ssd / m2 advice

Have gathered up bits and pieces for a new build. Storage bought, a couple of 2TB WD blacks and a Samsung 500gb 850 Evo. Using a MSI
X99A SLI Plus Intel X99 mobo. I Intended using the Evo for windows. I see some recomendations for using the M2 drives as on paper they are much faster. So is real world difference night and day? and it worth getting a M2 drive like a Polaris 961 for windows? Perhaps then,the Evo for Games/Video instead? Seems like with PCs, the buying goes on and on.

"So is real world difference night and day?" ... no

Short of benchmarks, I doubt very much that you would notice the slightest "real word" difference between a PCIE M2 drive (EG. 950/1, or 960/1) and a decent SATA SSD.

But if you have some spare cash burning a hole in your pocket, or just fancy one... then why not.

For a lot, it's the fun of owning the best. Very often "common sense" or any form of justification is not really needed. And I speak from experience here

After Christmas spending, there is very little left to burn a hole in anything. Just the news I wanted to hear. I can buy food this month and not have to worry that I missed out on a must have M2 drive. Cheers for that!

The new M.2 drives are up to 4 times as fast, though nearly double the price. Not as noticeable as an upgrade from hdd

For price/performance ssd can't be beaten

For me the real world benefit of a M.2 drive was a reduction in the cabling in my PC rather than any noticeable improvement is loading times.

Thanks for all the help guys. Appreciate it. Its a middling build, so will add another 850 evo at some point. Thats a middling solution.

Mikey C said:

For me the real world benefit of a M.2 drive was a reduction in the cabling in my PC rather than any noticeable improvement is loading times.

Click to expand...

This is also my thinking, when you factor in 'real world' performance against cost it's a no brainer as nobody will notice the difference apart from your bank balance.

Although previous posts have also mentioned that the M2s run quite warm and have advised adding cooling fins from memory cards etc.

Maundie said:

This is also my thinking, when you factor in 'real world' performance against cost it's a no brainer as nobody will notice the difference apart from your bank balance.

Although previous posts have also mentioned that the M2s run quite warm and have advised adding cooling fins from memory cards etc.

Click to expand...

That is definitely the case, mine was getting over 60 in normal use so I fitted ramsinks to it which brought the temps down to around 50 which was fine as the drives don't throttle until they reach 70.

I then changed motherboards but as the new board's M.2 slot is in a really stupid place I ended up getting a https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aqua...sd-m-key-with-passive-heatsink-cc-000-aq.html and now the drive never gets above 40.