Today we'll have a look at OCZ's Vertex 2 SSD. As the '2' in the name implies it is, of course, a follow-up to the original Vertex, which was developed to ...
Until recently, Corsair has been known mostly as one of the world's largest RAM manufacturers, but these days the company is also a major player in the SSD ...
First published: May 27, 2010
The first hybrid drives that came out a few years ago didn't offer much of a performance boost. Now Seagate is trying again ...
Both Indilinx and Sand Force are extremely powerful SSD controllers, and the only thing holding them back right now is the need for more bandwidth. The SATA ...
First some background: The longer you use an SSD, the more likely it becomes that you see degradation in performance, even if the device isn’t filled with ...
Temperatures at full load are visible in the screenshot: Just above 94 degrees C with the Wraith Stealth versus below 75 C with the DeepCool. This is also mentioned in the text as “about 20 C below”. But now that you mention it, I should probably have included this in the graphs.
Thanks for your comment! All of the GPUs we mention above are several times faster than your current card. Even the 1050 ti is around 5x the performance of the GT730. Something to keep in mind if you are upgrading your current system is that all cards above the GTX 1650 require a separate PCIe power connector from your power supply. There’s a good chance that your computer doesn’t have one, as the old GT730 doesn’t need one either. Also check check the measurements to make sure that it will fit in your case (I know that there are many pre-built small form factor systems with the GT 730)
Heatsink or no heatsink is a debated issue, but the short version is that a high-end Gen4 drive (like the 850X) may throttle when subjected to heavy workloads, like extended write/copy operations. If it’s mainly for storing and running games I wouldn’t worry about this at all.
Hi Cesar! Thanks for the reminder, I’ve added some updates for 2024. It’s mostly revisions of existing boards, but the ASRock Nova looks like an interesting new launch. A review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQXZ4KM8oFs
All of ROG boards are better in terms of I/O, especially in the USB and networking departments. Prime is Asus’ mainstream/budget lineup, which goes for TRX40 as well even if Threadripper is an expensive platform on average.
No news on any RTX 4060S or 4060 Ti Super yet that I know of. But something of that nature is likely to arrive eventually. The Ti is a slightly cut version of the AD106 GPU so there’s room for improvement.
Hi Massimiliano, that’s a hugely interesting question. When just looking at compute performance, the A770 should be faster. But thanks to the Tensor cores (and possibly other factors), Nvidia GPUs perform way better in e.g. Stable Diffusion (https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/stable-diffusion-benchmarks). Developer preference and optimizations for Nvidia also makes it easier in general to get up and running with RTX cards.
Unless I had a highly specific use case where Intel is known to perform well, I would personally go with Nvidia even if it has 50% less VRAM. The choice of CPU (or iGPU) should have little to no effect on these types of GPU workloads.
Hey Avyaan, TBH the built-in PS5 benchmark isn’t overly useful for predicting actual performance, but it’s the only one available… In reality, any high-end drive will do just nicely.
The reason is mainly that these are the capacities I’ve tested (don’t have the resources to test all capacities of the same drive, unfortunately).
In this case, I would also argue that it’s quite reasonable since the 2TB and 4TB specs are identical for these two models, respectively. It would be very different if it was 1TB Vs 512GB, where the smaller one would practically always perform worse.
… then will spend the next 20 years saying building PCs is impossible
Good point! IMO it can be quite fun to build an ITX PC, but there are barely any good reasons to go with SFF for your everyday build (and even less so when it’s your first).
Hi Mike! Sounds like a very well-rounded build and if you are happy with it I wouldn’t change a thing. The Legend 800 is still faster than top Gen3 drives and in most cases, you are unlikely to notice much difference in everyday tasks compared to pricier Gen4 options. It might be a bit more noticeable once DirectStorage is implemented in most new games, but that will probably take years.
Also, my possibly controversial opinion is that the 4060 8GB is a great card đŸ™‚ It mainly has a pricing problem, but that is unfortunately the case with most cards this generation…
Thanks Paul, you are absolutely correct! Most likely I misinterpreted the board’s Thunderbolt AIC connector as being onboard Thunderbolt. I changed it right away.
Thanks Siddharth! And sorry about the late reply… To clarify, this is what must be done with all Z790 boards as the chipset is originally specified for one x16 Gen5 slot (full-size), so adding a Gen5 M.2 slot is always a compromise.
This doesn’t seem to matter much at this point, but it’s of course possible that it becomes a limitation at some point in the future.
Hi Mark. Good luck with your build! The ProArt is a bit unusual with 2x full-size PCIe 5 slots (1x 16-lane or 2x 8-lane config). These slots are presumably intended for rendering with dual graphics cards running at Gen5 x8. That would be next-gen cards, though, as the current ones are all Gen4.
Thanks for the comment, Aman! Yes, it should definitely take the lead if it becomes available before the upcoming 2400 MT/s NAND models.
This one apparently uses 2000 MT/s chips as opposed to the current Gen5 drives’ 1600 MT/s.
Hi, do you mean Gen3 x4 (four PCIe lanes) or PCIe 4.0 (Gen4)? If it’s Gen3 x4 there are a few, including the Sabrent Rocket 2242 and Samsung PM991. Also some Kioxia and SK Hynix OEM products I believe. There are no 2242-size Gen4 drives that I know of.
Thanks for your comment, PLK. This is definitely a good point and worth keeping an eye on, especially as temperature-challenged PCIe 4 (and eventually PCIe 5) drives make their way into laptops.
Hi Christoper,
On the contrary, I’m happy to have errors pointed out and will correct them ASAP.
As you mention, this is not the first time that the Rocket 4 is mentioned. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is perhaps due to both the Rocket 4 Plus and Rocket 4 (non-Plus E16-based) being mentioned in the article, whereas only the slower non-Plus model has its specs listed? This is indeed a bit confusing and I should edit to clarify.
Thanks for your comment! I was just about to add the Kingston KC3000 and hadn’t heard about the Fury Renegade. These two appear to be a near-identical save for slightly different NAND provisioning.
