Is NVMe worth it?

[OrangeSunshine]

I have never used a NVMe drive in a build before, but I have the option to get one from a buddy for essentially free. I thought I might use it as a boot drive. The problem is that my motherboard does not have any m.2 slots. I am curious if the performance gains are enough to justify a new motherboard. Thoughts?

 

My primary desktop right now is running a 2700x with a MSI x470 board. I am currently using a 250gb ADATA SSD to boot and a 2TB wd drive for everything else.

[Radium_Angel]

Nope. They are nice, but the boost from an SSD isn't worth the cost for a whole new board.

[Guest]

If the board supports NVMe, just get a cheap M.2 to PCIe adapter.

[DrMacintosh]

I mean, if its a good drive you should still get it. Having extra drives is always good. But would I buy a new motherboard for one? No. What you could do is get an NVMe PCIe card if you want to use it. 

 

SATA SSDs are perfectly fine though imo. 

[TheStyne]

What's your specific motherboard model? As far as I can tell from MSI's website, all of their X470 boards have M.2, I could definitely be missing something though.

[CommanderAlex]

5 minutes ago, OrangeSunshine said:

I am curious if the performance gains are enough to justify a new motherboard. Thoughts?

 

My primary desktop right now is running a 2700x with a MSI x470 board. I am currently using a 250gb ADATA SSD to boot and a 2TB wd drive for everything else.

That's still pretty killer as you have a SSD (assuming the OS is installed on here) and a bulk storage drive (2TB HDD). I wouldn't bother buying a new motherboard and would only go with the option others have recommended so far, a PCIe to NVMe adaptor. 

 

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

SATA SSDs are perfectly fine though imo. 

I find my 860 EVO is faster on my Z97 rig than my current rig's 970 EVO. 

[WereCat]

You can get a PCIe card that can use NVME., you don't have to buy a new motherboard. 

That said, for a typical usage, you will struggle to see a difference between NVME and SATA SSD. 

[Kedohawyr]

No, not worth it for a whole new motherboard. In fact outside of specific use cases the only real reason to get an NVMe right now is that there are good enough ones priced the same as SATA or you are trying to future proof for DirectStorage optimized games.

 

Also note that while you can attach it to your existing motherboard using a cheap PCIe adapter card you may find that you can't use it for your OS as older BIOSes don't know how to use NVMe as a boot drive (Windows 10 should have no problem using it as a secondary data drive)

 

[SupaKomputa]

As far as i know all x470 have m.2 slot, even the cheaper A320 boards have at least 1 slot.

NVME is nice to have, not a necessity, nice to see the numbers through the roof in benchmarks, in reality you won't feel the difference.

[OrangeSunshine]

2 hours ago, TheStyne said:

What's your specific motherboard model? As far as I can tell from MSI's website, all of their X470 boards have M.2, I could definitely be missing something though.

Dude, thank you. I have literally spent the last year thinking my board did not have any M.2 slots. I went and checked out msi's board explorer in the BIOS, and I found 2 unpopulated M.2 slots. I don't know how I never saw them. 

[TheStyne]

3 hours ago, OrangeSunshine said:

Dude, thank you. I have literally spent the last year thinking my board did not have any M.2 slots. I went and checked out msi's board explorer in the BIOS, and I found 2 unpopulated M.2 slots. I don't know how I never saw them. 

Glad I could help!