Is it still worth having a separate game drive with how fast nvme is?

[GregI]

I'm from a time when it was heavily advised to have your games on a separate hard drive from your Windows install. We're talking XP era.

With things like DirectStorage approaching and the ridiculous speed of these nvme 4.0 drives, do you think it's still needed for optimal performance?

Say a 500GB Windows nvme and another 2TB nvme for game installs being my idea.

 

[GregI]

Personally like games on a seperate drive so you don't have to download again if doing a fresh install of Windows.

What case did you get in the end ?

Almost certain on the 4000D Airflow was just seeing if a price drop was gonna happen since I still need to wait on other parts anyway. Managed to get the SN850 2TB Heatsink version for £264 by wating a couple days so seeing if my luck holds out on the case side too.

Even when I try to look at alternatives the 4000 series just always comes out on top. The Lancool II Mesh Performance gets mentioned along with it but things put me off it like having to buy the front panel usb-c separately where as the 4000D Airflow has it as standard. It also has this weird glass back panel so you can look at your cables being hidden by other covers it just seems a mess to me.

The case that comes closest for me to consider seems like the Lancool 215 but again it just seems to lack the oomph of the 4000D Airflow in every aspect. Again lack of usb-c front panel but atleast they didn't put a glass side panel this time. What is putting me off choosing the 215 is everywhere I look, it's always associated with "budget" in the title or description of the product. Might just be me but I would feel kind of tacky putting over £2,000 worth of parts in a case people deem as "budget". It seems like everyone views the 4000D series as high value/premium and I have seen multiple builds of people putting £3,000+ components inside it. Can't say the same for the 215.