General Memory Question.

[Davydefault]

Question about Memory;

 

Hey guys, I’m super new to PC gaming, and had to buy a prebuilt since there are no GPU’s out there- so forgive me if I butcher the terminology.

 

I have an Asus Prime B550M A-AC motherboard and it has a PCIE 4.0 and PCIE 3.0 slot on the board. In the 4.0 I have a 1TB M.2 drive but want to upgrade my storage for more games. My question is; should I buy another 1TB M.2 stick for my PCIE 3.0 slot, or should I just save up for a 2 TB m.2 for the 4.0 port (yikes those are pricey).

 

a follow up question- if the answer is “get another 1TB stick for the 3.0 slot” what kinds of programs do I keep on the 4.0 and what kind can I put on the 3.0. The way I understand it is you want your OS and drivers on the fastest memory (and things that take heavy rendering such as photoshop and video editors) where as you have more wiggle room with games.

 

Thank you all. Have a good day.

[tkitch]

just add a second drive.  The difference between gen 3 and 4 isn't enough to matter, and won't for a while.

[iMxmo]

Just now, tkitch said:

just add a second drive.  The difference between gen 3 and 4 isn't enough to matter, and won't for a while.

I second this, and if you're going to buy a second drive you might as well get a hard drive instead. You probably won't be seeing anything more than a couple of seconds on HDD vs SSD when it comes to games, it's mainly impacting boot times but you most likely have your OS installed on the SSD. tl;dr buy a 7200 2TB SMR HDD and call it a day  - Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM 3.5in

[Nathanpete]

Quick lesson: You are confusing memory and storage. It really doesn't help that they use the same units. Memory is stuff like RAM, video RAM (aka VRAM or in the old school days the frame buffer) and uses technologies like GDDR5, GDDR6, GRRD6X, DDR4, etc.), storage is stuff like M.2 drives, solid state drives, Hard Disk Drive, USB drive, flash memory (called memory but it is really storage), etc. 

 

There is some difference in the speeds on M.2 drives between the two, but if you can get a 2TB PCIe 3.0 M.2 drive with good reviews, and it won't break the bank, it would be a good candidate for the bottom M.2 slot.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

9 minutes ago, tkitch said:

just add a second drive.  The difference between gen 3 and 4 isn't enough to matter, and won't for a while.

I mean, direct storage is supposed to be soon, which would be heavily affected by a gen4 connection.

[tkitch]

Just now, HelpfulTechWizard said:

I mean, direct storage is supposed to be soon, which would be heavily affected by a gen4 connection.

everything is supposed to be "soon"
I've given up actually expecting soon to be within a single generation of tech.  

[Davydefault]

Thanks for the lesson guys. So either go for an SSD, or HDD for the 3.0 slot depending on how much a few second of time means compared to money spent, but DONT get a 2tb.

[Nathanpete]

6 minutes ago, tkitch said:

just add a second drive.  The difference between gen 3 and 4 isn't enough to matter, and won't for a while.

Linus's most recent video (corsair One look-alike) featured Sabrent's new PCIe 4.0 drive that is fully capable of saturating a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection. It is expensive AF, but I'd wager the time when more drives can do the same is sooner than you think

3 minutes ago, iCypticx said:

I second this, and if you're going to buy a second drive you might as well get a hard drive instead. You probably won't be seeing anything more than a couple of seconds on HDD vs SSD when it comes to games, it's mainly impacting boot times but you most likely have your OS installed on the SSD. tl;dr buy a 7200 2TB SMR HDD and call it a day  - Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM 3.5in

Do NOT get an SMR drives, the write speeds are atrocious. In any game where you can fast travel, it is more than a few seconds. My DRAM-less PCIe 3.0 SSD still takes about 2 seconds to fast travel, but doing the same on a CMR 2TB Barracuda 3.5" is closer to 15 seconds. 

 

3 minutes ago, Davydefault said:

Thanks for the lesson guys. So either go for an SSD, or HDD for the 3.0 slot depending on how much a few second of time means compared to money spent, but DONT get a 2tb.

You can't put HDDs in the 3.0 slot, they only connect to the SATA ports, the kind with the wires. 2TB is a very good amount of storage for medium to large steam libraries. 

[tkitch]

7 minutes ago, Nathanpete said:

Linus's most recent video (corsair One look-alike) featured Sabrent's new PCIe 4.0 drive that is fully capable of saturating a PCIe 4.0 x4 connection. It is expensive AF, but I'd wager the time when more drives can do the same is sooner than you think

Meh.  Doesn't matter.

 

Past a certain point (And Gen 3 is well past it) you literally can't tell the difference.  Go back to linus' video comparing a SATA SSD to a couple NVME solutions, and users picked the SATA drive as the snappiest.  

[iMxmo]

6 minutes ago, Nathanpete said:

 

Do NOT get an SMR drives, the write speeds are atrocious. In any game where you can fast travel, it is more than a few seconds. My DRAM-less PCIe 3.0 SSD still takes about 2 seconds to fast travel, but doing the same on a CMR 2TB Barracuda 3.5" is closer to 15 seconds. 

What was the point of the comparison? This is about SMR vs CMR and youre using an m.2 ssd against a 2tb hard drive? 
Hard drives suck butt either way, I doubt the user will be using such high file transfers to be needing CMR. Just go with the cheapest one.
Just a few more questions though, does your SSD have HMB, and how much of it is filled/ how much read/write history is already on it.
 

