How fast is really a PCIe M.2 (NVMe) SSD?

[Whitestar127]

That is, compared to a SATA SSD? For example a 960 EVO compared to a 850 EVO.

What I mean is: do you really notice that much difference in practice?
- when loading Windows
- when loading games
- when loading game levels

Are there any reviews out there that look into this?

I mean, if it loads Windows or a game 1 second faster then I think I'll pass.

 

[XavierMace]

For the average user, it's not noticeable.

 

[deustroop]

It is noticeable and of course the larger the difference in specs, or the longer the comparative op normally takes, the more noticeable. Comparing the 850evo and 960pro, well come on.Some improvement is very clear , e.g., boot times and opening apps. The change appears minimal however, a second or two ,sometimes less and Joe Average, who would not be found on this Board BTW, would not care about the difference since he is also a value customer. But to those paying attention and who enjoy even relatively small improvements, as another "small step for man" , it matters.

 

[deustroop]

I recorded boot times, timing from a boot menu selection of the drive to the first appearance of the desktop. The 960 in my signature took ~10 seconds, the EVO ~14 .

 

[mnewsham]

I recorded boot times, timing from a boot menu selection of the drive to the first appearance of the desktop. The 960 in my signature took ~10 seconds, the EVO ~14 .

That's weird, NVMe M.2 drives are known to cause longer boot up times because the POST doesn't initialize PCIe storage devices until after SATA devices, so if you're booting from a SATA SSD you should be able to shave off a few seconds compared to an M.2 drive.

Plenty of other factors at play there though, with all my hard drives and RAM I end up taking almost 35-40 seconds to boot up.

 

[Fir]

LOL if that's your benchmark then just stick with SATA and save some money...

My two year old NUC with a 250GB EVO mSata gets to the desktop faster than my workstation with dual 2TB 960pros striped!
But when I actually come down to doing work, you can guess which one wins...

 

[deustroop]

I didn't time POST--I timed post POST lol. The boot menu (F8) only becomes available after POST and all drives are available.

Many users of this board initially complain that POST takes too long , with heavy fan spoolup and all, but the boot menu only becomes available after that so I only timed windows booting.

 

[UsandThem]

That is, compared to a SATA SSD? For example a 960 EVO compared to a 850 EVO.

What I mean is: do you really notice that much difference in practice?
- when loading Windows
- when loading games
- when loading game levels

Are there any reviews out there that look into this?

By golly, I think there is

https://www.techspot.com/news/67222-storage-real-world-performance-nvme-vs-sata-vs-hdd.html

I mean, if it loads Windows or a game 1 second faster then I think I'll pass.

Also, the 500 GB 850 EVO has been in the $150 - $170 range for a while now, while the 500 GB 960 EVO has been on sale several times for $199 at Newegg (and other places). Not much of a price/GB difference for something you should have for years.

 

[mnewsham]

I didn't time POST--I timed post POST lol. The boot menu (F8) only becomes available after POST and all drives are available.

Many users of this board initially complain that POST takes too long , with heavy fan spoolup and all, but the boot menu only becomes available after that so I only timed windows booting.

Fair enough, a bit disingenuous for the laymen in my opinion, most average people would consider boot up time from when they push the power button to when they're at the windows desktop.

 

[deustroop]

Well as I tried to point out , measuring from power on brings in an added factor , the POST process itself. My method is more clean as it eliminated the POST operation which appears to vary, like with this board, and with factors you even mentioned, like # of drives.

 

[mnewsham]

Well as I tried to point out , measuring from power on brings in an added factor , the POST process itself. My method is more clean as it eliminated the POST operation which appears to vary, like with this board, and with factors you even mentioned, like # of drives.

Yes, but since the NVMe drive is ONE of those factors which can extend the POST time, I feel it's important to mention it.

 

[TemjinGold]

OP: If you are wondering whether it's worth the extra cash, it's probably not. It IS faster but you always pay a premium for the best and that premium is generally more than the added benefit you get.

 

[UsandThem]

The boot time (from cold boot and from post) seems to the big question.

I'll test both in a bit, and post the results of my 960 EVO. I'll also time my other machine that has a 850 EVO as the boot drive.

All I know without timing it is the 960 EVO screams to the boot screen. I even disabled 'fast boot' in my BIOS to even to see the splash screen and have an opportunity to hit a key to enter into my BIOS (I know you can also do it holding down the shift key when restarting).

The best way to describe how the difference feels in basic terms, with a SSD most things are almost instaneous. With a fast NVME, they are instaneous. And with hardly any difference in price now, it seems like a logical buy, at least to me.

Anyways I'll post my findings back here within the hour.....

 

[Zor Prime]

I have a WD Black 256GB NVMe and it's not as fast as the 960 EVO but most things are still instantaneous, at least in perception to me. You get so fast to a point and everything sort of blurs despite specs. Here's to modern tech.

