More RAM or an SSD

[piny]

Currently, my specs are:

CPU-Ryzen 5 1600 

Motherboard-MSI mortar B350M 

RAM-8gb ddr4 2400 

GPU-GTX 1060 3GB

1tb hard drive

 

I'm currently looking at speeding up the general use of my computer so that programs load faster and are quicker and loading things and making sure my computer can handle having multiple applications open at once e.g Game, discord, chrome, steam, iTunes....

So which would be beneficial in making my pc feel faster an extra 8gb of RAM or an SSD to put windows and commonly used applications on. Or maybe there's something else I need. any help would be greatly appreciated.Thanks

[nick name]

Load up all programs you wish to use with your current 8GB and check task manager to see how much RAM is left.

 

I can tell you that a SSD will feel immediately faster and if your PC runs out of RAM the page file on the SSD will be much better than that of the HDD. 

 

My opinion would be SSD over RAM, but again load everything up and check to see what amount of RAM is still available in task manager. 

[Razorlob]

2 minutes ago, piny said:

Currently, my specs are:

CPU-Ryzen 5 1600 

Motherboard-MSI mortar B350M 

RAM-8gb ddr4 2400 

GPU-GTX 1060 3GB

1tb hard drive

 

I'm currently looking at speeding up the general use of my computer so that programs load faster and are quicker and loading things and making sure my computer can handle having multiple applications open at once e.g Game, discord, chrome, steam, iTunes....

So which would be beneficial in making my pc feel faster an extra 8gb of RAM or an SSD to put windows and commonly used applications on. Or maybe there's something else I need. any help would be greatly appreciated.Thanks

If you are looking to launch applications quicker than I would recommend an M.2 SSD. Personally I think 8GB of RAM is just enough if you game and opening tabs. But, when you launch a game, make sure that chrome is closed because it takes up a lot of memory

[piny]

32 minutes ago, nick name said:

Load up all programs you wish to use with your current 8GB and check task manager to see how much RAM is left.

 

I can tell you that a SSD will feel immediately faster and if your PC runs out of RAM the page file on the SSD will be much better than that of the HDD. 

 

My opinion would be SSD over RAM, but again load everything up and check to see what amount of RAM is still available in task manager. 

with all my applications open i usually use around 60-80% of my ram

[Razorlob]

9 minutes ago, piny said:

with all my applications open i usually use around 60-80% of my ram

Definitely a hard drive problem then, get an SSD

[piny]

2 minutes ago, Razorlob said:

Definitely a hard drive problem then, get an SSD

ok thanks ill probably look at buying one soon i was looking at this one,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-CT500MX500SSD1-Internal-NAND/dp/B0764WCXCV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1533927110&sr=8-3&keywords=crucial%2Bmx500&th=1

but I was wondering what the difference between M.2 and SATA was I know that m.2 is quicker but not much more and which would be better to buy.

[Razorlob]

4 minutes ago, piny said:

ok thanks ill probably look at buying one soon i was looking at this one,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX500-CT500MX500SSD1-Internal-NAND/dp/B0764WCXCV/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1533927110&sr=8-3&keywords=crucial%2Bmx500&th=1

but I was wondering what the difference between M.2 and SATA was I know that m.2 is quicker but not much more and which would be better to buy.

What size SSD are you looking to buy?

[piny]

1 minute ago, Razorlob said:

What size SSD are you looking to buy?

i don't know 

[Razorlob]

1 minute ago, piny said:

i don't know 

If you are using it for games and chrome a 500Gb is enough but if most of your games are going to be on the hard drive then I would go for a 250 Gb

[piny]

Just now, Razorlob said:

If you are using it for games and chrome a 500Gb is enough but if most of your games are going to be on the hard drive then I would go for a 250 Gb

I was mainly going to put windows and applications and leave games on my hard drive

[Razorlob]

1 minute ago, piny said:

I was mainly going to put windows and applications and leave games on my hard drive

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN5FJZQ/ref=twister_B07CY2RR4Z?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 

I bought one of these for my brother's computer and it made it run much faster.

[piny]

Just now, Razorlob said:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN5FJZQ/ref=twister_B07CY2RR4Z?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 

I bought one of these for my brother's computer and it made it run much faster.

ok thanks one last question whats the main difference between m.2 and sata

[somewittyaccountname]

3 minutes ago, piny said:

I was mainly going to put windows and applications and leave games on my hard drive

then anything from a 120 to 250 should be good

[piny]

1 minute ago, somewittyaccountname said:

then anything from a 120 to 250 should be good

thanks

[somewittyaccountname]

3 minutes ago, piny said:

ok thanks one last question whats the main difference between m.2 and sata

one connects to an m.2 slot in you motherboard the other connects through standard sata but that's just the basics

 

m.2 is way faster but in regular use like chrome or opening something like premiere a regular ssd will do well,an m.2 will be definitely recommended if you're loading loads of data into premiere for example

[Razorlob]

4 minutes ago, piny said:

ok thanks one last question whats the main difference between m.2 and sata

A SATA SSD is larger and is more of an external storage device is a a lot slower (still fast). An M.2 is directly connected to the motherboard with no cables, this is a lot faster while still costing the same.

