Will an M.2 nvme ssd improve my gaming experience

DrDinger

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Dec 27, 2014
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Hi,

My system:
I7 4770k
Msi z97x gaming 5
1x ssd connected to sata, 3hdds
16gb ddr3 1600mhz
2 x GeForce 980 in sli

I'm wondering if I get an M.2 nvme hdd, with this board and setup, if there will be a substantial difference in my gaming experience.

I'm just confused with respect to the pcie lanes / bandwidth for the nvme drive. I think that my graphics card use 2x8 pci lanes. The mobo says that that sata ports 4 and 5 get used if I used the M.2 or sas slots.
 
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Solution
No, M.2 (NVME) SSDs only impact load times, they would have no direct impact on your gaming performance.
Additionally, while an upgrade from an HDD to SSD is a big difference, SSD to NVME is diminished for gaming.

BadAsAl

Distinguished
I had a SATA SSD and replaced with an M.2 Nvme SSD and while my benchmarks were mucho impressiovo (went from 500MB/s +- read to over 3000MB/s read), the actual improvement in usability and in games was not noticeable.

I did at one time have my OS on an SATA SSD and my games on HDD and did notice a big improvement in load times when I moved the games to the SSD. But the playability remained the same pretty much.
 
The SSD will improve loading what ever you have installed on it. Your O/S, programs games what ever program you load from it. Unless the program or games requires a lot of IO from your drive it won't speed up game play, just game loading time. For me it went from several minutes to load my O/S to about 10-12 seconds.

 
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rabaker07

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I'm seeing a ton of M.2/NVMe drives at almost identical prices (10-15 cents/GB) with rated (and verified) speeds of around 600%. Most SATA SSDs are around 500MB/s, and these M.2s are at 2500-3500+ MB/s !!! That's insanely faster and for moving large files from drive to drive (as long as they're all high bandwidth) AND daily operations, I can't see that as not having a decent and noticeable impact. Am I missing something here?

Why should I get a SATA SSD (540mb/s) over an M.2 (3500mb/s) now that the price point is comparable?

I mean, look at these!!

https://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-Pilot-Internal-Solid-MKNSSDPL1TB-D8/dp/B07CYDM17T

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-500GB-MZ-V7E500BW/dp/B07BN217QG
 

USAFRet

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I'm seeing a ton of M.2/NVMe drives at almost identical prices (10-15 cents/GB) with rated (and verified) speeds of around 600%. Most SATA SSDs are around 500MB/s, and these M.2s are at 2500-3500+ MB/s !!! That's insanely faster and for moving large files from drive to drive (as long as they're all high bandwidth) AND daily operations, I can't see that as not having a decent and noticeable impact. Am I missing something here?

Why should I get a SATA SSD (540mb/s) over an M.2 (3500mb/s) now that the price point is comparable?

I mean, look at these!!

https://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-Pilot-Internal-Solid-MKNSSDPL1TB-D8/dp/B07CYDM17T

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-500GB-MZ-V7E500BW/dp/B07BN217QG
6 months ago or earlier (when this thread started), the drive landscape and pricing was very, very different.

If you already have SATA III SSD's, moving to an NVMe is not a huge user facing difference.
If you have only HDD's, then move to whatever the best SSD your motherboard can take natively.

I have a stack of SATA III SSD in my system. A couple weeks ago, I added an Intel 660p in an adapter in the PCIe slot.
Can't really tell the difference over the Samsung 8X0 drives.

Benchmark numbers are not user facing numbers.
 

rabaker07

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6 months ago or earlier (when this thread started), the drive landscape and pricing was very, very different.

If you already have SATA III SSD's, moving to an NVMe is not a huge user facing difference.
If you have only HDD's, then move to whatever the best SSD your motherboard can take natively.

I have a stack of SATA III SSD in my system. A couple weeks ago, I added an Intel 660p in an adapter in the PCIe slot.
Can't really tell the difference over the Samsung 8X0 drives.

Benchmark numbers are not user facing numbers.

Yes, that's what I'm thinking: the landscape is changing so fast these days. Must be Moore's Law at work. They say that eventually the price of a supercomputer will be pennies (but leave it to the marketers, manufacturers, and politicians to work out an OPEC-like pricing collusion to keep their pockets full...).

I realize that the m.2 will be limited by any other drives in your system when moving files, but you don't see any difference in say, converting a video file? Or any other operations? That's unfortunate. Perhaps most operations aren't reliant on accessing storage, but moreso accessing RAM and primarily Network these days. I suppose I may see a bump in loading large game files on launch (GTA5 has always taken forever. Surely there's some improvement on that game?!)

I figure if I can find an m.2 at a comparable price, then why not (as you said). As long as I don't run into any installation/compatibility issues...

Thanks for the feedback.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Yes, that's what I'm thinking: the landscape is changing so fast these days. Must be Moore's Law at work. They say that eventually the price of a supercomputer will be pennies (but leave it to the marketers, manufacturers, and politicians to work out an OPEC-like pricing collusion to keep their pockets full...).

I realize that the m.2 will be limited by any other drives in your system when moving files, but you don't see any difference in say, converting a video file? Or any other operations? That's unfortunate. Perhaps most operations aren't reliant on accessing storage, but moreso accessing RAM and primarily Network these days. I suppose I may see a bump in loading large game files on launch (GTA5 has always taken forever. Surely there's some improvement on that game?!)

I figure if I can find an m.2 at a comparable price, then why not (as you said). As long as I don't run into any installation/compatibility issues...

Thanks for the feedback.
Yes, CPU/GPU/RAM has a large impact on the overall performance.

Just after installing that drive, I did an impromptu test. A function that people might do all the time.

Adobe Lightroom, 5 RAW images direct out of my camera.
Multiple edits to these RAW files.

Writing those same files and edits out to 3 different drives, individually with a full reboot in between
Samsung 840 EVO 250GB, 5 years old
Samsung 860 EVO 1TB, 6 months old
Intel 660p 1TB, 2 weeks old

Zero difference...took 15 seconds to finish that process, on those 3 drives.