Gigatransfers vs Gigabyte?

[AWT]

Hi.

I am thinking about adding M2 SSD slots as my mainboard only has one.
My question is: are Gigatransfers and Gigabyte per second the same?
According to the mainboard's support website, the available connectors I have are PCIE 3.0 x1, which allow for 1 Gigatransfer per second.
(I don't want to use the 2nd PCIE 16x slot as this would cut both of them down to PCIE 2.0 x16 if I understood the details in the manual correctly).
Most M2 NVME's are way faster than 1GB/s, so adding a PCI x1 card with two M2 slots seems kinda pointless if I got this right (as it would severely bottleneck the M2 SSDs).
(The board I am using is the ROG Crosshair VI Hero.)

Thanks in advance.

[A&A]

GT/s and GB/s are similar but refer to completely different things.

-Transfers per second is the number of times operations are performed.
But every transfer operation has a certain number of digits to be sent and not only that. They can also have multiple channels that are used to achieve higher throughput.

So PCIe 3.0 has 8GT/s per lane, which is about 900MB/s. At least it's faster than Sata III.

[AWT]

Messaggio originale di A&A:

GT/s and GB/s are similar but refer to completely different things.

-Transfers per second is the number of times operations are performed.
But every transfer operation has a certain number of digits to be sent and not only that. They can also have multiple channels that are used to achieve higher throughput.

So PCIe 3.0 has 8GT/s per lane, which is about 900MB/s. At least it's faster than Sata III.

Thanks for the info.

I thought it would be insane to put an NVME on a PCI 1x card, as that would limit it to under 100 MB/s. Good thing I didn't buy one, as SATA is faster in that case.

(I can't use the second or third PCI 3.0 16x connector on my board as it would cut the GPU's transfer rate in half).

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Your M2 slot is PCIE 3.0 X4
It says this right in specs.

What CPU and GPU do you bave?

[AWT]

Ryzen 5700X3D and RTX 3080 (full detailed specs in bio). The M2 slot is already in use, but I can't find any details about the 3rd PCIE x16 slot (except that it only works in x4 mode according to the manual). I might try whether I can add an x4 card with 1 NVME that way. I think/hope the 3rd slot is routed via PCH and thus can be used without affecting the direct PCIE lanes to the CPU on the MB, as I obviously want to reserve those for the GPU (the C6H is an X370 board).

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Messaggio originale di AWT:

Messaggio originale di A&A:

GT/s and GB/s are similar but refer to completely different things.

-Transfers per second is the number of times operations are performed.
But every transfer operation has a certain number of digits to be sent and not only that. They can also have multiple channels that are used to achieve higher throughput.

So PCIe 3.0 has 8GT/s per lane, which is about 900MB/s. At least it's faster than Sata III.

Thanks for the info.

I thought it would be insane to put an NVME on a PCI 1x card, as that would limit it to under 100 MB/s. Good thing I didn't buy one, as SATA is faster in that case.

(I can't use the second or third PCI 3.0 16x connector on my board as it would cut the GPU's transfer rate in half).

Some how you misunderstood their information. I'll try to help you: SATA maxes out at 550 MB/s read or write per SATA Device. A 1x PCI-Express port running at PCI-Express 3.0 would be 900 MB/s, which is faster than SATA.

[AWT]

Messaggio originale di Shaggin'Wagon:

Messaggio originale di AWT:

Thanks for the info.

I thought it would be insane to put an NVME on a PCI 1x card, as that would limit it to under 100 MB/s. Good thing I didn't buy one, as SATA is faster in that case.

(I can't use the second or third PCI 3.0 16x connector on my board as it would cut the GPU's transfer rate in half).

Some how you misunderstood their information. I'll try to help you: SATA maxes out at 550 MB/s read or write per SATA Device. A 1x PCI-Express port running at PCI-Express 3.0 would be 900 MB/s, which is faster than SATA.

Thanks for the explanation. The secondary PCIE slots are 2.0 only unfortunately. But still, if I get a x4 card with an NVME, I should get at least 1800 MB/s.

[smokerob79]

dont waste our time....the best bet is to put the OS on a SATA based SSD and then buy a 2 or TB M.2 as your only M.2.......


option 2 is getting a 89 dollar motherboard and having 2 real M.2 slots....
https://www.newegg.com/asrock-b550m-pro4-micro-atx-amd-b550-am4/p/N82E16813157939

[r.linder]

GB/s is the rate at which data is transferred (usually in the context of transferring information from one location to another), while GT/s is a metric for measuring the number of operations per second, it's most often seen used when describing memory speeds and bandwidth for PCI-e devices like your GPU. It's not really used in the context of storage devices as they're measuring data transfer rates, whereas transfers per second (i.e. MT/s, GT/s) has more to do with computer bus. For instance, your effective memory speed, BCLK, etc.