As your system as a whole (not counting the GPU) is more than 10 years old, I would plan to eventually replace it entirely. The i7 975 CPU was great at launch but today it will struggle to push frame rates at 1080p compared to e.g. any recent Core i5. The DDR3 by itself should be less of a problem.
But for short-term gains, the GPU would nevertheless be at the top of my list. If GPU prices weren’t still massively inflated, the GTX 1650S or RX 5500 XT are both around 300% faster than the GT 1030. In normal circumstances, either of those would be a very cost-effective upgrade.
In today’s situation, the only decent card in the $200 area IMO is the GTX 1050 Ti, which is about twice as fast as the GT 1030. When looking at the used market, there seem to be some half-decent offers on RX 580 or 570 cards (some 2-3x faster).
Hi Willem,
This is interesting. You are clearly right about the numbers, meaning that PNY must have revised the specs and significantly lowered TBW across the board.
Hi MO,
Yes, the problem there is clearly the low-end GPU. It’s an otherwise modern platform, so as long as you can find any recent graphics card in today’s market you should be fine. As you mention, just about any card would be an improvement.
My only concern would be the power supply (PSU is missing from the specs on Bestbuy) and making sure that you have the connector(s) needed for a more powerful card, as the GT 730 is bus-powered. To know what to look for, check the last picture in the above article.
If you have no PCIe power connector at all, there are adapters (e.g. Molex->PCIe 6-pin) that should work fine if it’s not an overly demanding card. Otherwise, the GTX 1650 (non-Ti) is currently the fastest bus-powered card if you don’t want to upgrade the PSU.
Hi Karolis,
The most cost-effective upgrade would usually be a new GPU. Unfortunately, it’s practically impossible to find a decent mid-range GPU with a normal price tag right now. Personally, I would wait a while with that upgrade.
You could also see some decent improvements to your 1080p frame rates by upgrading your Haswell Core i5 system is to e.g. a Core i5 10600K, which would be particularly helpful in FPS gaming with a 144Hz monitor. In that case you would also need a new motherboard and DDR4 RAM, however.
Yes, unfortunately just about every GPU is unavailable at normal prices right now. Even used GPUs from previous generations are overpriced due to the extreme shortage.
There are basically no good options for buyers right now, but some vendors may give you the option to preorder at a fair price. Occasionally, there are limited amounts of cards in stock, but these will fly off the shelves, so it might be a good idea to set up ‘in-stock notifications’ when possible.
Hey Pand, thanks! Haha, no I hadn’t even heard of this King of birds, so I had to look him up. A fun guy. His comedic use of Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit makes me wish I was related đŸ™‚
However, if the card doesn’t work properly I would consider an RMA (or at least a talk with XFX support about the issue first). The newer bios will improve performance, but it should still work fine with the default one. If it doesn’t there could be a hardware issue.
They will work together smoothly, capacity and memory type is not an issue as it might be with RAM. However, a Gen4 SSD in a Gen3 slot will be capped at Gen3 speeds.
I’ve noticed that both Amazon and Newegg (and probably other major retailers) seem to stick to MSRP for cards in stock (i.e. ‘shipped and sold by’, third-party sellers are free to set their own prices). Problem is these don’t arrive often enough and sell out predictably fast.
Preordering or setting up notifications of incoming stock can work, but that still involves waiting of course. I preordered a card late last year and had to wait over a month… Insane market right now.
Thanks! To be honest I didn’t examine the PCB and Gigabyte doesn’t go into specifics about DIMM topology. I believe the closely related Aorus B550 boards are daisy-chain so that would be my best guess.
Hi Shaahidh,
Normally, you would be able to find either an RX 5500 XT or GTX 1650S for $150-200, both of which would as much as double your frame rates compared to a GTX 1050 (non-Ti) on average.
Right now, it’s unfortunately hard to find any specific GPU at normal prices due to the component shortage. If it was me, I would either wait a while to see if the supply situation clears up or look at the used market.
Thanks for your comment. You are absolutely right, I edited this page right before the Rocket 4 Plus was launched. Based on the reviews available so far, I’d be hesitant to call it the fastest of its kind, but there is no doubt it’s among the best. I have an SN850 here and I’m hoping to pit a Rocket 4 Plus against it soon!
Hi there and sorry about the late reply! Is that your comment reply above with the 8700K? In any event, Fortnite is not overly demanding but 150 fps (144Hz/1080p?) is also a lot for any entry-level GPU, especially when paired with a comparatively older CPU.
An RX 5500 XT or 1650S (preferably the latter) should be able to surpass that frame rate (average) at lower settings, possibly medium preset. I’ve never been into Fortnite or tested it much myself but found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAe9Xqi2Wbk
And I definitely agree that it’s important. Most high-end drives will likely last much longer than their specified TBW indicates, but a high number is always reassuring (and could say something about spare capacity/overprovisioning, which is hardly ever made clear in the specs).
Hi Rutilicus,
Thank you for the constructive criticism, this is very helpful! I will take this to heart and try to incorporate it in this and future articles.
You are absolutely right that great cooling doesn’t automatically translate to great performance. Things like VRAM and GPU ASIC quality, power limit, etc. are also key factors. Though I would still consider cooling capacity a vital condition for making the most of the other factors (and keep noise to a minimum when done right).
The mid-range segment is admittedly hard to get a grasp on when you don’t have all the cards in hand, but I tried to be as objective as possible. Where do you think it went wrong?
Agreed. If you have any sort of requirements on the parts you want these days it seems you have to wait in line… Anyway, thanks for taking the time to comment!
Thanks for the interesting comment. The 7,000/5,000 MB/s reads/write are only claimed in the PCIe 4.0 space though. Of course, and as you mention, these are theoretical sequential figures seen in e.g. ATTO.
I think you may even be underestimating the difference between theoretical performance vs real-world scenarios for the average desktop user. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons of loading times (and made some myself). A high-end SSD will certainly improve things a bit on average over an entry-level model, but you get diminishing returns compared to the vast difference when compared to a mechanical drive.
It will be interesting to see how much of an effect technologies like Microsoft’s DirectStorage will have on removing the bottlenecks and make the performance figures somewhat (or hopefully a lot) less theoretical.
