NVME or Solid State for gaming?

Ice Rich

Ice Rich

Ice Rich

Soldato
Joined
3 Dec 2004
Posts
2,625
Hi all,

My SATA HDD is failing and I want to replace it, i've been out of the loop for ages but gather NVME is now the best option - is it suitable for gaming as well as storage?
I notice the interface is different, doesn't seem to have any cables. I think i aleady have an NVME for OS - I know if depends on motherboard, but presumably most boards allow for more then one NVME?

Thanks
 
In gaming you mostly won't notice the difference between a NVME drive and a SATA SSD. Games that use DirectStorage will see a difference but those seem to be few and far between. Where NVME comes into its own is in intensive IO - databases and the like; otherwise it's just fast.

For most people the big difference is the removal of cabling. If you look up your motherboard on the manufacturer's website it will tell you how many NVME slots you have and where they are on the board. Do be aware that NVME drives can get hot - particularly v5 drives - and that using a NVME slot may disable some SATA ports.
 
What is your current system? worst comes to worst you can always use a PCI-e NVME adaptor probably as well if it is an additional drive rather than boot drive (booting from a drive in that configuration can be complicated).

Game load times don't gain hugely once you are off mechanical HDD but NVME is where it is at now really. Also on an older system you might not be able to take (full) advantage of PCI-e 4 or 5 NVMEs but doesn't harm necessarily to buy them (though PCI-e 5 is usually massive extra cost for very little to show in gaming use).
 
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Thank you all, advice noted and I am pleased I asked as I just had a look at my mobo specs and it seems it only has 1 x NVME slot which will be in use for the OS. So a PCIe adapter might be required.

Storage
1 x M.2 SSD (1 x Auto Switch)
1 x 2.5" HDD
2 x 3.5" HDD

I'll double check this by opening up case shortly.
 
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Ice Rich said:
Thank you all, advice noted and I am pleased I asked as I just had a look at my mobo specs and it seems it only has 1 x NVME slot which will be in use for the OS. So a PCIe adapter might be required.

Storage
1 x M.2 SSD (1 x Auto Switch)
1 x 2.5" HDD
2 x 3.5" HDD

I'll double check this by opening up case shortly.
Click to expand...
Why don't you share your motherboard model, is it a secret?
 
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If you download hwinfo64 portable, it should tell you what you need to know, alternatively grab the motherboard model from CPU-Z.

It is an old system at this point, so you might not have anything in the M.2 slot.

Most games don't care which type of SSD you have, but it is getting hard to find decent SATA drives and some of the updated versions (like WD's Blue) have been significant downgrades on the old ones.
 
With multiple nvme drives
You really need to read your user manual too
Need to know your pcie lanes arrangement
Graphics card can get dropped to x8
And some sata ports disabled as an example

Where more than 1 nvme drives shine for me personally anyway
Is copying files Between them
Then they really blow away 2.5 sata ssds

Another disadvantage of m2/nvme
If you have multiple of them
There's no easy way to disable them
Not in bios like sata
And usually they're physically awkward to get to
Won't affect many people I guess
But I have 5x nvme
And being able to disable some when I need to
Would be a godsend
The first pc case with hot swap nvme drives
Will get my cash lol
 
Ice Rich said:
:D it's one of those MSI gaming pre made systems and I don't actually know the model of the motherboard (I will check shortly). This is the one:

https://www.msi.com/Desktop/Infinite-9th/Specification
Click to expand...

Yes, that's a 9th gen motherboard so early M.2 thus you only have one M.2 drive. Either you buy a large M.2 drive - 4 TB drives are available from £300 - or you get a SATA drive. Don't bother with Gen 5 drives - your slot may even be Gen 3.
 
Quartz said:
Yes, that's a 9th gen motherboard so early M.2 thus you only have one M.2 drive. Either you buy a large M.2 drive - 4 TB drives are available from £300 - or you get a SATA drive. Don't bother with Gen 5 drives - your slot may even be Gen 3.
Click to expand...

My 8th gen Z370 motherboard takes two nvme/M.2 drives, I have a 500GB 970 evo & a 1TB 980 pro installed in it

So he maybe lucky
 
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only one m.2 slot that is pcie 3.0
personally would get one large nvme ssd to replace the current and you can toss the other sata ssds away
there are not many reasons that you need to partition ssds, and definitely none that are performance related (back in the day with spinning hdd...yes...but that was like two decades ago, you dinosaur :P )
unless you have terabytes of games or frequently reinstall windows (for the majority of users, why?) it's not really worth partitioning/splitting
 
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I have a gaming PC with an NVME and a SATA SSD, both with games on, and in most cases the difference is not as great as you would expect. I would just go for whatever solution is most convenient.
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
With multiple nvme drives
You really need to read your user manual too
Need to know your pcie lanes arrangement
Graphics card can get dropped to x8
And some sata ports disabled as an example

Where more than 1 nvme drives shine for me personally anyway
Is copying files Between them
Then they really blow away 2.5 sata ssds

Another disadvantage of m2/nvme
If you have multiple of them
There's no easy way to disable them
Not in bios like sata
And usually they're physically awkward to get to
Won't affect many people I guess
But I have 5x nvme
And being able to disable some when I need to
Would be a godsend
The first pc case with hot swap nvme drives
Will get my cash lol
Click to expand...

Got it , thank you. When I first seen the interface of these NVME drives (i've been out of the loop for so long) , I thought they could be used almost like a USB pen drive which would be a real perk. I now realise that's not how it is (I can see why as any linking cables would be a bottle neck). As you say, if a case could introduce this feature somehow that would be great. And thanks too, noted the throttling issues and will have a read of any issues that can occur.

Quartz said:
Yes, that's a 9th gen motherboard so early M.2 thus you only have one M.2 drive. Either you buy a large M.2 drive - 4 TB drives are available from £300 - or you get a SATA drive. Don't bother with Gen 5 drives - your slot may even be Gen 3.
Click to expand...

Got it , thank you :)

chaparral said:
My 8th gen Z370 motherboard takes two nvme/M.2 drives, I have a 500GB 970 evo & a 1TB 980 pro installed in it

So he maybe lucky
Click to expand...

How did you manage to get 2 on an earlier edition :D?!
Joking aside, I really rate these MSI pre-made systems, I think the build quality is great and I like that vertical graphics card thing (I don't know if that's now the standard or an MSI thing). Where does the NVME sit on yours? As much as I like that vertical thing I don't want to start dismantling things to get under it :D

darael said:

Your motherboard only has one M.2 slot. I would get the biggest drive you can afford. If you need more later on, add them using a PCIe adapter.
Click to expand...

Ahh that's a shame but thanks for checking. I'll have a think and see what the space is link under my graphics card (i upgraded the supplied card with a 3060ti) and also not sure at the moment if using the lower slot would force grfx card into x8 mode.

tamzzy said:
only one m.2 slot that is pcie 3.0
personally would get one large nvme ssd to replace the current and you can toss the other sata ssds away
there are not many reasons that you need to partition ssds, and definitely none that are performance related (back in the day with spinning hdd...yes...but that was like two decades ago, you dinosaur :p )
unless you have terabytes of games or frequently reinstall windows (for the majority of users, why?) it's not really worth partitioning/splitting
Click to expand...


Thank you, noted and will have a think :) Annoyingly the status for my gaming drive is reporting as 'replacement recommended' in the MSI app thing so I need to do something soon.



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