Nvme Plunge suggestions?

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ebduncan

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 1, 2008
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So I've finally decided that its time to move to a NVME boot drive.

Been using a old 256gb OCZ Vertex 4 for long time now and its life span is starting to get questionable. So the search for a new boot drive begins.

Been looking at the Samsung 970 EVO 256gb or the 500gb WD Black

Day old question it feels a bit extra capacity vs bit more speed.

Current drive setup
256gb OCZ Vertex 4- boot
1tb Mushkin eco SSD x 2 (one games, one apps)
4tb Seagate Barracuda SSHD x 2 (one media, one backup)
 
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Just remember the smallest drive in a lineup almost always has a decent drop in performance over the larger drives. Out of those options I would get the WD Black.

You might also want to consider the Adata SX8200 480GB. It is slightly slower but has been on sale a few times for $99.
 
for gamers is an NVMe worth it over an SSD?...I've read that NVMe makes almost no difference when it comes to loading times in games and is more for people who do a lot of video editing etc...I also heard about possible overheating issues
 
I also heard about possible overheating issue
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I would say that this problem is a little overblown. Under normal operations you are unlikely to have an issue. Unless your NVMe drive is under the GPU. Now if you benchmark all day you may need additional cooling..
 
so is it best to install an NVMe into the dedicated M.2 slot on the motherboard or buy an adapter cable and install it into the PCIe slot?...I thought installing it into the M.2 slot was best but read that performance is a bit worse and it uses up a SATA port...whereas installing it into a pcie slot you lose pcie lanes?...which is best?...I'm confused
 
polonyc2 said:
for gamers is an NVMe worth it over an SSD?...I've read that NVMe makes almost no difference when it comes to loading times in games and is more for people who do a lot of video editing etc...I also heard about possible overheating issues
Click to expand...


https://techreport.com/review/33545/samsung-970-evo-1-tb-ssd-reviewed/5

NVMe is irrelevant over SATA for all typical desktop/office/gaming applications. It's not until you get into some heavy edge cases (I guess some A/V editing applications might fall under that) that NVMe becomes worth the cost premium. That said, should you find a good NVMe drive at a really good price relative to a similar SATA unit, I don't think anyone could fault you for going for it.

IIRC most if not all the reports of SSD overheating were from test suites that placed artificial, sustained workloads on the drive (typical usage is more bursty). Common placement under the GPU certainly doesn't help. There's always the option of getting a m.2-PCIe slot adapter, which are relatively cheap and some include heatsinks.
 
polonyc2 said:
for gamers is an NVMe worth it over an SSD?...I've read that NVMe makes almost no difference when it comes to loading times in games and is more for people who do a lot of video editing etc...I also heard about possible overheating issues
Click to expand...

Depends on the game.

Initial loads dont seem to be much better - MMO type stuff, teleport in WOW - or moving into a texture heavy area in SWL the NVME seems much better then my SSD (both m.2).

Dont have numbers though.
 
polonyc2 said:
so installing an NVMe M.2 like the Samsung one I linked below into a dedicated M.2 slot on the motherboard doesn't have any negative performance or other issues?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147691
Click to expand...

NVME drives essentially run *on* the PCIE bus directly with PCIE lanes routed directly to the CPU. This is why they are faster (in theory) vs traditional SSD's that are not native NVME as those still go through a controller which adds latency. As to whether the port you install it in has any impact on performance, it all depends on how the motherboard is set up to handle the NVME drives. Most motherboards will share some NVME ports with on board controllers, so you need to disable whichever one you are not going to use. Having said this, there are also motherboards with NVME slots that are dedicated and dont share anything with anything else. As other have stated, while heat can also cause performance issues, its typically not an issue in the real world. There are of course always edge cases, so if you have option #1 of no airflow and option #2 *with* airflow, you pick option #2.
 
Dermen said:
Just remember the smallest drive in a lineup almost always has a decent drop in performance over the larger drives. Out of those options I would get the WD Black.

You might also want to consider the Adata SX8200 480GB. It is slightly slower but has been on sale a few times for $99.
Click to expand...

