Gigabyte SSD need some info

[TheNamelessOne]

Does anyone know if this drive:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Solid-State-Drive/GIGABYTE-NVMe-SSD-1TB#kf

uses QLC or TLC memory?

I've search a bit and can't find any information on it.

Also do any of you have it? How does it perform? Does it maintain its speed all throughout the drive or does it drop like a rock?

I know the Intel 660p drops in performance to 40MB/s once it runs out of its SLC cache.

 

[Samfisher]

Unsure, but it's also cacheless which is a first sign it's a budget piece.

[Jurrunio]

Toshiba TLC NAND, but it's inferior to many PCIe 3.0 x4 drives as it doesnt have DRAM and has lower than average speed (that speed rating is the max of the Phison E13T controller on it, which is by no means high end like the Phison E12)

[TheNamelessOne]

19 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Toshiba TLC NAND, but it's inferior to many PCIe 3.0 x4 drives as it doesnt have DRAM and has lower than average speed (that speed rating is the max of the Phison E13T controller on it, which is by no means high end like the Phison E12)

Thanks. Can it be worse than the 660p? I had that drive and it was absolute garbage, that's how I know it slows down to that speed.

I'm looking for a drive for storage, mainly games. Windows is installed on a separate drive. And I'm looking for something that doesn't slow down to hard drive speeds.

Right now I was looking at this Gigabyte model and a Crucial MX500 which is Sata and both are the exact price for me. Between these two what you say it's the better option? Or do you know a better drive that's within the same price point as those two?

 

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, TheNamelessOne said:

Thanks. Can it be worse than the 660p? I had that drive and it was absolute garbage, that's how I know it slows down to that speed.

If you write a lot to it at a time during game installs (that's the 660p's main disadvantage), the Gigabyte NVMe should do a lot better. However on paper it's worse than the 660p in random reads due to lack of DRAM, which is a really common thing when running games.

 

12 minutes ago, TheNamelessOne said:

Right now I was looking at this Gigabyte model and a Crucial MX500 which is Sata and both are the exact price for me. Between these two what you say it's the better option?

I prefer the Crucial just because I know its actual performance and don't need to guess

[NewMaxx]

It's on my spreadsheet. (NVMe v2)

[TheNamelessOne]

18 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

If you write a lot to it at a time during game installs (that's the 660p's main disadvantage), the Gigabyte NVMe should do a lot better. However on paper it's worse than the 660p in random reads due to lack of DRAM, which is a really common thing when running games.

One more question and I'll leave you alone. I know you say on paper, but how worse can an ssd without dram cache on it, be in games? I mean do you think on one with cache the game will load in 19 seconds and on the one without it will load in 21 seconds?

[Jurrunio]

9 minutes ago, TheNamelessOne said:

One more question and I'll leave you alone. I know you say on paper, but how worse can an ssd without dram cache on it, be in games? I mean do you think on one with cache the game will load in 19 seconds and on the one without it will load in 21 seconds?

Depends on how the game's optimized. Some play well with less stable SSD speeds, some don't. As for just loading into the game, it should only be 1-2 seconds difference.

[NewMaxx]

47 minutes ago, TheNamelessOne said:

One more question and I'll leave you alone. I know you say on paper, but how worse can an ssd without dram cache on it, be in games? I mean do you think on one with cache the game will load in 19 seconds and on the one without it will load in 21 seconds?

I know you weren't asking me, sorry to be rude but to answer this with some detail:

 

If we take a game often used to benchmark load times (FFXIV) and use two drives with similar base hardware like the MX500 and BX500 - primary difference here would be the presence of DRAM - we can see that the improved 4K reads thanks to DRAM does have some impact. At 960GB/1TB (the TLC BX500) the difference is 0.542s or ~3.5% faster on the MX500 (source: TweakTown). If we instead compare to NVMe, like the popular SX8200 Pro, the difference between NVMe and SATA - keeping in mind the MX500 and SX8200 Pro have a similar-gen SMI controller, similar flash, similar DRAM, main difference being sequentials from channels (not important for loading) and thus only the protocol 4K performance advantage - results in the Pro is ~15% faster (source: Tom's Hardware). In my own testing that is about the extent of gains with NVMe - FYI that would be 18% over DRAM-less SATA. DRAM isn't as critical for NVMe drives esp. for this benchmark so for example the WD SN550 gets close to the Intel 665p.

[TheNamelessOne]

On 1/23/2020 at 7:03 AM, Jurrunio said:

Depends on how the game's optimized. Some play well with less stable SSD speeds, some don't. As for just loading into the game, it should only be 1-2 seconds difference.

Understood. Thank you.

On 1/23/2020 at 7:39 AM, NewMaxx said:

I know you weren't asking me, sorry to be rude but to answer this with some detail:

 

If we take a game often used to benchmark load times (FFXIV) and use two drives with similar base hardware like the MX500 and BX500 - primary difference here would be the presence of DRAM - we can see that the improved 4K reads thanks to DRAM does have some impact. At 960GB/1TB (the TLC BX500) the difference is 0.542s or ~3.5% faster on the MX500 (source: TweakTown). If we instead compare to NVMe, like the popular SX8200 Pro, the difference between NVMe and SATA - keeping in mind the MX500 and SX8200 Pro have a similar-gen SMI controller, similar flash, similar DRAM, main difference being sequentials from channels (not important for loading) and thus only the protocol 4K performance advantage - results in the Pro is ~15% faster (source: Tom's Hardware). In my own testing that is about the extent of gains with NVMe - FYI that would be 18% over DRAM-less SATA. DRAM isn't as critical for NVMe drives esp. for this benchmark so for example the WD SN550 gets close to the Intel 665p.

First of all thank you, secondly never apologize for offering more information. It's always welcomed.

Both you and Jurrunio helped me. So once again thank you.