Big games like Mass Effect Andromeda (1440p) takes upward of 10 seconds to get off the ground, but I can deal with that. From OS load to desktop a few seconds. (Ryzen 1700 build)

 

[UsandThem]

I have a WD Black 256GB NVMe and it's not as fast as the 960 EVO but most things are still instantaneous, at least in perception to me. You get so fast to a point and everything sort of blurs despite specs. Here's to modern tech.

Yeah, that's how I feel about it as well. You know that feeling you have when you a PC at with an SSD for the OS drive, and have to work on someone's computer (or use one at work) that still has its OS on a hard drive? Why not as drastic as that difference is, that's how I felt timing my son's PC just now with the SSD in it. It just "feels" slower after using a NVMe drive.

Anyways, here's what I timed (not scientific, Gigabyte and Asrock. The 960 EVO is on a z170 board. The 850 EVO is on a z97 board):

960 EVO:

Cold - 15 seconds
Post - 6 seconds

850 EVO:

Cold - 18 seconds
Post - 11 seconds

But to me, faster boot times are the least important aspect to me in the NVMe vs. SSD debate. They're both fast. It's how everything "feels" once your in Windows and doing your thing.

 

[mnewsham]

Anyways, here's what I timed (not scientific, Gigabyte and Asrock. The 960 EVO is on a z170 board. The 850 EVO is on a z97 board):

Yeah the fact you're not only mixing manufacturers, you're mixing chipset's as well.

Hard to really tell much from that.

 

[Ketchup]

How much is enough of a difference to make it worth the upgrade? SSD to Hard Drive was worth it, but I still didn't buy a 960 GB SSD (for cost reasons). Considering that the speed difference from a "slow" SSD to the a "fast" SSD is still microscopic compared with the speed to difference between that slowest SSD to a virtually any hard drive, I don't see a good reason to be spending 2x to 3x as much money for an SSD that is maybe 20% faster than another, personally.

Of course, everyone is entitled to spend their money the way they want.

 

[bigboxes]

Well as I tried to point out , measuring from power on brings in an added factor , the POST process itself. My method is more clean as it eliminated the POST operation which appears to vary, like with this board, and with factors you even mentioned, like # of drives.

I would time it from a cold start. I care about the differences between the SATA SSD and the NVMe M.2 SSD. Everything else being the same, I want to know the performance differences between the two. If you want to throw in an after post test I'm ok with that as well. Most people want to know how long it takes relative to when they push that button. Myself, I never turn off my main rig or the file server, so it doesn't really matter much about boot times in that scenario.

 

[UsandThem]

Yeah the fact you're not only mixing manufacturers, you're mixing chipset's as well.

Hard to really tell much from that.

Exactly, that's why I disclosed the different manufacturers and chipsets. For me, when I bought my 960 EVO ($249 at the time), boot times were not even a consideration. SSDs and NVMe drives boot very fast compared to a HDD. I bought the 960 EVO just because I wanted to own one and play around with what it was capable of doing. Things like installing Windows 10 and moving large files is insanely fast on a NVMe drive. It makes the system feel a little "peppier" as well. It shaves a few seconds off of opening programs, loading games, etc. In no way going from a SSD to NVMe drive the same performance increase as going from a HDD to a SSD.

But now that a person can buy a very fast 500 GB NVMe drive for $170 - $199 on sale, I think the extra $20 - $30 is worth it if a person is considering buying a 850 EVO or Crucial MX300. When I bought mine, it was roughly $100 more than the same size 850 EVO, so it's a tougher call at that price difference.

 

[squirrel dog]

I found it to be faster than a speeding bullet , more powerful than a locomotive

 

[Smoblikat]

Ive ran games and an OS on SATA and M.2 SSD's, and the only difference I can ever find is in benchmarks. There is no real world performance benefit to M.2 over a capable SATA unit. If given the option however, I would exclusively use M.2 drives because the cheap OEM one im using now still pulls over 1.7gb/s reads and 1gb/s writes

 

[nk215]

In my workstation I didn't bother with pcie flash storage. SATA SSD is more than enough even the one from 2 generations ago.

In my ESX machine, I use intel P3700/4600 because the difference is noticeable when I have a few VMs hitting my datastore (compared to intel S3700 SSD which is also more space limited in my setup because I only have 400gb version).

 

[Azuma Hazuki]

From experience, I definitely notice a difference between SATA and NVMe but it's, as has been pointed out, nothing like the jump from hard drive to SSD. Mostly I like NVMe m.2 modules because they make builds far cleaner and more convenient, always a consideration when you build as many Mini-ITX (and recently -STX) systems as I do...

 

[BFG10K]

Unless all you do is copy files all day, you won't notice a lick of difference between SATA and PCIe drives.

If you see anyone post "it feels smoother when I multitask", discount it immediately, It's nothing more than an emotional attachment to justify the purchase.

 

[TemjinGold]

Unless all you do is copy files all day, you won't notice a lick of difference between SATA and PCIe drives.

If you see anyone post "it feels smoother when I multitask", discount it immediately, It's nothing more than an emotional attachment to justify the purchase.

Have you actually used one before? I went from the exact SSD in your signature to my current drive and there is absolutely a difference. Not an earthshattering one but it's there.