Hi Leonardo. The 2TB capacity is 1,200 TBW but the above mainly compares 1TB capacities, and the 1TB EVO Plus is 600 TBW. Did I get this mixed up somewhere?
Thanks Dan!
It looks like I mixed these drives up and got it wrong about the MP600 being available without the heat spreader. The article is now updated, thanks a lot for pointing this out.
My personal preference when choosing a card (any GPU) is to go with a larger cooler if it fits and the price difference is minimal. They usually run cool and with less noise (though the 1660S TDP is only 125W, so no cooler will be taxed too hard). All 1660S cards use the manufacturers’ standard coolers, so there should be few surprises.
And I agree with you in questioning the large price differences. A small premium might be fine in my view if you get better cooling. But just a slight factory overclock, as is often the case, has never been much of a selling point.
Hey Seb!
The 1660S is my personal favorite from the current crop of mid-range cards. It’s almost as fast as the 1660 Ti, but usually much cheaper. By itself, this GPU will be able to give you a 200+ fps average in CS:GO, but CS:GO is also one of the older and less demanding games where your CPUs single-core performance (1st-gen Ryzen’s main weakness) might become a bottleneck, particularly at low resolutions.
I still have no doubts whatsoever that you can go above a 144fps average at 1080p to match your monitor. Mafia Definitive and GTA V will also run well. Not at such high frame rates but at least 60+ fps (more at lower settings, of course).
Hi Grant,
That is a very good question. High-end releases typically don’t affect current mid-range card prices by much or at all in the short term. But the RTX 3060 is also likely to arrive soon (sooner than RTX 2060 did by comparison). It could also be aggressively priced if needed to undercut what AMD releases in the same performance bracket (Navi 22).
In that case, this should definitely put some downward pressure on the current mid-range cards in the relatively near future. But those are many ifs and buts, of course.
Hi Mohamed,
The 980 Pro is considerably faster (theoretically) than the Firecuda 520 and all other drives with the same controller (until now, all PCIe Gen4 SSDs).
In terms of sequential speeds, the 980 Pro offers up to 7,000 MB/s (read) and 5,000 MB/s (write), compared to the FireCuda’s 5,000/4,400 MB/s. Random performance is 1,000,000 IOPS (Samsung) Vs. 760,000 IOPS (Seagate).
This large difference will however not be anywhere near as apparent as the numbers indicate outside of synthetic benchmarks. But it’s definitely faster overall.
Thanks for the clarification, though I’m not familiar with those plugins, so I won’t pretend that your situation is perfectly clear to me đŸ™‚
I still get the impression that storage bandwidth might be a lesser issue, but if you are intent on taking this route then I agree that a 970 EVO/EVO Plus would be one of the best-performing options.
Hi Garfield, and many thanks!
Although you could theoretically connect an external Thunderbolt drive to your 2018 Mac Mini, I would personally not spend money on anything that fast, and certainly no 970 PRO/EVO (which I would only use as an internal drive) + enclosure.
I don’t know about your exact working environment of course, but I am currently using Logic (audio recording + samples) on a 2012 MacBook Pro (SATA SSD) with no lag whatsoever.
It’s unlikely that you would have an issue with any external SSD on the market. My tip would be to simply maximize the amount of GB/$
You are absolutely right, good point! On many motherboards, the post is a metal screw that can simply be moved to another position. The issue rarely comes up though since the vast majority of consumer M.2 drives use the 2280 form factor. Maybe this will change once really large capacities are more common.
Hi Ian,
Cards like the 1650S and RX 5500 XT can manage 1440p resolution but are really at their best at 1080p, which is still where you will find some of the most affordable monitors in any size category. Personally, I don’t play fast-paced games and would just ensure that it has an IPS or VA panel (both of which look a lot better than any TN panel) and a refresh rate of 5ms or less. If I was into FPS/eSports gaming, on the other hand, I would pair one of the above GPUs with a 144Hz adaptive sync monitor like the Asus VP249QGR (or similar).
Hi Tim,
Intel HD Graphics 4000/5000 (and other Intel GPUs at this time) are integrated GPUs, i.e. part of the same package as the CPU. Any recent discrete GPU, i.e. standalone graphics card, is much faster at any job compared to integrated graphics.
Personally, I have no experience with Filmora but was curious as to how it might scale performance-wise and found this short video comparing rendering/exports with CPU Vs. Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti and 1650 Super:
Hi Pete! For now, the doubled bandwidth provided by PCIe 4.0 over PCIe 3.0 is usually just a benefit for SSDs, as these were previously bottlenecked by the 3.0 version of the interface. Since GPUs always use the full-size x16 PCIe slot, bandwidth has (so far) not been much of an issue.
Gen4 may have a slight advantage in some cases, but not enough that it would affect my choice of GPU.
Hi Zay,
Windforce is what Gigabyte calls its cooling solution (all triple-fan coolers in the case of the 2070S). There are several versions and revisions of these cards, but the main difference is that some have a factory OC and some don’t. “WindForce OC” versions have a boost clock of 1785 MHz or 1815 MHz instead of the reference 1770 MHz, so the difference is not particularly significant.
Hi Patrick!
Yes it’s getting old, but the i7-4770 is still a more than decent CPU (I still have a 4770S myself paired with an RX 580 on an entry-level Asus board that’s frequently in use). But as you are probably aware, the GTX 750 Ti is the one component that hasn’t aged very well. The RX 590 is about five times faster than the 750 ti in terms of compute performance and often 2-3 times faster in games (depending on game/settings).
So if you are just looking for a major GPU upgrade without changing anything else whatsoever, then I would say the RX 590 is definitely worthwhile đŸ™‚ (if it’s reasonably priced where you live). Your PSU will handle an RX 590 easily as long as you still have the PCIe power cables (I believe the 750 Ti is bus-powered but most RX 590s need a single 8-pin power connector).
Hi Julian,
The system’s total power consumption can be measured from the socket using e.g. a kill-a-watt power monitor (or a multimeter with the same functionality). It’s highly unlikely that you will have an issue with an 850W PSU though, even with the dual Xeons (130W each). What I did notice when looking up the HP’s specs is that the PSU seems to come with 6-pin PCIe connectors only. The 1650S uses a 6-pin connector but the RX 580 normally uses a single 8-pin connector, which will require a 6-pin to 8-pin adapter.
