Noticeable difference in NVMe speeds?

MatteRB26

MatteRB26

MatteRB26

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How noticeable is the difference of NVMe drives in reality?

I'm looking at a new 1TB NVMe as I need the extra storage, but could do with the extra "oomph" than SATA. Seeing numbers range from 1500/1500 to 4000/4000ish it's an absolute minefield!

I mostly do gaming but also programming, game modding and game dev so I'd quite like the increased speeds, but how noticeable is it really?
 
I have seen a video that compares different games starting with these drives compared to normal SSDs and they are only a second or two at the most quicker, not really worth the extra money
 
Honestly, I was a little disappointed when I got my M.2 drive - maybe I was just expecting too much. Access times feel just the same as a SATA SSD.

The biggest difference is in transfer speeds, especially for big files. I meddle with Windows 10 images, so really appreciate being able to quickly copy large images.

I'd probably buy another M.2 drive, but if I didn't large files every so often, I'd probably be content with a SATA drive.
 
Thanks for all the replies! While gaming is the primary use of my PC, I do also use it for programming with large solutions which can be quite IO heavy at times - especially with building and compiling.

I suppose it comes down to the difference in price really. I'd considered a WD Blue 1TB M.2 SATA for the form factor, my motherboard has 2 M.2 slots - and I'm already using 3 SATA ports out of 6, and I'm pretty sure using one of the M.2 disables two of the SATA ports?
 
Check your owners manual, depending on the board some other IO may not be available, for example using the M.2's may make one of the PCIe slots unavailable or limit its speed for example due to the amount of PCIe lanes available.
 
SonicSW20 said:
Check your owners manual, depending on the board some other IO may not be available, for example using the M.2's may make one of the PCIe slots unavailable or limit its speed for example due to the amount of PCIe lanes available.
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Just re-read the docs.

* SATA1 port will be unavailable when installing SATA M.2 SSD in M2_2 slot.
* PCI_E6 slot will be unavailable when installing PCIe M.2 SSD in M2_2 slot
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PCI_E6 is the second X16 slot which I'm not bothered about. It doesn't say anything about blocking lanes or slots when using the M2_1 slot which is PCIE only (M2_2 is PCIE or Sata)
 
There is no reason to not get an NVMe M.2 drive now if buying a new SSD as there is a tiny difference in cost. A good quality 2TB model is sub £200, it is worth considering replacing some of your slower SATA SSD's (if you have them) on your MSI X470 Gaming Plus
 
Journey said:
There is no reason to not get an NVMe M.2 drive now if buying a new SSD as there is a tiny difference in cost. A good quality 2TB model is sub £200, it is worth considering replacing some of your slower SATA SSD's (if you have them) on your MSI X470 Gaming Plus
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£200 is quite a lot for me to spend on components right now, I'd be going 1TB at most for now I think. I've got a Samsung Evo 850 500gb which has Windows, Cod and wow on. (Cod is using literally more than half...) and two regular mechanical drives.

I'd probably move Windows to the NVMe and a couple of demanding games then try and save the rest for IO intensive workloads.
 
I cant really tell the difference between my windows gaming boot(NVME) and my windows work boot(Sata SSD).

However all speed increases add up eventually, if you can notice or not. Given the prices are dropping nicely its a no brainer. Can relegate the SATA drives to storage/games.
 
MatteRB26 said:
Just re-read the docs.

PCI_E6 is the second X16 slot which I'm not bothered about. It doesn't say anything about blocking lanes or slots when using the M2_1 slot which is PCIE only (M2_2 is PCIE or Sata)
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Makes sense. There's a limited amount of lanes available for a given processor family / chipset combination, and it is up to the board manufacturer to decide how to allocate those lanes in this scenario.
 
Depends. If you have Prefetch and Superfetch disabled, then yes there is a noticeable difference. If you don't have them disabled then the difference is hardly noticeable until you do something that Prefetch and Superfetch didn't anticipate.
When I first used an NVME I was confused by people saying there was no difference. Not only could I see a difference but I could even tell which PCIe slot an adapter was plugged in to - finally worked out it was because I had Prefetch and Superfetch disabled.
 
And the difference between NVMe on 3.0 and 4.0?

I'm half temped to get a 500GB NVMe 4.0 Windows/LinuxdLinux boot drive and a 1TB SATA SSD (also have a large NAS). But those PCIe4 drives are expensive!
 
MatteRB26 said:
Given the responders I've gotten here and elsewhere this is where I may be leaning too.
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Well if you are going to buy SATA don't overspend on something like a Samsung drive, just get a cheap Crucial 2TB, no point in paying £20-30 more for the same thing, that would end up getting you within a whisker of the price of the NVMe drive. :)
 
Journey said:
Well if you are going to buy SATA don't overspend on something like a Samsung drive, just get a cheap Crucial 2TB, no point in paying £20-30 more for the same thing, that would end up getting you within a whisker of the price of the NVMe drive. :)
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Yeah, I'm keeping an eye out for any good used deals, ideally I don't want to spend any more than £80 so I'm clinging on. I've seen a few 1tb NVMe drives go for around that mark. Just crossing fingers!
 
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