[Advice?] M.2 NVMe (and similar) Options

[xvi]

I've been looking at SSDs trying to figure out what I'm going to put in a new laptop I have coming soon. My main focus has been the Samsung 950 Pro, but am a bit turned off by its high $/GB (speed comes at a price, I suppose). I could afford it, but my main concern is I expect/fear that the price on it will fall in the not too distant future.

In a nutshell, I'm curious to know of anything in a M.2 2280 package either currently available or upcoming that might match the performance of the Samsung 950 Pro.

Edit: Anandtech's 2015 SSD Benchmark list doesn't seem to have anything near the 950 Pro except the oem-only SM951 (which is just as expensive as the 950s).

Edit 2: My fallback plan is to just do two 850 Pro/Evos in RAID and come in around half the throughput and 3x the latency, but for half the price. 850 Pro vs 950 Pro comparison here.

 

[xvi]

Reserved to consolidate findings.

 

[n-ster]

What do you need the speed for? Apart from sequential, it's hard to notice the speed difference in everyday tasks

Just get a 850 Evo M.2, or get the SATA version to leave the M.2 slot free for future upgrades

 

[xvi]

it's hard to notice the speed difference in everyday tasks

True, I realize I'm not really going to be taking advantage of the the transfer speeds that the 950 Pro offers most of the time. Some reviews mentioned how insanely fast they were to copy and validate Steam games for testing, so it'd be nice to see that, but the times where I can take advantage of it are certainly going to be far and few between. I'll admit a fair amount of the appeal is just running CrystalDiskMark and posting screenshots.

I think the main advantage of the 950 will be the significantly lower latency versus the 850 and others. This is where I'd expect the real-world responsiveness to come from. The question then becomes whether or not it's worth it. =/

 

[night.fox]

subbed. I too want to know more

 

[Hood]

I'm also on the fence about the 950 Pro. I want it, but is it worth it? First of all, it's definitely not worth the money to upgrade to Skylake, 1151, and DDR4, (certainly not coming from Z97 and 4790K), because I'm pretty sure the 950 Pro will boot Windows 10 on Z97 from a PCIe 3.0 4-lane adapter card, and it only costs about $30, not the $1000 the Skylake upgrade would cost. My Asus Z97-Deluxe already has the latest NVMe BIOS. The only problem on Z97 is that the adapter card will require 8 lanes, leaving only 8 for the graphics card. Most people say this won't even be noticeable during gameplay, because 8 lanes of PCIe 3.0 still has more than enough bandwidth for a single card. So I would really like to know, will the drive install and boot Windows 10 without any issues, using an adapter card on a Z97 board? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...e=m.2_pcie_adapter-_-12K-017B-00001-_-Product) Any TPU members running a 950 Pro in a similar scenario?
The larger question is, can you notice any difference in everyday use? If not using your PC for Photoshop, CAD, video editing, or large file transfers, will the user experience feel the same as any decent SSD? People who already spent the money don't usually talk about that very much, but I've seen a few honest user reviews. Windows and programs might load faster, and feel a little snappier, but how could you tell? (my rig already loads and runs everything pretty much instantly). Maybe I'll wait for a few generations - PCIe 4.0 is coming soon, and speeds may possibly increase enough to "feel in the seat of your pants".
MERRY CHRISTMAS TPU!

 

[RejZoR]

Basically, anything that isn't M.2 SATA will do it. I have SM951 AHCI and it's stupendously fast. Though I use it for different purpose (caching)...

 

[Ferrum Master]

Any board past 6th chipset can boot of nvme.

At win-raid forum you can fetch the extracted module from Z97 board and using mm tools put in your bios... all you need is a pcie adapter card... 10-20$ on fleabay. So X79 users with their crapload of free lanes can use it too.

The Intel 750 is also an option you must consider. It works out of the box everywhere... intel godmode.

And no... there won't no any significant real time usage differences versus a SSD. Same loading times, it even will give longer boot time. Just use it if you wish to save up space and if you hate cables and clutter it causes.