Many thanks James!
Your score is about half of mine, so as you suggest, it’s possible that your SSD is bottlenecked by your motherboard’s M.2 slot running in PCIe 2 mode (with half the bandwidth).
Are other benchmarks showing similar results (e.g. AS SSD, CDM, ATTO)? If so, that would indicate that M.2 bandwidth is capped one way or the other.
Right now, the 1650S and 1660S are much more competitive in terms of price/performance and currently priced about right compared to their AMD counterparts IMO.
As usual with a new generation, Nvidia will be releasing the high-end RTX 3000 series cards first. We will likely have to wait several more months for the mid-range and budget Ampere cards to shake things up in those areas. But it’s notoriously difficult to guess where GPU prices are heading. Since we are still right between two generations (not counting the high-end cards), my personal guess is that prices will hover around here for a while (though the 1660S could drop below 200 temporarily).
The RX 580 is typically 10-15% faster than the RX 570 (some games a little more, some slightly less). So if the price difference is small where you live, the 580 might be an even better option, especially if it’s an 8GB card (most 570s are 4GB).
Hi Mark,
CS:GO and DOTA 2 are two of the least demanding games today. So if you are only playing these two games, any of the cards mentioned above will easily run at 1080p at an average FPS of 75+.
If I were you, I would look at AMD RX 570-based cards, which are from the previous generation but still among the best in terms of price/performance when sold at around $150 (and they sometimes go for less). Your PSU and the rest of your system would be a good match.
Thanks, Walid!
Your current Toshiba XG5-P is a high-end OEM SSD, so it’s probably safe to say that you won’t experience any real-world difference outside of synthetic benchmarks with either the Samsung or the Sabrent (or a 2TB XG5-P).
The Samsung EVO Plus is a great drive that performs well in almost every area, but personally I would have opted for one of the others at this time due to the large price difference and small real-world performance difference.
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I agree that max. sequential speeds don’t paint the whole picture but they still tend to be quite accurate when tested with e.g. ATTO. As for the Samsung drives, I’ve also tested most of them since the 830 and they have usually been among the best in most areas (except when compared to the Intel Optane drives in terms of latency/random data).
… then yes, any of those M.2 models should theoretically work (with the possible exception of the Adata Swordfish, which has a heatsink that might not fit).
Thanks for your comment. I believe that you are mistakenly referring to the read/write specs for the 1TB+ models, which are higher than the 500GB ones listed here (write speeds in particular).
That said, it would make more sense to compare the 1TB drives, which is probably the most common capacity these days. I’ll change this in the next update.
It seems you’re right! Apparently Asus has no less than three versions of the Strix 2070S in this design and we missed the one with the higher clocks. Will edit the list ASAP, thanks for the helpful info!
You are right of course. Added this for the ROG also for fairness. This seems to be a downside with PCIe 4 boards in general. Not many such boards without a fan…
A valid point. Actually we did list enterprise/datacenter products originally. But since these can barely be obtained or used by the average mortal due to the cost and interface constraints, we decided to lessen the scope to just consumer drives.
As of now, there are still no Samsung EVO (or PRO) M.2 drives on the market that run on Gen4. The Gen4 Samsung 980 PRO was announced at CES this year, but I’ve seen nothing of a release date yet.
See:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15352/ces-2020-samsung-980-pro-pcie-40-ssd-makes-an-appearance
Thank you for the correction, it’s now updated.
Temperatures at full load are visible in the screenshot: Just above 94 degrees C with the Wraith Stealth versus below 75 C with the DeepCool. This is also mentioned in the text as “about 20 C below”. But now that you mention it, I should probably have included this in the graphs.
Thanks for your comment! All of the GPUs we mention above are several times faster than your current card. Even the 1050 ti is around 5x the performance of the GT730. Something to keep in mind if you are upgrading your current system is that all cards above the GTX 1650 require a separate PCIe power connector from your power supply. There’s a good chance that your computer doesn’t have one, as the old GT730 doesn’t need one either. Also check check the measurements to make sure that it will fit in your case (I know that there are many pre-built small form factor systems with the GT 730)
What error message are you getting when trying to delete it? Have you double-checked in the task manager that the app isn’t still running?
Might be, if you don’t have a decent motherboard heatsink.
You are most welcome Mike and sorry about the late reply!
Adding a second drive should be no problem at all. Your board has two Gen4 M.2 slots in these locations: https://www.gamingpcbuilder.com/wp-content/uploads/mikes-mb.jpg
Heatsink or no heatsink is a debated issue, but the short version is that a high-end Gen4 drive (like the 850X) may throttle when subjected to heavy workloads, like extended write/copy operations. If it’s mainly for storing and running games I wouldn’t worry about this at all.
As for specific models, the 850X is great if you can get it for $300 but I’m also a big fan of many of the newer value-oriented, DRAM-less models like the Teamgroup MP44 (https://www.gamingpcbuilder.com/teamgroup-mp44-2tb-review/) or the similar Lexar NM790 (https://www.techpowerup.com/review/lexar-nm790-2-tb/18.html).
Hi Cesar! Thanks for the reminder, I’ve added some updates for 2024. It’s mostly revisions of existing boards, but the ASRock Nova looks like an interesting new launch. A review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQXZ4KM8oFs
Yup, I’m also looking forward to more affordable options in the Gen5 space. Should be more of those arriving throughout 2024.
All of ROG boards are better in terms of I/O, especially in the USB and networking departments. Prime is Asus’ mainstream/budget lineup, which goes for TRX40 as well even if Threadripper is an expensive platform on average.
Hi Neet, thanks for the suggestion. Will try to add some more useful comparison data.
An excellent point, especially that you absolutely should not have to bother!
Yes! None of the major SSD manufacturers are using it yet but there are at least a few others in the market with the Maxio MAP1602-C:
Acer Predator GM7: https://www.storagereview.com/review/predator-gm7-ssd-review
Silicon Power US75: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/silicon-power-us75-2tb-review-a-practical-choice-for-the-everyday-gamer
No news on any RTX 4060S or 4060 Ti Super yet that I know of. But something of that nature is likely to arrive eventually. The Ti is a slightly cut version of the AD106 GPU so there’s room for improvement.