Ya, Definitely leaning towards the larger drive for that reason.

polonyc2 said:
so is it best to install an NVMe into the dedicated M.2 slot on the motherboard or buy an adapter cable and install it into the PCIe slot?...I thought installing it into the M.2 slot was best but read that performance is a bit worse and it uses up a SATA port...whereas installing it into a pcie slot you lose pcie lanes?...which is best?...I'm confused
Click to expand...

with an NVME drive, you have to use the PCI-E bandwidth. Full speed is x4 anything less than that and you will loose performance on the newer drives.

polonyc2 said:
so installing an NVMe M.2 like the Samsung one I linked below into a dedicated M.2 slot on the motherboard doesn't have any negative performance or other issues?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147691
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter if you use the m2 slot on the motherboard, or a PCI-e Adapter card. Both will use the PCI-E bus. Keep in mind the performance will only be the same if the PCI-E slot you use supports x4 bandwidth.
 
drescherjm said:
Only if it is a SATA M.2 drive.
Click to expand...

polonyc2 said:
so installing an NVMe M.2 like the Samsung one I linked below into a dedicated M.2 slot on the motherboard doesn't have any negative performance or other issues?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147691
Click to expand...

You have to check individual boards for their configurations when using NVMe or SATA drives in the M.2 slots. Some of them will disable other PCIe slots on the motherboard (as I found out the hard way), some will disable certain SATA ports (check the manual for specifics). This isn't as much (if at all) an issue with the high PCIe lane count platforms like X299/X399, but on the mainstream platforms, Z370/X470 etc., you have to read the fine print if you're going to add other cards to your system or have a lot of drives.
 
Nasgul said:
I switched from a WD Blue 500GB to an Intel 760P nvme and the difference in boot time is not a day and night difference, also for opening files.

I went from 500GB to 256GB because at best, I only have about 60GB of used space. And 4x 500GB SSD SATA IIIs for extra storage.

Although overall, from SSD to nvme, you may not see such a huge difference, personally I wish I hadn't spent the money and kept the SSD as the main drive.

Right now a 500GB WD Blue 3D is $99 and a 500GB WD Black is $160.

Pocket the $60 and use it for something else, while having a 500GB new drive.
Click to expand...

Don't really expect to see much improvement honestly. Only real reason I'm swapping is cause my current boot drive was purchased back in 2012.

Ended up buying both the 500gb WD black and Samsung Evo 500gb. I will just return the lesser drive or sell it. Gives me a good chance to bust out a review between the two.
 
I used an M.2 NVME (Samsung Evo 960) to clean up cabling. I have an ITX case and wanted a clean look, so went with the NVME drive mounted in the slot located underneath my motherboard. Never a problem and it's always nice to have 3200mb/s transfer rate (even though I may never 'see' it).
 
I honestly would suggest a SM2262-based drive unless you're dealing with higher queue depths and/or denser mixed workloads. That being said, the WD Black's custom 3-core controller matches up well with the 5-core on Samsung's drives and is somewhere between the 960 and 970 EVO.
 
polonyc2 said:
so is it best to install an NVMe into the dedicated M.2 slot on the motherboard or buy an adapter cable and install it into the PCIe slot?...I thought installing it into the M.2 slot was best but read that performance is a bit worse and it uses up a SATA port...whereas installing it into a pcie slot you lose pcie lanes?...which is best?...I'm confused
Click to expand...

Depending on which slot you use on the motherboard (or multiple slots), you can lose PCIe slots or SATA ports. This depends on the specific motherboard so check the manual. As to ideal placement of a M.2 drive (including a PCIe adapter), again depends on the motherboard. Also it depends if you are using a SATA M.2 drive or a NVMe M.2 drive.
 
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ebduncan said:
Doesn't matter if you use the m2 slot on the motherboard, or a PCI-e Adapter card. Both will use the PCI-E bus. Keep in mind the performance will only be the same if the PCI-E slot you use supports x4 bandwidth.
Click to expand...

I elaborated this on my post above but just to directly respond here. On Ryzen boards the primary M.2 slot actually takes 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU. However, the chipset has 8x PCIe 2.0 lanes so a 2nd M.2 slot will be limited to 4x PCIe 2.0. Placing a PCIe adapter into the normal PCIe slots will still have this limitation, and both can be bottlenecked by the chipset. Placing the PCIe adapter into one of the GPU PCIe slots (8x/8x or 8x/4x/4x) will use CPU lanes instead. Intel boards are different as they have 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes to the chipset - any M.2 slots (one or more) will take from this. Placing a PCIe adapter into a normal PCIe slot will have 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes but from the chipset (so still subject to being bottlenecked). Using a GPU slot here, as with AMD, will use CPU lanes instead.

I am of course only talking normal boards (Z170/270/370, X370/X470)
 
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you are very right. Each and every board is different and its best to check with the user manual with which slots on the motherboard support full bandwidth.

Ryzen boards support 16 lanes of pci-e 3.0. 4 of the lanes are connected directly to the cpu for pci-e ssd. Another 4 are for usb and chipset com. For a total of 24 pci-e lanes.

Need at least x4 Pci-e 3.0 to maximize speeds of current drives.
 
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