Hi there.
All my computer parts, but for my SSD, are older than 4 years, so it seems to be time for an upgrade (also, I want to be able to play games on high details again). I'm not rich, but got some money to spend, so I thought about this:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 313
ram Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000MHz
Mainboard: Gigabyte X470 Aorus Gaming 7 WIFI
Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S (AM4)
HD Samsung SSD 860 Pro (512 GB)
Case: Fractal Design Define R6 TGE (Tempered Glass Edition)
Graphics card: Palit GeForce GTX 1070 Ti JetStream
I still got a good power supply left, as well as some good screens and mouse and whatnot.
Thanks for any advice.
Comments
What power supply do you have that you're looking at reusing?
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
if you want to make a big difference in your audio quality, spend it on a good amp and/or speakers. Sound card won’t net you any significant difference unless you already have some pretty high end output equipment to be able to notice it.
OP:
CPU, MB, Samsung SSD and cooler are "luxury" components rather than smart buy.
ram Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000MHz - Black I presume
So the view inside won't be very pretty in my opinion. You could either go non window, or switch the cooler for something like bequiet Dark Rock 4, which should be priced similarly and get the Black Out edition for the R6.
The Noctua cooler also might not have much room for overclocking. It can cool the 2700x on stock no doubt, but it might run warmer than preferred due to the R6 being focused on silence and not airflow.
Also any particular reason you want the Pro version instead of the Evo for the SSD? You aren't going to notice the difference while playing games. Also an M.2 won't be faster unless it is NVME, which are more expensive by quite a bit. Sata through a Sata cable or through M.2 Sata remains the same.
Otherwise the specs are sound.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
2.5" SSDs are SATA devices and are limited to SATA speeds (550ish MB/s)
M.2 uses a PCIe 4x lane which is way faster (1500-3500ish MB/s depending on brand)
How much each of us cares about that is a personal preference.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
But it's not guaranteed to have higher bandwidth. If the SSD controller can only do 400 MB/sec, then that's all you get, whether you're using SATA or PCI-E. I don't know of any PCI-E controllers with such low bandwidth used in M.2 SSDs, but some of them are only around 1 GB/sec, while others are closer to 3 GB/sec. SATA has become enough of a bottleneck that all of the modern SATA SSDs (with the possible exception of some low end junk that I missed) offer performance in the ballpark of 500 MB/sec, but performance of PCI-E over M.2 SSDs varies a lot more widely.
Of course, that extra bandwidth only matters if the SSD is the bottleneck. These days, it usually isn't. The big jump was going from about 100 IOPS on a hard drive to tens of thousands on an SSD. For consumer software, the difference between 500 MB/sec on SATA and 3 GB/sec on a high-end M.2 over PCI-E 3.0 x4 SSD is sometimes a rounding error too small to measure and sometimes measurable but still small.
There are some applications where the difference between 3 GB/sec over PCI-E and 500 MB/sec over SATA makes an enormous difference. But that tends to be arcane enterprise stuff; I'm not aware of any widely-used consumer application where that makes a big difference.
The drive the OP listed is a SATA drive, so an M.2 would be several times faster.
1) Both of the SSDs that New Egg shipped to me were completely defective.
2) Both of the NVMe slots in my motherboard are completely defective.
3) Either Gigabyte or Mushkin didn't follow the specification and an entire SKU is categorically defective.
4) NVMe is still immature and very hit and miss as to whether a motherboard and SSD will work together.
5) Making it work requires doing something beyond just plugging it in like you would with SATA.
People tend to tell me that it's not (5), but I have no idea which of the others is the problem. Either (1) or (2) could be simply terrible luck for me, but low probability events like those do happen sometimes.
To be precise however M.2 is indeed a "form factor" change which had tablets in mind. within the specification there are different options e.g. 2280 (pretty common) which denotes 22mm wide and 80mm long.
NVMe was a "functional" change that replaced the previous SATA limitations for the much faster PCIe transfer rates.
PCIe storage appeared a few years ago, plugged directly into PCIe slots but didn't catch on because they were expensive.
M.2 NVMe combines both. Things only took off once motherboard manufacturers allocated space and added a slot their boards - typically 22mm wide with 110 mm being the format's maximum length. Adaptors - that fit in a PCIe slot - are now available potentially allowing older motherboards to M.2 NVMe (but check firmware support).
The market potential of PCs / servers combined with that of tablets has encouraged manufacturers to invest in new production methods in particular multi-layering. Samsung, for example, put 48 layers on their M.2 NVMe which are 2.34mm thick. (M.2 format allows up to 3mm). Multi-layering has enabled much greater capacities e.g. 2TB to be achieved.
Several companies have also taken the opportunity to develop new controller designs - spurred on by the faster transfer rates available - as well as pursue enhanced energy efficiency. (Intel's latest designs are as power efficient as hard drives in idle mode.)
An M.3 standard - basically allowing multiple M.2s to be combined to get to 16Tb (for servers today!) has been agreed.
So large capacity, much faster, prices falling as production and sales have increased, power efficient, easy to fit
(Fitting one of these is super simple - easier than memory, graphics card, ssd etc. Undo 1 screw from the riser in the m/b - usually set for 80mm long units. If the unit is say 60 or 110mm long you will need to move it to the appropriate hole in the m/b. Place the tiny card into the m/b slot at about a 45 degree angle - you just place it basically. Then you use the screw to secure it to the m/b - the end will have a half moon notch).
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.