[TechSpot] Storage Real-World Performance: NVMe vs SATA vs HDD [960 Evo vs Crucial MX300 vs WD Red]

[RussianSensation]

"To test and visualize how storage performance impacts the user experience in real world scenarios we have recorded how quickly our Core i7-6700K test system completes various tasks using Samsung’s new 960 Evo 500GB SSD. Those findings will be compared with results from the Crucial MX300, an affordable TLC-based SATA SSD as well as a WD Red Pro 4TB mechanical hard drive.

We are putting away synthetic benchmarks such as CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD Benchmark in favor of real world scenarios. This is not meant to be an in-depth analysis (for that we recommend reading our full written reviews) but we have picked a few general use case scenarios that showcase the tangible difference in performance, for example: measuring Windows 10 boot time, how long it takes to load a game (Call of Duty, Civilization 6) and then continue to measure the time until you are in-game with the first mission or level loaded, file compression and decompression, and so on."
http://www.techspot.com/news/67222-storage-real-world-performance-nvme-vs-sata-vs-hdd.html

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks, RS. Nice video, really hits home, what we all pretty-much intuitively notice and feel, when moving to SSDs. I'm glad to know that I wasn't imagining some performance improvements when moving from an M500 240GB SATA6G SSD, to a Samsung SM951 128GB M.2 PCI-E AHCI SSD, synthetics notwithstanding. After replacing that one with an Intel 600p 256GB, it feels slightly like a step backwards.

 

[cfenton]

Well that makes me want a 960 Evo more than I already did. It's also a good video to show people who aren't convinced an SSD (even a SATA one) will make a big difference to general computer use.

 

[BSim500]

A lot of it depends on the games in question. Many comparisons of +500GB budget SSD vs premium SSD are completely "flat" even between a 950/960 PRO vs an MX200/300:-
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/Crucial/MX300_750_GB/images/acsyndicate.png
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/Crucial/MX300_750_GB/images/bf4.png
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/Crucial/MX300_750_GB/images/crysis3.png
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/Crucial/MX300_750_GB/images/gta5.png
http://techreport.com/r.x/2015_10_21_950_Pro/arkham.png
http://techreport.com/r.x/2015_10_21_950_Pro/tombraider.png
http://techreport.com/r.x/2015_10_21_950_Pro/mordor.png

M2 Prices need to fall though. Was looking recently at the 960 EVO's (£208 500GB / £390 1TB) vs 960 PRO's (£270 500GB / £500 1TB). In the end that Black Friday Amazon Superdeal (750GB MX300 for £106) was just too tempting to pass up...

 

[Dasa2]

A lot of it depends on the games in question. Many comparisons of +500GB budget SSD vs premium SSD are completely "flat" even between a 950/960 PRO vs an MX200/300:-

I believe this is due to the level of file compression used in different games the cpu\ram can become the limiter when decompressing the files if there compression level is fairly high
Although i guess it could also be that there is more to loading a level than extracting the files perhaps the cpu has a fair bit of other work to do
I know i have seen that simply changing ram speed can make my system load faster or slower than friends with similar systems in coh2

 

[Elixer]

They also fail to mention one of the biggest problems with NVMe, which is the heat throttle issue.
They get very hot, and AFAIK, only MSI as a heatsink caddy type system in their new mobos that should help.