Second m.2 slot only does pcie2.0 x4 or sata?

[Devrij]

So I am looking to put a 2TB SSD in to replace my 1TB HDD that holds all my games.

I have a 1TB Samsung m.2 in the main slot as my OS drive, so I'm left with a rubbish m.2 slot that only does pcie 2.0 x4 or sata and disables one of the sata ports in the process (NB all my data ports are populated).

So, given the 2Gb transfer speeds on that slot, is it even worth it? And should I use an NVME drive or just a M.2 sata drive?

I'm not super fussed about transfer speeds, since it's for gaming it mostly needs fast seek speeds so it can load levels and stream textures in, unpack patches faster etc.

Given the crap speeds, is it worth getting a decent drive or is the QLC P2 drive fine (worried about maxing out that SLC cache)?

Thanks!

 

[EsaT]

Never waste limited M.2 slots for SATA SSD, which would be as fast in end of SATA cable attached to lot more plentiful SATA ports and doesn't even have lower cost per capacity than NVMe.
And tripple that for gaming, because DirectStorage won't support SATA SSDs.

Also stone age code games which can't use bandwidth certainly can't use either super fast seeks, because of bottleneck being in code.
Again well coded games can easily use faster than SATA transfer rates:
https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/silicon-power-us70-1tb-review/11/

As QLC drive Crucial P2 is overpriced against WD SN550.

 

[Devrij]

Ah true if I ever upgraded my mobo I'd be ****** if I had a rubbish SSD to bring over.