[iMxmo]

14 minutes ago, Davydefault said:

Thanks for the lesson guys. So either go for an SSD, or HDD for the 3.0 slot depending on how much a few second of time means compared to money spent, but DONT get a 2tb.

No. You're getting the connectors mixed up. There are two types of main stream ssds. Sata (using the sata PORTS on your motherboard + power supply) and m.2 (using the little connector and what you screw into on your motherboard) the m.2 connector isnt to be confused for the pcie x16 connectors that are longer and are used for usually graphics cards. Mainstream Hard drives are SATA powered (the little ports towards the bottom right of your motherboard and the cables from your power supply) what I suggest doing is getting the cheapest 2tb hdd @ here. Put the games you most frequently use on your 1tb ssd + your OS. Then use your mass storage (videos, images, steam library) into your 2TB HDD if your 1tb SSD get's filled.

[Nathanpete]

12 minutes ago, iCypticx said:

What was the point of the comparison? This is about SMR vs CMR and youre using an m.2 ssd against a 2tb hard drive? 
Hard drives suck butt either way, I doubt the user will be using such high file transfers to be needing CMR. Just go with the cheapest one.
Just a few more questions though, does your SSD have HMB, and how much of it is filled/ how much read/write history is already on it.
 

Because you are recommending a 2TB HDD for OP, I am recommending a M.2. I have both in my system right now, and have played the same game off of both mediums via disk cloning, and I CANNOT recommend a HDD, especially for open world games. Indie games, casual games, rarely played games, and games that stream assetts over the internet are recommended for HDDs IMO.

 

And TBH, I really don't know if my M.2 drive (see my signature) has HMB. WD has no software for analysis so I have no clue how to see how much of the history is on it. What piece of software would you recommend for this? 

[Davydefault]

Okay, my bad guys for all the confusion- let me see if I can make it a bit clearer.

This is my mother board;

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/PRIME/PRIME-B550M-A-AC/
 

it has two M.2 slots. I currently have a 1TB NVME m.2 card on there. With my OS and all my games on it. It has another M.2 slot, from the looks of the motherboard, so I guess I’m wondering if I should throw another M.2 ssd in the second port or if I should just get one of the chonky boi SSD’s for games.

 

also, I’m at work, and don’t have access to my computer, so I won’t be able to tell you if I have HMB, because I don’t even know what that is. Haha. But I can research it after work and get back to you.

[iMxmo]

1 minute ago, Nathanpete said:

Because you are recommending a 2TB HDD for OP, I am recommending a M.2. I have both in my system right now, and have played the same game off of both medium via disk cloning, and I CANNOT recommend a HDD, especially for open world games. Indie games, casual games, rarely played games, and games that stream assetts over the internet are recommended for HDDs IMO.

 

And TBH, I really don't know if my M.2 drive (see my signature) has HMB. WD has no software for analysis so I have no clue how to see how much of the history is on it. What piece of software would you recommend for this? 

You can just check via model name and spreadsheet found in the forums. We don't know if the user is playing open world games either and the price difference between a 7200RPM 2tb SMR and an m.2 drive is quite significant. 2tb 7200 - 55 usd and 500gb m.2 nvme also 55 usd. THis is for mass storage and not a boot drive, I'm sure the main games will be on the SSD.

[iMxmo]

1 minute ago, Davydefault said:

Okay, my bad guys for all the confusion- let me see if I can make it a bit clearer.

This is my mother board;

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/PRIME/PRIME-B550M-A-AC/
 

it has two M.2 slots. I currently have a 1TB NVME m.2 card on there. With my OS and all my games on it. It has another M.2 slot, from the looks of the motherboard, so I guess I’m wondering if I should throw another M.2 ssd in the second port or if I should just get one of the chonky boi SSD’s for games.

Great thanks for clearing stuff up, are you running out of storage? If not then theres no need for another SSD. But if you want extra storage for files/videos/pictures then a hard drive is your best bet.

[Davydefault]

16 minutes ago, iCypticx said:

Great thanks for clearing stuff up, are you running out of storage? If not then theres no need for another SSD. But if you want extra storage for files/videos/pictures then a hard drive is your best bet.

Yeah, I’ve got maybe 200 gigs left. I just want more storage to have games downloaded. I’ve been doing the whole, delete and redownload as needed thing.

I don’t mind buying another SSD because it will keep the case cooler and be less noisy etc, but I’m not against HDD if the load times aren’t shit.

[iMxmo]

3 hours ago, Davydefault said:

Yeah, I’ve got maybe 200 gigs left. I just want more storage to have games downloaded. I’ve been doing the whole, delete and redownload as needed thing.

I don’t mind buying another SSD because it will keep the case cooler and be less noisy etc, but I’m not against HDD if the load times aren’t shit.

honestly for the cooling factor it wouldn't matter much, but for load times + noise it all depends on what games you're playing. if its some open world games such as what Nathan said, you might want an ssd but its almost double the cost for a 2tb compared to a 500gb ssd/hdd. 

[Davydefault]

6 hours ago, iCypticx said:

honestly for the cooling factor it wouldn't matter much, but for load times + noise it all depends on what games you're playing. if its some open world games such as what Nathan said, you might want an ssd but its almost double the cost for a 2tb compared to a 500gb ssd/hdd. 

Thanks so much guys, sorry for the ignorance. Have a good day.