How much a bottle neck would a Gen 2 NVMe drive be in a modern gaming PC
Posted by Majestic-Bed-6732@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 15 comments
I'm building my first gaming PC in over twenty years, and it is so much fun seeing how much has changed. I've learnt a lot in the last week or so.
One thing I'm curious about... How important is the speed of the NVMe in a gaming PC? Is it only going to effect load times of games and the OS booting up?
The reason I ask is, I have a spare Gen 2 NVMe and if I could use that, it would be approx 150 quid saved which could go towards a better GPU or CPU.
All advice would be much appreciated, and thanks in advance.
kester76a@reddit
To be honest speed isn't the issue due to the fact file sizes are mostly too small to hit anything too demanding. The main issue is lack of dram which can cause write slowdowns. Best steer away from anything that uses terms HMB or lacks SLC cache.
_lefthook@reddit
Eh a standard sata SSD with 500mb/s read write is sufficient tbh
FewEstablishment4099@reddit
Even the notorious rifts in R&C Rift Apart work reasonably fast on SATA SSDs.
VersaceUpholstery@reddit
Gen 2 nvmes don’t exist
However, you’d likely not notice any difference between the cheapest 2.5” SATA SSD and the most expensive Gen 5 nvme M.2 in 99% of gaming pc scenarios
SATA vs nvme can shave off a couple seconds of loading time with windows 11 specifically, and MAYBE it could make a difference in the extremely small number of games that support DirectStorage
I have a SATA drive and a Gen 4 nvme and I notice zero difference between them for my casual gaming usage
VaultBoy636@reddit
Yes they exist(ed), but are very old and probably not what OP has
Majestic-Bed-6732@reddit (OP)
Ha! You are correct. I double checked and it's a Gen 4. I don't know where I got Gen 2 from.
ChaZcaTriX@reddit
Might be Gen4x2. It has half the regular lanes, but it's still as fast as a full Gen3x4 and 5 times as fast as a SATA SSD.
NinjutStu@reddit
For gaming and general use you won't see any difference, you can just use the NVME you have.
The higher speed drives might be important for people that need to move a lot of large files regularly. it's why video editing always gets brought up.
Your 150 would be better spent on getting the GPU you want.
prank_mark@reddit
Unless you're professionally editing 4K video, it won't make any difference
Majestic-Bed-6732@reddit (OP)
I actually do edit 4K video, but I use proxy files to reduce the load on my computer.
prank_mark@reddit
Ah okay, in that case you likely won't notice anything. But you can always upgrade your SSD later as well.
Also, since you're editing, I would highly recommend looking at the new Intel 250K Plus and 270K Plus. They're absolute beasts in productivity and are great for gaming as well.
apoetofnowords@reddit
It's perfectly fine. Definitely prioritize a better CPU or GPU.
killkiller9@reddit
it will affect loading and OS like you already know, but I dont think it would be that bad. I have a 1tb gen 4 980 pro nvme and 1tb 860 evo SATA SSD (like 4x slower than gen2), and they do not seem to have very noticeable different in loading times. Im running OS from another 980, so I cannot tell you about the OS thou.
ConversationFirm2112@reddit
still a lot faster than sata which you can also still use just fine
DZCreeper@reddit
You probably won't even notice the difference. Loading times are mostly random IO limited, not sequential read/write.