Hi Massimiliano, that’s a hugely interesting question. When just looking at compute performance, the A770 should be faster. But thanks to the Tensor cores (and possibly other factors), Nvidia GPUs perform way better in e.g. Stable Diffusion (https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/stable-diffusion-benchmarks). Developer preference and optimizations for Nvidia also makes it easier in general to get up and running with RTX cards.
Unless I had a highly specific use case where Intel is known to perform well, I would personally go with Nvidia even if it has 50% less VRAM. The choice of CPU (or iGPU) should have little to no effect on these types of GPU workloads.
Good one, thanks! Added this to the writeup.
It’s just because we have much more comparison data for Shadowbringer.
Hey Avyaan, TBH the built-in PS5 benchmark isn’t overly useful for predicting actual performance, but it’s the only one available… In reality, any high-end drive will do just nicely.
The reason is mainly that these are the capacities I’ve tested (don’t have the resources to test all capacities of the same drive, unfortunately).
In this case, I would also argue that it’s quite reasonable since the 2TB and 4TB specs are identical for these two models, respectively. It would be very different if it was 1TB Vs 512GB, where the smaller one would practically always perform worse.
Hi G. Even if it’s for a fast TB enclosure I would pick an affordable DRAM-less drive. There are many that will easily max out the interface. The Teamgroup MP44 is one (https://www.gamingpcbuilder.com/teamgroup-mp44-2tb-review/) or WD Black SN770 (https://www.gamingpcbuilder.com/wd-black-sn770-2tb-review/). If you won’t use it for intensive (high P/E cycle) workloads, an even cheaper QLC-based drive like the Crucial P3 Plus may offer great price/performance.
Good point! IMO it can be quite fun to build an ITX PC, but there are barely any good reasons to go with SFF for your everyday build (and even less so when it’s your first).
Hi Mike! Sounds like a very well-rounded build and if you are happy with it I wouldn’t change a thing. The Legend 800 is still faster than top Gen3 drives and in most cases, you are unlikely to notice much difference in everyday tasks compared to pricier Gen4 options. It might be a bit more noticeable once DirectStorage is implemented in most new games, but that will probably take years.
Also, my possibly controversial opinion is that the 4060 8GB is a great card đŸ™‚ It mainly has a pricing problem, but that is unfortunately the case with most cards this generation…
Sounds like a decent upgrade if the price is right. The 1660S is about 30% faster than the 6GB GTX 1060.
Thanks!
Thanks Paul, you are absolutely correct! Most likely I misinterpreted the board’s Thunderbolt AIC connector as being onboard Thunderbolt. I changed it right away.
Thanks Siddharth! And sorry about the late reply… To clarify, this is what must be done with all Z790 boards as the chipset is originally specified for one x16 Gen5 slot (full-size), so adding a Gen5 M.2 slot is always a compromise.
This doesn’t seem to matter much at this point, but it’s of course possible that it becomes a limitation at some point in the future.
Hi Mark. Good luck with your build! The ProArt is a bit unusual with 2x full-size PCIe 5 slots (1x 16-lane or 2x 8-lane config). These slots are presumably intended for rendering with dual graphics cards running at Gen5 x8. That would be next-gen cards, though, as the current ones are all Gen4.
There are also four Gen4 M.2 SSD slots. If you need more than that, you could use an x16/x8 M.2 adapter. Theoretically even for Gen5 SSDs with something like this: https://videocardz.com/newz/msi-shows-off-pcie-gen5-m-2-expander-z-card-for-next-gen-storage-up-to-128gb-s
Not sure what you mean with the RAM? If you have a 5600/CL28 kit, why limit it to 5200 MT/s? Or is it not CL28-spec but you want to tweak the timings?
The 3070 Ti should be able to go there if the 8700K doesn’t hold it back. Hard to say. Keep us posted đŸ™‚
Thanks for the comment, Aman! Yes, it should definitely take the lead if it becomes available before the upcoming 2400 MT/s NAND models.
This one apparently uses 2000 MT/s chips as opposed to the current Gen5 drives’ 1600 MT/s.
Hi, do you mean Gen3 x4 (four PCIe lanes) or PCIe 4.0 (Gen4)? If it’s Gen3 x4 there are a few, including the Sabrent Rocket 2242 and Samsung PM991. Also some Kioxia and SK Hynix OEM products I believe. There are no 2242-size Gen4 drives that I know of.
Thanks for your comment, PLK. This is definitely a good point and worth keeping an eye on, especially as temperature-challenged PCIe 4 (and eventually PCIe 5) drives make their way into laptops.
Hi Christoper,
On the contrary, I’m happy to have errors pointed out and will correct them ASAP.
As you mention, this is not the first time that the Rocket 4 is mentioned. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is perhaps due to both the Rocket 4 Plus and Rocket 4 (non-Plus E16-based) being mentioned in the article, whereas only the slower non-Plus model has its specs listed? This is indeed a bit confusing and I should edit to clarify.
Thanks for your comment! I was just about to add the Kingston KC3000 and hadn’t heard about the Fury Renegade. These two appear to be a near-identical save for slightly different NAND provisioning.
https://www.kingston.com/unitedstates/us/ssd/gaming/kingston-fury-renegade-nvme-m2-ssd
https://www.kingston.com/unitedstates/us/ssd/kc3000-nvme-m2-solid-state-drive
Hi Sean!
As your system as a whole (not counting the GPU) is more than 10 years old, I would plan to eventually replace it entirely. The i7 975 CPU was great at launch but today it will struggle to push frame rates at 1080p compared to e.g. any recent Core i5. The DDR3 by itself should be less of a problem.
But for short-term gains, the GPU would nevertheless be at the top of my list. If GPU prices weren’t still massively inflated, the GTX 1650S or RX 5500 XT are both around 300% faster than the GT 1030. In normal circumstances, either of those would be a very cost-effective upgrade.
