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Does a faster NVMe make any difference?
- Thread starter few34fwfs
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The 990 Pro is 8% faster than the 970 EVO on average:
This includes a variety of prosumer and consumer benchmarks.
You are extremely unlikely to notice an 8% difference. If you isolate the data to just consumer tasks the difference is even smaller. This is down to the fact that the sequential speeds are the primary benefit to newer PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 drives which has little impact on consumer workloads as most people are not reading or writing 7 - 14 GB/s worth of data.
I really don't think the upgrade to the 990 Pro is worth it given the current price of that drive. I have a Crucial T700 4TB (PCIe 5.0) and there was zero benefits outside of loading AI models (which is why I bought it). If I wasn't doing AI, I absolutely would not have bothered.
This includes a variety of prosumer and consumer benchmarks.
You are extremely unlikely to notice an 8% difference. If you isolate the data to just consumer tasks the difference is even smaller. This is down to the fact that the sequential speeds are the primary benefit to newer PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 drives which has little impact on consumer workloads as most people are not reading or writing 7 - 14 GB/s worth of data.
I really don't think the upgrade to the 990 Pro is worth it given the current price of that drive. I have a Crucial T700 4TB (PCIe 5.0) and there was zero benefits outside of loading AI models (which is why I bought it). If I wasn't doing AI, I absolutely would not have bothered.
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Here's some solid real-use-relevant testing from W1zzard
Game Load Times:
www.techpowerup.com
Windows Startup Times:
www.techpowerup.com
If you have specific needs, it may well be worth it. If it's just for 'general' and 'gaming' use, you probably won't actually notice a bit of difference.
For day-to-day use, and 'seat of your pants' feel, faster Rnd4Ks will be the biggest impact.
So, If you really want to feel a difference in an NVME upgrade, go Optane.
www.techpowerup.com
Beyond that, purchase by application/need. If no specific usecase, then buy 'best bang for buck'.
Many NVME drives w/ DRAM cache are nearly indistinguishable in 'seat of pants' and day-to-day 'normal use' performance.
Which, is why I have
a P1600X 118GB on the CPU M.2,
a Sabrent Rocket 4.0 1TB on the X570 M.2
and
4x Solidgm P41+ 2TBs in a QNAP QM2-4P-384A ASMedia PCIe Gen3 switch-equipped NVMe expander in my X570's x4 slot.
I've had the Rocket 4.0 and P41+ as boot drives, before. The Optane is faster for that use.
Sure, the Rocket 4.0 'benches' the fastest of the lot but, only in raw short-term throughput.
Cache Exhaustion being more noticeable/coming up sooner on the DRAMless QLC P41+ v. the DRAM'd TLC Rocket 4.0.
PS:
(At least on desktop) M.2 drives need not be constrained to the M.2 slot.
Passive adapters (M.2 to PCIe x1 and x4 slots) are very affordable and common.
Conversely, U.2 and other 'server' standard NVME formfactor-interfaces are readily adapted to M.2 and PCIe x4.
So, if it were in budget (<$400)... a 1.5TB Optane 905P for boot drive, could still connect into your CPU-connected M.2 slot.
Game Load Times:
Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB Review
Samsung 990 Pro is the company's flagship M.2 NVMe SSD. Compared to the 980 Pro, it comes with an improved controller and more modern flash. Our review confirms: this is the fastest PCI-Express 4.0 drive you can buy right now, beating the competition from WD, Phison and Solidigm.
Windows Startup Times:
Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB Review
Samsung 990 Pro is the company's flagship M.2 NVMe SSD. Compared to the 980 Pro, it comes with an improved controller and more modern flash. Our review confirms: this is the fastest PCI-Express 4.0 drive you can buy right now, beating the competition from WD, Phison and Solidigm.
If you have specific needs, it may well be worth it. If it's just for 'general' and 'gaming' use, you probably won't actually notice a bit of difference.
For day-to-day use, and 'seat of your pants' feel, faster Rnd4Ks will be the biggest impact.
So, If you really want to feel a difference in an NVME upgrade, go Optane.
Optane 1600X 118GB - Lots of CDM benching and some thoughts
These CDM benchmarks of the P1600X were made on a clean Win 11 Pro 23H2 install for the first run. Then as a second step, to sort of parallel the conditions in which W1zzard tests these, I filled the drive furthermore to about 80% capacity to rerun all tests – twice. It’s not like I went into...
www.techpowerup.com
Beyond that, purchase by application/need. If no specific usecase, then buy 'best bang for buck'.
Many NVME drives w/ DRAM cache are nearly indistinguishable in 'seat of pants' and day-to-day 'normal use' performance.
