These M.2 drives ok for gaming ?

[Medic-one]

Been looking a these Crucial P3 plus drives (specifically the 4 TB one) to replace my 1 TB WD_BLUE SN550 M.2 drive purely to install games on, but am reading various things about cache being too small and speed drops, though not sure if that would apply to gaming as well, or if it would be just during file transfer ?

Anybody using one of the P3 plus drives for gaming ?


My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Crucial P3 PLUS 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-07B-CR) = £128.99
• 1 x Crucial P3 PLUS 4TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-07J-CR) = £214.99

 

[Tetras]

but am reading various things about cache being too small and speed drops, though not sure if that would apply to gaming as well, or if it would be just during file transfer ?

Cache size shouldn't be an issue when gaming.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Crucial P3 PLUS 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-07B-CR) = £128.99
• 1 x Crucial P3 PLUS 4TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-07J-CR) = £214.99

I would switch to the WD SN770, they're TLC (P3 Plus is QLC) and have much higher endurance (1200 TBW instead of 440 TBW, in 2TB capacity). Both are dramless drives.

SN770 isn't available in 4TB capacity.

Higher-end drives with DRAM are P5 Plus or SN850X, but just for games I wouldn't bother.

 

[Minstadave]

It makes next to no difference whether you're using a SATA SSD or a top of the line 990 Pro when gaming.

The P3 Plus is fine, it's QLC so won't tolerate heavy writes when mostly full as well as a TLC drive. This won't effect typical gaming use unless you have very fast Internet and are doing a huge install.

If you're paying the prices in the OP the 2TB is poor value.

You can see the sequential writes fall off a cliff here:

Crucial P3 Plus SSD Review: Capacity on the Cheap

The P3 Plus is a good first effort at a faster budget SSD with Crucial’s new QLC.

www.tomshardware.com

Section to check is:

Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery​

 

[Medic-one]

So if I wanted to go for a 4 TB one, and just use it for gaming this P3 plus would be alright you guys say, or would it be worth spending some more and going from something like this :

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Corsair Force MP600 CORE XT 4TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F4000GBMP600CXT) (SKU: HD-06W-CS) = £219.95

 

[mickyflinn]

So if I wanted to go for a 4 TB one, and just use it for gaming this P3 plus would be alright you guys say, or would it be worth spending some more and going from something like this :

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Corsair Force MP600 CORE XT 4TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 Solid State Drive (CSSD-F4000GBMP600CXT) (SKU: HD-06W-CS) = £219.95

That drive is virtually the same as the plus but its perfectly fine for a games drive and sits at a decent price point for a 4 tb drive.

Sometimes you can just overthink things.

 

[Minstadave]

That drive is virtually the same as the plus but its perfectly fine for a games drive and sits at a decent price point for a 4 tb drive.

Sometimes you can just overthink things.

I'd agree. Just get the cheapest of the two. The 4TB P3 Plus is usually about £180. You'll really struggle to exhaust the cache on a 4TB drive unless it's near to full.