NVMe and SSD

[KhaosFury]

Hey Everyone, looking for some advice on which drives to use as my primary OS drive vs which drive I should use to run my Programs, Games, System Temp Files, etc off of. 

For your reading pleasure, here's a comparison of the two drives I have at the moment: http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/SK-hynix-SC311-SATA-256GB-vs-Kingston-SSDNow-KC400-256GB/m241574vsm79042

The Hynix would go into my M.2 slot on the MSI B450 Tomahawk.

 

So, it would seem the KC400 has better random read and random write speeds (making it better for OS?) while the Hynix has negligibly faster write speeds. Are there any other benefits I'm missing that would inherently make M.2 faster than the standard SATA III slot? Or am I comparing peanuts here? I get that I should be running out to get a better Samsung EVO drive and NVMe, believe me, but I'm working with what I got laying around at the moment. 

 

Hynix Vendor Site: https://www.dell.com/en-au/shop/solid-state-drive-hynix-sc311-256gb-m2-2280/apd/400-aviy/storage-drives-media

Kingston: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAH967H90700&cm_re=SSDNow-_-2BN-001M-00008-_-Product

 

Thanks for reading!

[dizmo]

I wouldn't bother getting the one with the slightly faster write speeds, that won't be that noticeable. I think it's more generational improvements than it being m.2; the SK drive is a lot newer. You likely don't need NVME, and the difference probably wouldn't be that noticeable. Depends on the cost of these though, lower end NVME drives can be only a few dollars more.

 

Welcome to the forum!

[KhaosFury]

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I wouldn't bother getting the one with the slightly faster write speeds, that won't be that noticeable. I think it's more generational improvements than it being m.2; the SK drive is a lot newer. You likely don't need NVME, and the difference probably wouldn't be that noticeable. Depends on the cost of these though, lower end NVME drives can be only a few dollars more.

 

Welcome to the forum!

Thank you kindly for the reply! I already have both drives laying around unfortunately, otherwise If I had a choice I would have purchased an NVMe instead of just an M.2 SSD.

So overall, which would you say fits the bill of being my gaming SSD? I don't care much for my OS Loading times as much as I do want to reduce my gaming loading times, and increase texture load speeds. However I do know that having faster OS read/write can in some cases also improve game performance. 

[dizmo]

4 minutes ago, KhaosFury said:

Thank you kindly for the reply! I already have both drives laying around unfortunately, otherwise If I had a choice I would have purchased an NVMe instead of just an M.2 SSD.

So overall, which would you say fits the bill of being my gaming SSD? I don't care much for my OS Loading times as much as I do want to reduce my gaming loading times, and increase texture load speeds. However I do know that having faster OS read/write can in some cases also improve game performance. 

Where have you seen that? You don't gain FPS. At most you might gain fractions of a second for load time. Which, especially for multiplayer games, is meaningless.

I'd just use the one you like the look of more.

[KhaosFury]

On 9/4/2018 at 4:17 PM, dizmo said:

Where have you seen that? You don't gain FPS. At most you might gain fractions of a second for load time. Which, especially for multiplayer games, is meaningless.

I'd just use the one you like the look of more.

But I didn't say you'd gain FPS, I said it would reduce loading times, and increase performance which would be a logical result from reducing the amount of time to read/write, and cache into the pagefile from the drive.

 

I meant "performance" as in reduced loading times, reduced hitching (framerate stability), etc. However, the benefit would ultimately depend on the game/engine you use, and whether or not they pre-load the textures and assets required for the scene or whether they "pop-in" from render distance like on some open world games.

 

Here's a good benchmark example of how big of a difference an SSD can make. For a real world example, just look at how horrendous Arma 3 with mods plays on an HDD vs an SSD (Loading times, frame instability and all), and why I would always recommend taking the time to determine the best of your drives to allocate them accordingly, as opposed to whichever looks better :

https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7911/upgrade-test-gtx-760-vs-1060-ssd-hdd-system/index2.html

[dizmo]

3 minutes ago, KhaosFury said:

But I didn't say you'd gain FPS, I said it would reduce loading times, and increase performance which would be a logical result from reducing the amount of time to read/write, and cache into the pagefile from the drive.

 

I meant "performance" as in reduced loading times, reduced hitching (framerate stability), etc. However, the benefit would ultimately depend on the game/engine you use, and whether or not they pre-load the textures and assets required for the scene or whether they "pop-in" from render distance like on some open world games.

 

Here's a good benchmark example of how big of a difference an SSD can make. For a real world example, just look at how horrendous Arma 3 with mods plays on an HDD vs an SSD (Loading times, frame instability and all), and why I would always recommend taking the time to determine the best of your drives to allocate them accordingly, as opposed to whichever looks better :

https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/7911/upgrade-test-gtx-760-vs-1060-ssd-hdd-system/index2.html

Yes, but you're looking at an SSD vs an HDD. You're not going to see any kind of increase like that going from SSD to SSD. I'd put a lot of money on you not getting a noticeable difference at all. If you're playing multiplayer games, you're still limited to the slowest person in your party.

[KhaosFury]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Yes, but you're looking at an SSD vs an HDD. You're not going to see any kind of increase like that going from SSD to SSD. I'd put a lot of money on you not getting a noticeable difference at all. If you're playing multiplayer games, you're still limited to the slowest person in your party.

That's true, I don't dispute that- especially given SSDs are nowhere near the bottle neck at that point (Especially my case, Low end SSD vs Low End SSD).

I thought the statement "You don't gain FPS." was referring to the choice of storage media in general, which seems to be a common misconception or plain overlooked detail. Anyhow, I appreciate the input. I'll use the one with better random read/write for the OS drive (even if it is negligible difference either way) and maybe benchmark each out of curiosity. 

[PrimeSonic]

The difference in typical game load times going from a SATA SSD to an NVMe SSD are so tiny that most of the time you won't even notice them.

 

Still, the perks of having to deal with less cables when going with an M.2 form-factor are nice.

It's why I chose to go with all M.2 drives beyond the "bling".

Having less cable clutter to deal with was so nice that I don't think I would ever want to go back.