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Question Question about Firecuda 520 vs 530 in a PCIE Gen3 system

QueBert

QueBert

Lifer
I have an Asus Zenbook UM325 laptop and I want to put a new M.2 in it. In a Gen3 system would there be any real difference? I don't want to be cheap here, but I don't want to drop $60 more on a 2tb 530 over the 520. But if I can get a little more performance it might be worth it. I'm guessing since my system isn't Gen4 I wouldn't notice any difference, right? I was looking at Gen3 drives but the deal I found on either a 520 or 530 Firecudas are really good.
 
Both of those drives are faster than PCIe 3.0 can provide, so you won't notice any difference between the two.

If the newer 530 was a small premium over the 520 (like $10 - $15 tops), I'd say go with the newest drive. But $60 more isn't anywhere near worth it.

Even if you had a PCIe 4.0 slot, the only time you would see a difference would be in benchmark utilities. There would be practically zero real-world difference for the vast majority of users.
 
I agree with UsandThem that both drives will be bottlenecked slightly, so the performance difference you won't notice. Since you are on a laptop, you may also want to look into power consumption and efficiency of different drives. Keep in mind that any power ratings for PCIe gen 4 drives may be a tad bit higher than what you will get, due to expecting a gen 4 bus for higher data transfer rates.
 
The 530 does better in terms of 4K Read/Write performance. If you were to use this in a desktop environment, this speed advantage might be worth discussing. As it stands though, when used in a laptop that balances energy saving with performance, I doubt the gains are going to be there. (I think the CPU will limit performance before the drive does)

The 520 comes with a better write endurance rating, so that's another marginal advantage in favor of the cheaper option.

My 2 cents, save the $60 and use it for something that noticeably improves your computing experience. The Firecuda 520 is plenty fast for that ultrabook.
 
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