990 Pro 2TB for OS and apps and SN850x for Games...good idea?

LGabrielPhoto

LGabrielPhoto

2[H]4U
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Jan 5, 2006
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Hi!
So based on tests/reviews I have seen it seems the 990 Pro is better with apps and may be a better OS NVME where I woudl install Adobe Premiere, After Effects and Photoshop, for example. Meanwhile, the 850x seems to outperform it for gaming so instead of going both WD or Samsungs, I was considering the 990 PRO as main drive with the WD as gaming drive.
This if for a new z790 based build.
Any thoughts about my drive choices?
Thanks
 
This is actually what I run, 2TB 990 Pro boot drive and 2TB 850X for games. My main games go on the OS drive as well. It ended up like this just because I happened to have both at one time so I decided not to buy a single 4TB which is a better idea if you're buying currently.
 
LigTasm said:
This is actually what I run, 2TB 990 Pro boot drive and 2TB 850X for games. My main games go on the OS drive as well. It ended up like this just because I happened to have both at one time so I decided not to buy a single 4TB which is a better idea if you're buying currently.
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So no point on separating os and gaming drivers or cache drive for Adobe stuff for example on my existing 850 non x. I will have several nvme slots in the z790 proart so wanted to take advantage if it was worth it
 
Back in the day, separating your OS and 'Other' drives was a pretty good idea as you would separate all the teeny tiny little reads and writes that the OS is always doing from the 'other stuff' so you don't have the HDD's read/write queues pile up waiting for the one read-head to find all the individual locations on the platter.

However modern SSDs actually THRIVE on higher queue depths, performance can double or triple at higher QDs. So two SSDs at low QDs may perform exactly the same as one SSD with a high QD.

So unless you fully saturate the sequential throughput or the random I/O of one drive, two drives won't make much of a difference.
 
KazeoHin said:
Back in the day, separating your OS and 'Other' drives was a pretty good idea as you would separate all the teeny tiny little reads and writes that the OS is always doing from the 'other stuff' so you don't have the HDD's read/write queues pile up waiting for the one read-head to find all the individual locations on the platter.

However modern SSDs actually THRIVE on higher queue depths, performance can double or triple at higher QDs. So two SSDs at low QDs may perform exactly the same as one SSD with a high QD.

So unless you fully saturate the sequential throughput or the random I/O of one drive, two drives won't make much of a difference.
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I am still living in the past lol
Plus I will be doing 2x48GB in my new build so I should be in even better position I think
Thanks for the info. I will grab a 4TB for OS and Gaming and just use the current 1tb 850 for other things
I was leaning towards the 850x over the 990 pro after seeing some less than top gaming performance of the 990.
What you think?
Thanks
 
LGabrielPhoto said:
I am still living in the past lol
Plus I will be doing 2x48GB in my new build so I should be in even better position I think
Thanks for the info. I will grab a 4TB for OS and Gaming and just use the current 1tb 850 for other things
I was leaning towards the 850x over the 990 pro after seeing some less than top gaming performance of the 990.
What you think?
Thanks
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I mean, the SSD will NEVER be the bottleneck ruining your experience.

You're talking the difference between "Ridiculously stupid crazy unbelievably fast" and "slightly more Ridiculously stupid crazy unbelievably fast"

When I'm talking about computer parts at my shop, I often use the phrase "If someone broke into your house while you were sleeping and swapped out THIS part with THAT part, you'd never notice"

That applies here.
 
Thanks to that sale on the SN850X, I'm ready to install 2TB 990 Pro + (3) 4TB SN850X in my new build for 14TB of NVMe goodness! (y) :D

PXL_20231124_033507099.jpg
 
philb2 said:
Why is that? (NOT trolling.)
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Because modern m.2 controllers like to be kept moderately busy, and dislike idle time, among other things :D
Mad Maxx said:
Thanks to that sale on the SN850X, I'm ready to install 2TB 990 Pro + (3) 4TB SN850X in my new build for 14TB of NVMe goodness! (y)
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That's a whole lottta m.2 luvin goin on in thar, congrats. Based on my experiences, both personally and as a builder, you really won't notice that much, if any, differences between those 2 drives, as they are both excellent choices for any use. However, with prices where they are ATM, I would have went for the 4TB models, but that's just me :D
 
dogDAbone said:
Because modern m.2 controllers like to be kept moderately busy, and dislike idle time, among other things :D

That's a whole lottta m.2 luvin goin on in thar, congrats. Based on my experiences, both personally and as a builder, you really won't notice that much, if any, differences between those 2 drives, as they are both excellent choices for any use. However, with prices where they are ATM, I would have went for the 4TB models, but that's just me :D
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Agreed on the negigible speed differences. Both are plenty fast. I already had the 2TB 990 and was waiting for some BF sales to try to snag a couple 4TB versions. Then, I saw that thread about the SN850X sale. Three of those 4TB beasts for just under $700 is quite a deal even if it'll be years before I approach max capacity on all that storage.
 
in my last build I tried to take advice where the m.2 was OS and another ssd was for other things. I could never install games in the other ssd, I had to install the game in the m.2, the usual drive C:

What am I missing here? How does one install games on the second drive?
 
fprish said:
in my last build I tried to take advice where the m.2 was OS and another ssd was for other things. I could never install games in the other ssd, I had to install the game in the m.2, the usual drive C:

What am I missing here? How does one install games on the second drive?
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If you use a steam type of store to make your installation, you can choose the default install drive:

where-does-steam-install-games-1.png


you can also put a couple of others location and manually change the installation folder of individual game (say old games on regular SSD and newer one on m.2 faster one)
 
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IMHO, the only benefit of the 990 Pro over the SN850X is that it supports hardware level AES 256-bit encryption. Funny enough some people report an issue enabling Bitlocker, but hopefully a firmware update fixed this because it should support it hardware level. The SN850X doesn't support this and will fall back to software based encryption which will slow it down if using Bitlocker. I don't use encryption so this didn't weigh into my decision to get three SN850Xs, both for OS and data storage.

Both drives have 5 year warranties rated for 2400TBW. Both drives have software with firmware updates / misc utility function (Samsung Magician vs WD Dashboard). The speed differences between the devices will not really be noticeable whether used as OS or secondary drive. At the current sale price of $230 SN850X vs $250 990 Pro I would just save the $20 unless you will be doing Bitlocker encryption.
 
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