Need SSD Advice! Samsung 850, 950, or Intel 750?

[Nephi]

I'm having trouble picking and deciding on the right SSD for my build.

My build for gaming, photography, web design, work:

Intel 6700K
32MB DDR 2666mhz RAM
Dual 980Tis
850 Watt PS
MSI Z170A GAMING M9

Please note nothing has been purchased yet. I am looking for a fast SSD that is compatible with my MOBO (see above). I'm leaning towards dual Samsung 950 512MB drives.

I'm concerned however about reports of throttling and wither or not my MOBO will run the dual drives at full speed (along with dual GTX 980TIs). Also, can the Samsung 950s be used to host and boot Windows 10?

Any reason I should pick the Intel 750 1.2TB or Samsung 850 PRO instead? I'd really appreciate any help and advice. I'm not an expert in this area and I don't want to order incompatible parts!

Thanks!

-Brian

 

[Shmee]

A 950 can boot windows 10, though I am not sure if you can have 2 in RAID, and kinda doubt it. You may want to lean for the 950 due to more room for the 980Tis to breathe.

 

[Hellhammer]

Your configuration is compatible. The GTX 980 TIs will run off of the CPU's 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes (i.e. x8 per GPU), whereas the 950 Pros will utilize the chipset's PCIe lanes. The motherboard does support two PCIe SSDs in RAID. Note that you won't get full performance out of the SSDs because the link between the CPU and chipset is only x4, so with two 950 Pros the maximum performance will be around 3.2GB/s, which is still a nice upgrade over a single drive. You would have to get an X99 system to get more PCIe lanes and full bandwidth for all PCIe devices, but in real world the difference won't be substantial.

 

[Coup27]

Only in specific very high demand workloads will you see any performance increase by using a 950 Pro or 750 over a normal high quality SATA SSD. It depends on how hardcore your photography and web design tasks are on whether it's worth buying that kind of drive.

Is the 850 EVO not an option? Do you really need the endurance? The speed difference between the two is minimal. You can get a 2TB EVO for the same price as 2x 950 Pro's or half the cost of a 750 1.2TB with roughly twice the capacity. The premium for the 850 Pro isn't much more so it still get much more capacity for your money that route.

Some people are getting the 950 Pro's because they want the most powerful thing on the market which I can understand, but unless you actually utilise it to its potential it's a bit daft.