In today’s situation, the only decent card in the $200 area IMO is the GTX 1050 Ti, which is about twice as fast as the GT 1030. When looking at the used market, there seem to be some half-decent offers on RX 580 or 570 cards (some 2-3x faster).
Hi Willem,
This is interesting. You are clearly right about the numbers, meaning that PNY must have revised the specs and significantly lowered TBW across the board.
Previously, the same spec sheet definitely said 1,665 TBW for the 1TB capacity (see e.g. here: https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/pny-releases-xlr8-cs3030-nvme-ssd-with-proper-tbw-values-and-perf.html). I haven’t seen any press release from PNY that clarifies these changes.
In any event, I will update the article to reflect the change. Thanks for mentioning this issue.
Thanks Simon! It would have been due for an update, but it’s not very inspiring with all new launches being been mostly theoretical lately…
Hi Mahesh,
Yes, I did miss that one. Will add it. Thanks for pointing it out!
Hi MO,
Yes, the problem there is clearly the low-end GPU. It’s an otherwise modern platform, so as long as you can find any recent graphics card in today’s market you should be fine. As you mention, just about any card would be an improvement.
My only concern would be the power supply (PSU is missing from the specs on Bestbuy) and making sure that you have the connector(s) needed for a more powerful card, as the GT 730 is bus-powered. To know what to look for, check the last picture in the above article.
If you have no PCIe power connector at all, there are adapters (e.g. Molex->PCIe 6-pin) that should work fine if it’s not an overly demanding card. Otherwise, the GTX 1650 (non-Ti) is currently the fastest bus-powered card if you don’t want to upgrade the PSU.
Hi Karolis,
The most cost-effective upgrade would usually be a new GPU. Unfortunately, it’s practically impossible to find a decent mid-range GPU with a normal price tag right now. Personally, I would wait a while with that upgrade.
You could also see some decent improvements to your 1080p frame rates by upgrading your Haswell Core i5 system is to e.g. a Core i5 10600K, which would be particularly helpful in FPS gaming with a 144Hz monitor. In that case you would also need a new motherboard and DDR4 RAM, however.
Yes, unfortunately just about every GPU is unavailable at normal prices right now. Even used GPUs from previous generations are overpriced due to the extreme shortage.
There are basically no good options for buyers right now, but some vendors may give you the option to preorder at a fair price. Occasionally, there are limited amounts of cards in stock, but these will fly off the shelves, so it might be a good idea to set up ‘in-stock notifications’ when possible.
Hey Pand, thanks! Haha, no I hadn’t even heard of this King of birds, so I had to look him up. A fun guy. His comedic use of Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit makes me wish I was related đŸ™‚
Hi Michael,
XFX bios downloads for the RX 5600 XT can be found here:
https://www.xfxforce.com/gpu/5600xt-vbios
However, if the card doesn’t work properly I would consider an RMA (or at least a talk with XFX support about the issue first). The newer bios will improve performance, but it should still work fine with the default one. If it doesn’t there could be a hardware issue.
Thanks for visiting and taking the time to comment!
They will work together smoothly, capacity and memory type is not an issue as it might be with RAM. However, a Gen4 SSD in a Gen3 slot will be capped at Gen3 speeds.
I’ve noticed that both Amazon and Newegg (and probably other major retailers) seem to stick to MSRP for cards in stock (i.e. ‘shipped and sold by’, third-party sellers are free to set their own prices). Problem is these don’t arrive often enough and sell out predictably fast.
Preordering or setting up notifications of incoming stock can work, but that still involves waiting of course. I preordered a card late last year and had to wait over a month… Insane market right now.
Thanks! To be honest I didn’t examine the PCB and Gigabyte doesn’t go into specifics about DIMM topology. I believe the closely related Aorus B550 boards are daisy-chain so that would be my best guess.
Hi Shaahidh,
Normally, you would be able to find either an RX 5500 XT or GTX 1650S for $150-200, both of which would as much as double your frame rates compared to a GTX 1050 (non-Ti) on average.
Right now, it’s unfortunately hard to find any specific GPU at normal prices due to the component shortage. If it was me, I would either wait a while to see if the supply situation clears up or look at the used market.
Thanks for your comment. You are absolutely right, I edited this page right before the Rocket 4 Plus was launched. Based on the reviews available so far, I’d be hesitant to call it the fastest of its kind, but there is no doubt it’s among the best. I have an SN850 here and I’m hoping to pit a Rocket 4 Plus against it soon!
Hi there and sorry about the late reply! Is that your comment reply above with the 8700K? In any event, Fortnite is not overly demanding but 150 fps (144Hz/1080p?) is also a lot for any entry-level GPU, especially when paired with a comparatively older CPU.
An RX 5500 XT or 1650S (preferably the latter) should be able to surpass that frame rate (average) at lower settings, possibly medium preset. I’ve never been into Fortnite or tested it much myself but found this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAe9Xqi2Wbk
Yes, it’s an odd but correct number:
https://www.pny.com/file%20library/company/support/product%20brochures/solid%20state%20drives/xlr8-ssd-cs3030-sell-sheet.pdf
And I definitely agree that it’s important. Most high-end drives will likely last much longer than their specified TBW indicates, but a high number is always reassuring (and could say something about spare capacity/overprovisioning, which is hardly ever made clear in the specs).
Yes! Looking forward to seeing how that one performs in the real world. Will add it once it’s available.
Hi Rutilicus,
Thank you for the constructive criticism, this is very helpful! I will take this to heart and try to incorporate it in this and future articles.
You are absolutely right that great cooling doesn’t automatically translate to great performance. Things like VRAM and GPU ASIC quality, power limit, etc. are also key factors. Though I would still consider cooling capacity a vital condition for making the most of the other factors (and keep noise to a minimum when done right).
Thanks!
The mid-range segment is admittedly hard to get a grasp on when you don’t have all the cards in hand, but I tried to be as objective as possible. Where do you think it went wrong?
Agreed. If you have any sort of requirements on the parts you want these days it seems you have to wait in line… Anyway, thanks for taking the time to comment!
Thanks a lot! Glad that it helped đŸ™‚
Many thanks Dennis!
