What difference will a better M.2 make to load times?

Soldato
Joined
25 Mar 2008
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9,181
I'm waiting for a new system to arrive and the OS is installed on an Intel p600 M.2 drive.

I'm concious that these aren't great in terms of speeds (Read 1570MB/s Write 540MB/s) and I'm wondering whether I should have splashed out on a Samsung (Read 3100MB/s Write 1400MB/s ).

What real world difference would I notice in boot and load times, and will it be an easy task to swap Windows over to a Sumsung M.2 if I order one?
 
Don
Joined
19 May 2012
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Spalding, Lincolnshire
Unless you have a stop watch, I would say very little difference.

Windows startup is limited by lots of little files, so any SSD makes a huge difference, but actual transfer rate has little impact.

With games, often they are limited by processing / how the games loading routine is threaded, rather than being limited by sequential read speeds.
 
Soldato
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4 Dec 2015
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London
As above doubt you'll notice it vs. SSD but the biggest gains will be tidying up the bios to stop boot seeking HDDs/DVDs etc. I'm HDD free and its pretty fast but a mix of the Samsung M.2 and 4 SSDs.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Oct 2005
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2,603
I did this a few months back with nvme 950's on two systems, the change was easily noticeable on my 5930k system (Im talking 2 second bootup), but not quite the mech to ssd jump.
On my 6700k it barely made a difference.
 
Soldato
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6 Jan 2013
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Yorkshire
How fast do ya need it to boot? :) I'm on an old Samsung ssd and it only takes 8 seconds, by the time I have sat down and turned on my monitor it's ready to go. If you do get one of them super fast ones let us know how fast your boot time is, you've got me interested now.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
25 Mar 2008
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9,181
This is one of those rare moments in my life where I'm getting something almost without compromise. I want to make the most of the opportunity, and although there's little real world difference between 8 seconds and 12, it's something I think would give me irrational satisfaction every time I switch on!

That said, the hassle of transferring the OS over is a higher price to me than the difference in m.2 drive costs, so if it's sub 10 seconds, I'll be very happy.
 
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