M.2 PCI-e SSD worth it for Gaming?

[Rezident]

I’m pretty happy with my SATA SSDs on my aging motherboard but I’m hearing from some that the M.2 SSD’s are absolutely amazing but do they make much of a difference in loading games? My SSDs load all games very quickly already with the exception of GTA V, it does seem to take a long time on startup, although that may be just the social club etc.

Also, which PCI-e SSD’s are recommended for my mobo?

Thanks,

 

[mikeo]

Makes next to no difference in game loading times (if moving from a SATA SSD).

And "yes" I've got one.

Best used as an OS drive in my personal opinion.

 

[.:SAmSuNG:.]

Not that much different don't listen to the hype.

 

[TubbyGreg]

I agree best used as an os drive, but it's worth keeping some files and programs on there too.

 

[demon8991]

Sorry to jump on this thread as these new Samsung 950 drives have sparked my interest.

In the real world what is 2,500 MBps (read) 1,250 MBps (write) going to do for real world performance over a Samsung 850 Evo for example.

Will we see even better boot times, application load times etc.? As far as I am concerned a SATA 3 based SSD is near enough instant anyway.

 

[Rofflay]

I need to find the article that reviewed the Intel 750 PCIE one they said there is a difference and certain games felt more responsive, they promised an indepth clarification on this but i have lost the links. It aint tweaktown but another like it i think.


I am looking at an 850 evo myself or one of these new ones IF there is a more responsive feel in places and starkly better load times. Anyone thinking about the cornering loading in Batman? Had it on Sata I lost it on Sata III. Arma? Draw distance? It would cut my Gen 3 to 8x 8x. Will look more tomorrow.

 

[Rezident]

Thanks for the replies, yes I am getting mixed information too, one review saying the M.2 drives were life-changing, others saying the differences were not that great overall.

 

[mikeo]

Guys.. very much depends what you are using them for.

Boot times will improve slightly. But lets be honest, do you really give a damn if it boots in 12 seconds, rather than 18 seconds? I know I don't. Things like whether you are running Windows 10 and taking advantage of things like "hybrid shutdown" (GOOGLE it if you don't know what that is) will make a far bigger difference.

Games load times will very much depend on how the loader for the game has been coded. And whether it's been optimized to take into account drives like these that have very fast "potential" sequential reads. For most games it will not make that much difference in my opinion / experience.

"life changing" ... I almost spat my whiskey out when I read that...

Basically... if you want the fastest / best / cutting edge SSD out there and can afford it... then buy one.

If anyone is trying to cost justify one of these over a decent SATA based SSD, then don't bother.

Enjoy

 

[PowerPie5000]

It could quite possibly burn a hole in your mobo too (just joking ).... They do get pretty damn hot though!

 

[Tute]

It's not going to be anywhere near as amazing as the move from mechanical to solid state storage.

Having said that, I appreciate the loss of two cables (especially in an ITX case) and it is faster, even if not appreciably so.

 

[Rofflay]

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7237/intel-750-400gb-nvme-pcie-gen3-x4-aic-ssd-review/index.html

Speaking of the Enthusiast community, Gamers listen up. When talking with TweakTown's in-house video card expert Anthony Garreffa, he informed me that hard core gamers are finding that there is a distinct advantage when running an Intel 750 Series SSD as a gaming SSD. Generating textures in real time is very taxing on any storage device, and this is where a 750 Series SSD gives you a huge performance boost. Generating textures from a 750 Series SSD is insanely fast, so the world literally generates before your eyes, so much faster than it does with a SATA SSD, it will make your head spin. In the near future, Anthony and I will be working up a test to show the impact a good PCIe NVMe SSD will make on your gaming experience.

I want to know the real-world inpact of going from 90k IOPS to 400k.

 

[PowerPie5000]

I appreciate the loss of two cables (especially in an ITX case) and it is faster, even if not appreciably so.

I went for an M.2 SSD for that very reason, but I got the Crucial MX200 instead (SATA based M.2 drive).

 

[TubbyGreg]

I can't believe I used to use an HDD as a boot drive after using my SSD for just a short while now, I could never go back

 

[Joe!]

I bought one knowing that it wasn't going to be a noticable difference over a SATA III, but I have the slot for it and if it does help with something, I'll have that performance there. It's kinda the same reason I opted for a 6 core processor over 4 core.

If you can justify the twice the cost per gb on something that might benefit you - get one. If you want storage for your money, SATA III is the way to go for you.

 

[Ardbeg]

I got a 951 when i built my new system just because it had a m2 slot and i was blinded by the impressive stats. I will be honest, benching sure its fast! but in real day to day use it does not feel any different from my 850 evo i had before.

If i was building a new system then i would get one, however i would not bother upgrading from any modern SSD just because.

 

[mikeo]

I got a 951 when i built my new system just because it had a m2 slot and i was blinded by the impressive stats. I will be honest, benching sure its fast! but in real day to day use it does not feel any different from my 850 evo i had before.

If i was building a new system then i would get one, however i would not bother upgrading from any modern SSD just because.

Well put. Totally agree here

 

[ubersonic]

I need to find the article that reviewed the Intel 750 PCIE one they said there is a difference and certain games felt more responsive

I got an Intel 750 400GB at launch and was super impressed, it replaced a Samsung 840 as boot drive and the difference in normal usage was pretty similar to moving to the 840 from a Velociraptor!

Because I didn't need to free up the space on the 840 I kept the boot partition on it in case of emergency and I ended up using it last week to check an error I was having in W10 was driver related not hardware, one thing I noticed going back to the 840 O/S was how slow SATA3 SSD's are compared to NVMe, it felt like when you move from your system to a relatives HDD based system and you're waiting for stuff that they don't notice they're waiting for.

Overall I would definitely recommend NVMe SSD's to anyone, the speed is great, the boot times are great, and in the case of the 750 the heatsinks are great (NVMe SSDs run HOT and they throttle if they get too warm).

 

[mikeo]

Ubersonic.

No disrespect intended but thermal throttling is not just limited to nvme ssd's. Any drive will throttle back the transfer rate if it reaches a defined thermal threshold. To be honest... I doubt if in normal day to day use, that the average user will ever experience this. And that's pretty much the opinion of the various reviews I've read. Even the Samsung sm951 which runs a bit hotter than the Intel drives, is never really going to give the average Joe any concern. Other then in artificial testing, I can't quite imagine what anyone would be doing to maintain the constant high transfer rates to cause the drive to throttle.

Must say myself. That while I can feel a slight difference from my Samsung 840 Evo to the sm951 as a boot drive. I would not really call it life changing myself.

 

[Rofflay]

Well i am going to get one it seems, Logged on to see an offer of NVMe for my Z87 so that i wil be taking up alongside a tasty 400GB 750 NVMe for Christmas. Woop woop hopefully i notice the difference this platform is already insane on the latency front and i did not want to go to Z97.

And i will be glad to go cable free in the Gen 3 8x slot, Im going to put the GPU on 8x 8x just to fit this in when gaming is the exclusive function of that machine.

 

[setter]

I got a 128gb one with my X99 bundle, yet to even install it tbh as I just put windows on my existing 250gb ssd. Might be useful though for a few lesser played games.