Thanks for the interesting comment. The 7,000/5,000 MB/s reads/write are only claimed in the PCIe 4.0 space though. Of course, and as you mention, these are theoretical sequential figures seen in e.g. ATTO.
I think you may even be underestimating the difference between theoretical performance vs real-world scenarios for the average desktop user. I’ve seen a lot of comparisons of loading times (and made some myself). A high-end SSD will certainly improve things a bit on average over an entry-level model, but you get diminishing returns compared to the vast difference when compared to a mechanical drive.
It will be interesting to see how much of an effect technologies like Microsoft’s DirectStorage will have on removing the bottlenecks and make the performance figures somewhat (or hopefully a lot) less theoretical.
Hi Jordan. I agree, they appear to be solid and reasonably priced products. I’ll include one or more on the list.
Hi Leonardo. The 2TB capacity is 1,200 TBW but the above mainly compares 1TB capacities, and the 1TB EVO Plus is 600 TBW. Did I get this mixed up somewhere?
Thanks Dan!
It looks like I mixed these drives up and got it wrong about the MP600 being available without the heat spreader. The article is now updated, thanks a lot for pointing this out.
Sounds like a great plan, best of luck!
My personal preference when choosing a card (any GPU) is to go with a larger cooler if it fits and the price difference is minimal. They usually run cool and with less noise (though the 1660S TDP is only 125W, so no cooler will be taxed too hard). All 1660S cards use the manufacturers’ standard coolers, so there should be few surprises.
And I agree with you in questioning the large price differences. A small premium might be fine in my view if you get better cooling. But just a slight factory overclock, as is often the case, has never been much of a selling point.
Hey Seb!
The 1660S is my personal favorite from the current crop of mid-range cards. It’s almost as fast as the 1660 Ti, but usually much cheaper. By itself, this GPU will be able to give you a 200+ fps average in CS:GO, but CS:GO is also one of the older and less demanding games where your CPUs single-core performance (1st-gen Ryzen’s main weakness) might become a bottleneck, particularly at low resolutions.
I still have no doubts whatsoever that you can go above a 144fps average at 1080p to match your monitor. Mafia Definitive and GTA V will also run well. Not at such high frame rates but at least 60+ fps (more at lower settings, of course).
Hi Grant,
That is a very good question. High-end releases typically don’t affect current mid-range card prices by much or at all in the short term. But the RTX 3060 is also likely to arrive soon (sooner than RTX 2060 did by comparison). It could also be aggressively priced if needed to undercut what AMD releases in the same performance bracket (Navi 22).
In that case, this should definitely put some downward pressure on the current mid-range cards in the relatively near future. But those are many ifs and buts, of course.
Hi Mohamed,
The 980 Pro is considerably faster (theoretically) than the Firecuda 520 and all other drives with the same controller (until now, all PCIe Gen4 SSDs).
In terms of sequential speeds, the 980 Pro offers up to 7,000 MB/s (read) and 5,000 MB/s (write), compared to the FireCuda’s 5,000/4,400 MB/s. Random performance is 1,000,000 IOPS (Samsung) Vs. 760,000 IOPS (Seagate).
This large difference will however not be anywhere near as apparent as the numbers indicate outside of synthetic benchmarks. But it’s definitely faster overall.
Thanks for the clarification, though I’m not familiar with those plugins, so I won’t pretend that your situation is perfectly clear to me đŸ™‚
I still get the impression that storage bandwidth might be a lesser issue, but if you are intent on taking this route then I agree that a 970 EVO/EVO Plus would be one of the best-performing options.
Hi Garfield, and many thanks!
Although you could theoretically connect an external Thunderbolt drive to your 2018 Mac Mini, I would personally not spend money on anything that fast, and certainly no 970 PRO/EVO (which I would only use as an internal drive) + enclosure.
I don’t know about your exact working environment of course, but I am currently using Logic (audio recording + samples) on a 2012 MacBook Pro (SATA SSD) with no lag whatsoever.
It’s unlikely that you would have an issue with any external SSD on the market. My tip would be to simply maximize the amount of GB/$
You are absolutely right, good point! On many motherboards, the post is a metal screw that can simply be moved to another position. The issue rarely comes up though since the vast majority of consumer M.2 drives use the 2280 form factor. Maybe this will change once really large capacities are more common.
Hi Ian,
Cards like the 1650S and RX 5500 XT can manage 1440p resolution but are really at their best at 1080p, which is still where you will find some of the most affordable monitors in any size category. Personally, I don’t play fast-paced games and would just ensure that it has an IPS or VA panel (both of which look a lot better than any TN panel) and a refresh rate of 5ms or less. If I was into FPS/eSports gaming, on the other hand, I would pair one of the above GPUs with a 144Hz adaptive sync monitor like the Asus VP249QGR (or similar).
Hi Tim,
Intel HD Graphics 4000/5000 (and other Intel GPUs at this time) are integrated GPUs, i.e. part of the same package as the CPU. Any recent discrete GPU, i.e. standalone graphics card, is much faster at any job compared to integrated graphics.
Personally, I have no experience with Filmora but was curious as to how it might scale performance-wise and found this short video comparing rendering/exports with CPU Vs. Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti and 1650 Super:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekd8qvqCGtA
Hi Pete! For now, the doubled bandwidth provided by PCIe 4.0 over PCIe 3.0 is usually just a benefit for SSDs, as these were previously bottlenecked by the 3.0 version of the interface. Since GPUs always use the full-size x16 PCIe slot, bandwidth has (so far) not been much of an issue.
Gen4 may have a slight advantage in some cases, but not enough that it would affect my choice of GPU.
But regardless of the PCIe version, the RX 5500XT should perform better than the 1650 Super in Battlefield V. In this game, the 5500 XT (8GB version) seems to be on par with the 1660. https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-radeon-rx-5500-xt-gamingx-8gb-review,12.html
Many thanks for reading, and for taking the time to leave a kind comment!
Yes, there are several. Here’s one comparison:
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/storage/pcie_4_0_nvme_ssd_roundup/6
All of the current Gen4 drives use the same controller/NAND though, so the difference between them is basically negligible.
