Which NVMe for boot (X570)

xy16644 · 25 Dec 2019 at 12:43

Title says it all but I'm trying to decide between the following two Gen4 NVMe drives for my boot drive:

Gigabyte AORUS 1 TB
Sabrent 1TB Rocket

As well as being a boot drive for Windows I'll also be running my virtual machines off this drive.

I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte as it has a heatsink on it but other than that they are very similar.

Is there any reason to go for one over the other? I don't mind spending a bit more for Gen4 NVMe drives as I'm building my new system with 7yrs in mind.

Happy to hear any other suggestions for a Gen4 NVMe drive if they're better than the two drives mentioned above!

Illuminist · 25 Dec 2019 at 12:51

xy16644 said:
Title says it all but I'm trying to decide between the following two Gen4 NVMe drives for my boot drive:

Gigabyte AORUS 1 TB
Sabrent 1TB Rocket

As well as being a boot drive for Windows I'll also be running my virtual machines off this drive.

I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte as it has a heatsink on it but other than that they are very similar.

Is there any reason to go for one over the other? I don't mind spending a bit more for Gen4 NVMe drives as I'm building my new system with 7yrs in mind.

Happy to hear any other suggestions for a Gen4 NVMe drive if they're better than the two drives mentioned above!

Hello, I have the sabrent pciex 4.0 it has 5000 read 2500 write, it is very fast as my boot drive.
The problem I had with it was trying to clone my previous nvme, I couldn't get it to boot no matter what.
In the end i installed windows fresh on it. And then discovered there is a program in some obscure part of the sabrent site that has a boot sector byte convertor up to 4096kb

I use the motherboard included heats sinks and it keeps it cool enough for its full speed activities.

Hope something helps there for you

xy16644 · 25 Dec 2019 at 12:57

Thanks for the quick reply and Merry Xmas ;-)

Can I ask what size your Sabrent drive it? I'm assuming it's the 512GB model as the 1TB has a higher write speed and higher IOPS?

I won't be cloning my current drive and will do a fresh install (it's years old anyway!)

Illuminist · 25 Dec 2019 at 13:11

xy16644 said:
Thanks for the quick reply and Merry Xmas

Can I ask what size your Sabrent drive it? I'm assuming it's the 512GB model as the 1TB has a higher write speed and higher IOPS?

I won't be cloning my current drive and will do a fresh install (it's years old anyway!)

It might have been 3000 write tbh and yes it's the 512gb one. It's amazing though, really.
Merry xmas to you there!

xy16644 · 25 Dec 2019 at 13:19

Thanks! I've always used Samsung drives but they;re just too expensive currently and they don't have a Gen4 drive yet (that I'm aware of).That's why I've been looking at other brands.

I'm hoping running Windows/applications AND virtual machines on one drive won't be a problem performance wise...

Oggy · 25 Dec 2019 at 13:36

Is there a big upgrade from a ssd data 2 to an nvme ?

edscdk · 25 Dec 2019 at 13:44

Oggy said:
Is there a big upgrade from a ssd data 2 to an nvme ?

Nope without benchmarking it timing before and after you will not likley notice and difference

Check out some of the vids on youtube usually about a 10% boost

Oggy · 25 Dec 2019 at 14:46

So I guess it's just for hard core users or people that want less cables?

EsaT · 25 Dec 2019 at 19:21

xy16644 said:
building my new system with 7yrs in mind.

Unless having money to throw around and used some bills for lighting up Christmas candles, you're better of getting bigger capacity PCIe v3 drive to have capacity to last longer.
In home use you just don't get queue depths for random accesses to be bottlenecked by PCIe v3.
In fact low queue depth random access speeds don't come even remotely close to SATA's transfer rate limit.
And unless you're just copying data back and forth to fill the drive, also the sequential speeds don't matter.

EsaT · 25 Dec 2019 at 19:26

Oggy said:
Is there a big upgrade from a ssd data 2 to an nvme ?

Outside synthetic bechmarketing and playing "copy files back and forth to fill the drive to start it over", not much.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nvme+ssd+hdd

But price difference between NVMe and SATA drive is such small, that unless building PC on shoe string budget, might as well get NVMe drive.
Kingston A2000 is pretty close to better SATA drives.
And Phison E12 based drives like Addlink S70, Corsair MP510, Patriot VPN100, PNY CS3030, Sabrent Rocket, Silicon Power P34A80 and TeamGroup MP34 aren't far.
Also SM2262 based Adata SX8200 Pro should be pretty close.

shamus21 · 30 Dec 2019 at 10:44

EsaT said:
Outside synthetic bechmarketing and playing "copy files back and forth to fill the drive to start it over", not much.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nvme+ssd+hdd

But price difference between NVMe and SATA drive is such small, that unless building PC on shoe string budget, might as well get NVMe drive.
Kingston A2000 is pretty close to better SATA drives.
And Phison E12 based drives like Addlink S70, Corsair MP510, Patriot VPN100, PNY CS3030, Sabrent Rocket, Silicon Power P34A80 and TeamGroup MP34 aren't far.
Also SM2262 based Adata SX8200 Pro should be pretty close.

Looking at the Phison E12 and the SM2262 controllers which would you prefer.

EsaT · 1 Jan 2020 at 10:07

shamus21 said:
Looking at the Phison E12 and the SM2262 controllers which would you prefer.

Would say lot depends on also about pricing per GB.

SM2262 gets higher numbers in some benchmark tests, but you likely won't get significant differences from that in home use.
Write performance wise SM2262 relies on agressive use of empty space as SLC cache and speed of big writes suffers when drives get fuller.
Phison E12 uses small I think fixed size SLC cache, but has better TLC write speed which it maintains to full drive.
Could say that instead of short load peak performance Phison is designed for continuous performance in heavy use.
That also saves on "write amplification" meaning wear of Flash cells is lower:
In SLC mode same data needs writing three times as many cells as in TLC and then flushing that SLC cache into TLC makes another write.

If you use power saving features Phison E12 also has very short few millisecond wake up delay from usual desktop PC idle power saving mode.
While SM2262 usually needs 60+ ms, with Kingston somehow having managed to double that in KC2000:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14601/the-kingston-kc2000-ssd-review/8
Though compared to human reaction time that 60ms isn't much and likely doesn't show unless Windows pushes drive into idle mode too agressively.