 

[somewittyaccountname]

4 minutes ago, Razorlob said:

A SATA SSD is larger and is more of an external storage device is a a lot slower (still fast). An M.2 is directly connected to the motherboard with no cables, this is a lot faster while still costing the same.

 

that is true for ssds between 120-512 gb but after that the prices differ quite a bit

[nick name]

These answer are some what true.

 

m.2 comes in two flavors. NVMe and SATA. You can buy a m.2 that runs over SATA like your larger 2.5" drive and those are the cheaper ones you will see. They usually cost the same as 2.5" SSD drives and run at the same speeds. The other flavor is NVMe which goes more directly if not directly to the CPU itself and can cost 2x as much as SATA drives. However, these are multiple times faster than your SATA drives whether that is the 2.5" or the m.2 type. 

[Razorlob]

2 minutes ago, nick name said:

These answer are some what true.

 

m.2 comes in two flavors. NVMe and SATA. You can buy a m.2 that runs over SATA like your larger 2.5" drive and those are the cheaper ones you will see. They usually cost the same as 2.5" SSD drives and run at the same speeds. The other flavor is NVMe which goes more directly if not directly to the CPU itself and can cost 2x as much as SATA drives. However, these are multiple times faster than your SATA drives whether that is the 2.5" or the m.2 type. 

This is false. The 2.5" drive is not an M.2 drive. The M.2 drive connects straight onto the motherboard. The 2.5" drive is called a SATA SSD. NOT an M.2

[nick name]

3 minutes ago, Razorlob said:

This is false. The 2.5" drive is not an M.2 drive. The M.2 drive connects straight onto the motherboard. The 2.5" drive is called a SATA SSD. NOT an M.2

Sorry, but I don't think you understand what I am saying. 

 

SATA comes in the m.2 and 2.5" form factors. 

 

m.2 comes in NVMe and SATA connections. NVMe being a PCIe connection which is different from SATA.

 

I hope that helps clarify what I was attempting to say. 

[Razorlob]

1 minute ago, nick name said:

Sorry, but I don't think you understand what I am saying. 

 

SATA comes in the m.2 and 2.5" form factors. 

 

m.2 comes in NVMe and SATA connections. NVMe being a PCIe connection which is different from SATA.

 

I hope that helps clarify what I was attempting to say. 

Oh I thought you meant something else

[nick name]

Just now, Razorlob said:

Oh I thought you meant something else

No worries.

[paulmohr]

What Nick Name said basically.

 

For M.2 you need to have that slot on your motherboard, or you can get a card that plugs into a pci e slot. Basically your making a pci e ssd drive.

 

There are also different types of M.2, as well as different "keys". The "key" refers to how many and where the slots are on the card. One type will have one slot or notch and the other has two. So if your motherboard has M.2 you need to know which type it takes. Same goes for if you are getting a PCI e adapter, althought I think most are the M key (one slot) and NVME, not sata. Which leads to the types, which are SATA III and NVME.

 

M.2 sata cards run about the same speeds as a normal stata SSD since I guess they are limited by the sata standards. NVME M.2 is much faster. My SSD drive is around 500 MB/s for read and write. And I will be honest it is a pretty cheap one, a Team Group 480gb for like 80 bucks. I think SATA III is limited to 600 MB/s. Most of my SSD's have all ran around 500 MB/s though.

 

My NVME M.2 drive is a Samsung 960 evo 250 gb. It has read speeds above 3200 MB/s and write speeds above 1500 MB/s. Yes you read that right, 6 times faster for read speeds! It also cost over 100 dollars for half the space, so about twice as much per gig of space. I will also note that even though the bench mark speeds are impressive I really don't notice it much in real world usage. It boots slightly faster but not 6 times faster than my standard SSD did. I switched back to my regular SSD at point while trouble shooting a problem and honestly didn't even notice the difference. So the difference between the cheapest SSD I could find and a really good NVME drive really wasn't much under normal use. Now the difference between a NVME or a ssd compared to a really great mechanical drive is quite large. You will notice the difference immediately, escpecially on boot up and load times. Not so much in actual game play from what I have seen though.

 

As for more ram or faster ram? That really depends on if you need it. More ram if you don't actually need it really won't do much of anything, other than give you more headroom to do more things. And in some cases it won't even do that. Take for instance Flight Sim X, it only sees something like 4 gigs of ram anyway since it is ancient coding. So the fact that I have 16 gigs of ram means nothing when I fire that up. And ram speed, I have played with it and really never could tell with that either. On benchmarks ya, but actually using my computer never noticed. Ram is pretty freakin fast to begin with. For me having STABLE ram is WAAAY more important. Unstable ram problems will make you want to drop kick your computer lol.