Hi Zay,
Windforce is what Gigabyte calls its cooling solution (all triple-fan coolers in the case of the 2070S). There are several versions and revisions of these cards, but the main difference is that some have a factory OC and some don’t. “WindForce OC” versions have a boost clock of 1785 MHz or 1815 MHz instead of the reference 1770 MHz, so the difference is not particularly significant.
Hi Patrick!
Yes it’s getting old, but the i7-4770 is still a more than decent CPU (I still have a 4770S myself paired with an RX 580 on an entry-level Asus board that’s frequently in use). But as you are probably aware, the GTX 750 Ti is the one component that hasn’t aged very well. The RX 590 is about five times faster than the 750 ti in terms of compute performance and often 2-3 times faster in games (depending on game/settings).
So if you are just looking for a major GPU upgrade without changing anything else whatsoever, then I would say the RX 590 is definitely worthwhile đŸ™‚ (if it’s reasonably priced where you live). Your PSU will handle an RX 590 easily as long as you still have the PCIe power cables (I believe the 750 Ti is bus-powered but most RX 590s need a single 8-pin power connector).
Hi Julian,
The system’s total power consumption can be measured from the socket using e.g. a kill-a-watt power monitor (or a multimeter with the same functionality). It’s highly unlikely that you will have an issue with an 850W PSU though, even with the dual Xeons (130W each). What I did notice when looking up the HP’s specs is that the PSU seems to come with 6-pin PCIe connectors only. The 1650S uses a 6-pin connector but the RX 580 normally uses a single 8-pin connector, which will require a 6-pin to 8-pin adapter.
Many thanks James!
Your score is about half of mine, so as you suggest, it’s possible that your SSD is bottlenecked by your motherboard’s M.2 slot running in PCIe 2 mode (with half the bandwidth).
Are other benchmarks showing similar results (e.g. AS SSD, CDM, ATTO)? If so, that would indicate that M.2 bandwidth is capped one way or the other.
Hi Andrés,
Last year, with the original versions of the GTX 1660 and 1650, I would have steered clear of these cards as they were overpriced (the original 1650 in particular) compared to the previous-gen AMD cards.
Right now, the 1650S and 1660S are much more competitive in terms of price/performance and currently priced about right compared to their AMD counterparts IMO.
As usual with a new generation, Nvidia will be releasing the high-end RTX 3000 series cards first. We will likely have to wait several more months for the mid-range and budget Ampere cards to shake things up in those areas. But it’s notoriously difficult to guess where GPU prices are heading. Since we are still right between two generations (not counting the high-end cards), my personal guess is that prices will hover around here for a while (though the 1660S could drop below 200 temporarily).
The RX 580 is typically 10-15% faster than the RX 570 (some games a little more, some slightly less). So if the price difference is small where you live, the 580 might be an even better option, especially if it’s an 8GB card (most 570s are 4GB).
Hi Mark,
CS:GO and DOTA 2 are two of the least demanding games today. So if you are only playing these two games, any of the cards mentioned above will easily run at 1080p at an average FPS of 75+.
If I were you, I would look at AMD RX 570-based cards, which are from the previous generation but still among the best in terms of price/performance when sold at around $150 (and they sometimes go for less). Your PSU and the rest of your system would be a good match.
Thanks, Walid!
Your current Toshiba XG5-P is a high-end OEM SSD, so it’s probably safe to say that you won’t experience any real-world difference outside of synthetic benchmarks with either the Samsung or the Sabrent (or a 2TB XG5-P).
The Samsung EVO Plus is a great drive that performs well in almost every area, but personally I would have opted for one of the others at this time due to the large price difference and small real-world performance difference.
Here’s a review that compares the Sabrent with the Samsung in the 2TB capacities: https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9434/sabrent-rocket-nvme-2tb-ssd/index.html (I haven’t seen any review of the XG5-P yet).
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I agree that max. sequential speeds don’t paint the whole picture but they still tend to be quite accurate when tested with e.g. ATTO. As for the Samsung drives, I’ve also tested most of them since the 830 and they have usually been among the best in most areas (except when compared to the Intel Optane drives in terms of latency/random data).
Ok, I couldn’t find any info about your specific model. However, when quickly looking it up I did notice that others have been asking about this issue on the Acer forums, dealing with the P449-G2-M in general. https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/583639/acer-travelmate-tmp449-g2-m-additional-harddisc
Thanks for reading! It’s difficult to give advice for specific laptop models, but if yours has an identical motherboard as the one tested here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-TravelMate-P449-G2-M-i5-7200U-FHD-IPS-Laptop-Review.239754.0.html (which in this case is equipped with an Intel 600p
… then yes, any of those M.2 models should theoretically work (with the possible exception of the Adata Swordfish, which has a heatsink that might not fit).
Of the drives you mention, the Barracuda 510 is the strongest performer. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-barracuda-510-ssd,6150.html
A very good point, thanks. I’ve updated the article to reflect this.
3600 TBW is for the 2TB model. 1TB drives are compared in the table and the Corsair MP600 1TB offers half of the 2TB so 1800 TBW.
Yes, it was accidental! Thanks for notifying, I’ll update it right away.
Thanks for the tip Michael! Will add it in next update.
Thanks for your comment. I believe that you are mistakenly referring to the read/write specs for the 1TB+ models, which are higher than the 500GB ones listed here (write speeds in particular).
That said, it would make more sense to compare the 1TB drives, which is probably the most common capacity these days. I’ll change this in the next update.
It seems you’re right! Apparently Asus has no less than three versions of the Strix 2070S in this design and we missed the one with the higher clocks. Will edit the list ASAP, thanks for the helpful info!
You are right of course. Added this for the ROG also for fairness. This seems to be a downside with PCIe 4 boards in general. Not many such boards without a fan…
Thanks Brad for spotting the typo! Changed it.
There will probably be another few years before these things are a thousand times as fast… đŸ™‚
/Jesper
A valid point. Actually we did list enterprise/datacenter products originally. But since these can barely be obtained or used by the average mortal due to the cost and interface constraints, we decided to lessen the scope to just consumer drives.
Thanks for the info, will uppdate asap. I have yet to see a full review of the vectotech. But Micron or Toshiba NAND would be the most likely.