Difference in real world 2x vs 4x PCIe NVMe?

[benjamin.mtzgr]

I recently purchased a PCIe 3.0 4x (3200/1700) (XPG-SX8200) knowing that my motherboard will only allow me a x2 speed on my m.2 slot. Naturally I saturate the bus. getting ~800/800 on the drive. It's definitely an upgrade from the 500/300 I was getting with my SATA ssd. I'm using it as my regular OS drive and don't do anything more than basic computer and gaming.

My question is just how much of a difference would it be if I got a PCIe addon card to allow for x4 on one of my x16 lanes. Aside from the obvious answer of "well, double", I'm talking about real world. Will I be able to really notice the difference?

I bought the drive as a "futures upgrade" because I plan to upgrade the mobo/cpu within the year and know that I'll be getting something to fully support the speeds later. But in the meantime would it be much of a difference to spend the 30$ or so on the addon card?

Thanks!

 

[Ratman6161]

I wouldn't bother. I went from a Samsung 850 EVO to a 960 Evo x4 NVME drive and to be honest I only notice the difference in outlier cases. So for basic functions like you describe I really doubt you will see a noticeable difference between x2 and x4.

 

[mindless1]

No, real-world the only time you're likely to see any difference is specific scenarios like large game level load times, or of course benchmarks.

 

[benjamin.mtzgr]

Alright thanks guys! Appreciate it!

 

[VirtualLarry]

A large benefit of the NVMe PCI-E drives, is the (supposed) lower-latency compared to SATA. That mostly shouldn't differ that much between an x2 and and x4 link, I would think. At least for the most common case, QD1.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

A large benefit of the NVMe PCI-E drives, is the (supposed) lower-latency compared to SATA. That mostly shouldn't differ that much between an x2 and and x4 link, I would think. At least for the most common case, QD1.

Latency might even improve on a x2 link. Intel uses a x2 link on their Optane cache drives for this very reason.

 

[Campy]

I wouldn't worry too much about it especially as you're planning to upgrade soon anyway. Your speeds look more like x1 speeds than x2 speeds to me though.

 

[GLee217]

A large benefit of the NVMe PCI-E drives, is the (supposed) lower-latency compared to SATA. That mostly shouldn't differ that much between an x2 and and x4 link, I would think. At least for the most common case, QD1.

Hey there I know this thread was along time ago but you seem smart on drives lol so I have a question about which m.2 nvme to use on my Msi Bazooka b350m.
I have a 256gb WD pc sn520 nvme sdapnuw-256g-1006 and a 256gb Intel 600p ssdpekkw256g7 and debating which to use.

It seems sn520 have faster read/write speeds but it is
PCIe Gen3 x2 NVMe v1.3
vs
600p which has
PCIe Gen3 x4

https://www.sandisk.com/content/dam/sandisk-main/en_us/assets/resources/data-sheets/Western-Digital-PC-SN520-Commercial-Datasheet.pdf

vs

Product Specifications

quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

Please help.

 

[StrangerGuy]

It wouldn't matter. On the most relevant real world metric of QD1 4K reads, consumer NVMe SSDs tops out at around 70MB/s, which is not even remotely close to saturating a PCIE 2.0 1x link let alone 2x.

 

[GLee217]

It wouldn't matter. On the most relevant real world metric of QD1 4K reads, consumer NVMe SSDs tops out at around 70MB/s, which is not even remotely close to saturating a PCIE 2.0 1x link let alone 2x.

Btw I also have a WD SN530 256gb nvme 2280, so which should I choose between the three. Thanks

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Btw I also have a WD SN530 256gb nvme 2280, so which should I choose between the three. Thanks

nvme drive is better but as said earlier it won’t be a huge difference either way.
Going from a spinning hard drive to an ssd is a huge upgrade. Going from one ssd to another isn’t that huge of an upgrade.