1tb m.2 for gaming

mellow yellow · 29 May 2020 at 11:47

i have never used an m.2 before but my new mobo has space for one so i think that is the way to go.

i have a 120 ssd for windows, and currently use a 1tb HD for games but i'm doing a fresh install of windows to tidy everything up so i think an additional m.2 for games would best suit my needs. should i also keep the hd for misc/overflow?

my budget is as close to £100 as possible but i get lost with all the brands and speeds etc, looks it not a major issue, but it can be seen through my side panel so nothing too ugly :-)

as a side note is there any benefit to having apps like soundblaster/icue/nvidia on the m.2 or should they just be used on the hd if i keep it?

pugheaven · 29 May 2020 at 11:55

I personally (dependant on your game catelogue size), installed the M2 and install windows and your main apps on it. Also, I'd install your most played games dependant on size and anything else on the 1TB HD. That way you get the best load/performance for windows and your core games and use the 1TB for things like I dont know, family piccies, videos etc all the usual crap that you don't want filling up your nice fast drive. 1TB M2 will be perfect onvisouly depending how big you steam/origin and all the others are.

I personally run a 2TB M2 as my windows and applications only and a seperate 2TB M2 for my games and storage with a backup 4TB external HD incase of data loss.

All M2's kinda just look like blacks and you can buy a £8 xcover from a popular shopping site to place over it in gun mental silver if you buy one that the color doesn't match your system. Sabrent have deals on at minute on their 3000/mb M2's, think WD Blue is it , that's another solid one.

Bear in mind though, you won't suddenly see any games running faster as such i'd imagine, they will load faster I've noticed that... and obviously if caching or loading it'll be smooth. Windows loads like a rocket now and everything is swift, but TBH do I notice any difference between a standard RAID0 config on 1,000MB/s read write and the new M2 drives at 3,500MB/s read/write? No I don't... its for benchmarks and movement of LARGE files quickly, that's where you'll notice any benefit. Howerver, the world is moving to M2 so if you have that slot fill the bugger lol

mellow yellow · 29 May 2020 at 12:28

cheers, ive only got into pc gaming recently so at the moment i have

escape from tarkov (the main game i play)
forza horizon
gta
fortnite
warzone

but his will obviously expand as time goes on.

scubes · 29 May 2020 at 17:26

I have 2 m2 drives a Samsung nvme 250gb and a sabrent rocket nvme 250gb they are really good there a wee bit quicker than a normal ssd for loading games..