Which, is why I have
a P1600X 118GB on the CPU M.2,
a Sabrent Rocket 4.0 1TB on the X570 M.2
and
4x Solidgm P41+ 2TBs in a QNAP QM2-4P-384A ASMedia PCIe Gen3 switch-equipped NVMe expander in my X570's x4 slot.
I've had the Rocket 4.0 and P41+ as boot drives, before. The Optane is faster for that use.
Sure, the Rocket 4.0 'benches' the fastest of the lot but, only in raw short-term throughput.
Cache Exhaustion being more noticeable/coming up sooner on the DRAMless QLC P41+ v. the DRAM'd TLC Rocket 4.0.
PS:
(At least on desktop) M.2 drives need not be constrained to the M.2 slot.
Passive adapters (M.2 to PCIe x1 and x4 slots) are very affordable and common.
Conversely, U.2 and other 'server' standard NVME formfactor-interfaces are readily adapted to M.2 and PCIe x4.
So, if it were in budget (<$400)... a 1.5TB Optane 905P for boot drive, could still connect into your CPU-connected M.2 slot.
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going by that table 4% faster, id not be able to tell the diff in every day computing.
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That depends on your use case. If you edit high-resolution videos real-time, then maybe. If you use your PC for everyday things, like web browsing or casual gaming, then no.
Keullo-e
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I've never felt any difference between any of the SSDs I've had in the last 12 years. At least I think that any SSD is fine for normal usage.
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No tangible difference.
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Practically speaking for the majority of day to day tasks? Absolutely not. For those rare users who, for whatever reason, need to regularly transfer or re-write a lot of data on a regular basis, like video editing or dealing with large Photoshop projects? Sure, faster storage might help with that. Though at that point I would go with a dedicated NAS for a file server instead of just relying on PC local storage, IMO.
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As stated, gen 3, 4, 5 NAND TLC flash are all very close to each other in real world performance. If you want a significant upgrade you need either SLC flash, XLcell or Optane.
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You could buy a faster one, but in real world use, you never will see or feel the difference when doing daily work. Does it matter if a game takes 1 or 2 seconds more to load? No absolutely not. We come from harddisk and have lightning fast speeds will all the SSD available now, yet we now argue if it's fast enough. Even more, nowadays everyone on this planet now need to benchmark it's storage medium every day to see if it's fast enough... A benchmark is a benchmark, it's not showing real daily usage.
Some people literally now buy a new SSD to see higher benchmark speeds.
They even complain if they see the speed it not the same as the last benchmark they did, and mark it as a bad SSD. I don't know to where we are going, but now everyone that has a new super fast PC, benchmark it every day. The same with FPS in games, you can't see the difference anymore with the speeds now. But yet we argue about 1 or 2 FPS more...
Some people literally now buy a new SSD to see higher benchmark speeds.
They even complain if they see the speed it not the same as the last benchmark they did, and mark it as a bad SSD. I don't know to where we are going, but now everyone that has a new super fast PC, benchmark it every day. The same with FPS in games, you can't see the difference anymore with the speeds now. But yet we argue about 1 or 2 FPS more...
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Going to be the stickler here and point out the lack of system specs. Given the number of replies from members with reasonably high end and well tuned system. Performance is rather squashed in NVMe revisions. Whereas SATA SSD just got faster and used different memory or controllers without any marketing spiel beyond advancement of product naming schemes.
On my older lower end system Sata SSD was a considerable improvement over HDD in speed and performance. NVMe was again substantial, but in refinement deeper into performance as OS drive.
On my older lower end system Sata SSD was a considerable improvement over HDD in speed and performance. NVMe was again substantial, but in refinement deeper into performance as OS drive.
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I just use NVMe now because I do not want to deal with the hassle of SATA and PSU cables. If I need to plug one in I can, but like optical drives, I no longer need them.
But I have them just in case
The thing about adding moar NVMe, is now you have to look at your lane count, and budget for that.. *gags*
But I have them just in case
The thing about adding moar NVMe, is now you have to look at your lane count, and budget for that.. *gags*
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That can depend on your computing activities and expectations. OS performance is not going to be something you notice a difference in once you get a drive that can perform above 2000MBps. You will only notice the difference if you do a lot of file transfers or have a game that does the same. Even then the differences will be minimal. So the 970EVO vs the 990PRO? You're unlikely to "feel" or see much of a difference. EDIT: However, the 990PRO is a very solid drive, you will be happy with it and you can keep your 970EVO as a secondary drive.
More or less the same here. The differences between performance SATA SSDs and solid NVMe SSDs are noticeable but not serious.