 30 Steam games installed there (most games are small, casual ones). But since i keep my pics/vids/music on another drive, i have 169GB free on my OS drive.

What about when I plug in a Nvidia 3000 series equivalent GPU sometime in the future?

While M.2 NVMe SSD does use PCI-E lanes, up to 4x lanes, it isn't an issue since GPUs use 16x PCI-E lanes and if you're going with 3rd gen Ryzen CPU (e.g R5 3600) then those CPUs have 24 PCI-E lanes. Moreover, X570 chipset MoBo itself also supplies up to 16x additional PCI-E lanes. With it, you're looking towards up to 40x PCI-E lanes in your system, which is more than enough for your use.

Will a quicker read/write factor of the system drive matter then?

It does matter, especially during PC boot up and shut down since you don't have to wait that long. Look the video above to see the difference.

A 1TB 100 dollars NVMe or an almost 200 dollars one for the same performance.
Cheap price isn't the only factor between M.2 NVMe SSDs. If it were, no-one would buy Samsung drives. But for some reason, Samsung rules the M.2 NVMe drive market. So, there must be something else why people are paying extra for Samsung drives.

WD SN550 is an average M.2 NVMe SSD, it isn't the worst and it isn't the best either, when it comes to the performance.

Working against the WD Blue, Intel’s SSD 665p and Crucial’s P1 are both very competitive when it comes to light workloads and respond quickly to applications. But with their QLC NAND, the performance of those drives can sometimes lag behind other options. The same goes for the DRAMless Team Group MP33. With larger dynamic write caches, these drives can keep up with most other NVMe SSDs on a day to day basis, but once they are pushed beyond their cache, performance suffers greatly.

Source, SN550 review: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-blue-sn550-m2-nvme-ssd-review-best-dramless-ssd-yet/4

It's up to every person to decide if they are happy with average product (SN550) or if they are happy with best product (970 Evo).
 
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