Something to note is that just because a storage drive supports higher bandwidth, doesn't mean it'll actually use all of what's allotted to it. PCI-e SSDs have to be pushed by a data load hard enough to actually read the advertised speeds, otherwise it'll only use what it actually needs to perform the load that it's running. Most people will never actually pull the full performance of a PCI-e 4.0 or even a 3.0 SSD.

For games, SSDs mainly have an effect on loading times, and the difference between SATA and PCI-e for most games is within a few seconds so there's no shame in being stuck with SATA SSDs, HDDs and hybrids are much slower. We won't be able to fully perceive the impact of PCI-e SSDs on gaming without side to side benchmarks until long after everyone has them, games have to be developed in a way that makes the data load so heavy that they're required to get good performance and have a big difference even over SATA III.

For general use and operating systems, a SATA III SSD is usually fine and you're not going to notice an improvement by going from SATA III to PCI-e 3.0 for your OS unless you had a really terrible SATA SSD.

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Messaggio originale di r.linder:

For games, SSDs mainly have an effect on loading times, and the difference between SATA and PCI-e for most games is within a few seconds so there's no shame in being stuck with SATA SSDs, HDDs and hybrids are much slower. We won't be able to fully perceive the impact of PCI-e SSDs on gaming without side to side benchmarks until long after everyone has them, games have to be developed in a way that makes the data load so heavy that they're required to get good performance and have a big difference even over SATA III.

For general use and operating systems, a SATA III SSD is usually fine and you're not going to notice an improvement by going from SATA III to PCI-e 3.0 for your OS unless you had a really terrible SATA SSD.

I do wish people would stop focusing on loading times when referring to SSD's and games. There is quite a lot more to computer gaming than loading times. There's also installing games. Verifying game files. Updating games. It's not just about loading times. Sure a NVME (PCI-Express) M.2 drive may not effect loading times much more than a SATA SSD would. But when it comes to updating a large game that's multiple hundreds of GB in size (which is actually becoming more and more common these days with our newer games) a NVME drive would be significantly faster than a SATA SSD by as much as half the time or faster.
An example: If someone had ARK, Survival Evolved with all DLC and maps installed (about 500 GB for a game) and then tried to run an update released on Steam for ARK with that install size a SATA SSD may take 40-50 minutes to complete the update where a M.2 NVME drive may take 15 minutes.

Also the way Steam works even installing a game from Steam can easily overwhelm and saturate most all SATA SSD's if someone's internet speed is 250 Mbps or faster, which will cause Steam to slow down to a crawl trying to download and install games. This is another place where M.2 drives are quite a lot better at the storage thing.

[r.linder]

I've used both NVMe and SATA III SSDs with a 1Gbps internet plan for years with no issues getting well over 250 Mbps download speeds on Steam on either, and there can be a number of reasons why steam download speeds are low, not just your storage (i.e. drivers, network hardware, steam itself being known to not have very good performance with that, etc.)

Load times are what matter primarily which was what I said from the beginning, not much else actually matters, people are just impatient nowadays and expect everything to be done in a flash, back in the day people just went and got coffee or went to the bathroom when they were waiting for their computer to do something

[A&A]

How much extra might it take to decompress and install if the internet is 250Mbps or even 1Gbps?
Decompressing, assuming best case lzma2, you should be able to save about 20% space on the install files, which is still not enough to catch that 900MB/s

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Messaggio originale di A&A:

How much extra might it take to decompress and install if the internet is 250Mbps or even 1Gbps?
Decompressing, assuming best case lzma2, you should be able to save about 20% space on the install files, which is still not enough to catch that 900MB/s

I have used a computer before with a NVME drive rated for 2400 MB/s read and write and watch it get loaded to 100% utilization on storage just installing a game from steam with 500 Mbps internet speed. Storage performance definitely effects how fast we can download from Steam. I've seen it with my own two eyes. If a NVME drive can get saturated doing that then a SATA SSD doesn't have a chance.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I dontreally get what the issue is. You can use 3x M2 slots just fine. 1x NVME Gen4 and 2x NVME Gen3 ssds all at the same time with no impacts on GPU bandwidth or performance

[AWT]

Messaggio originale di Bad 💀 Motha:

I dontreally get what the issue is. You can use 3x M2 slots just fine. 1x NVME Gen4 and 2x NVME Gen3 ssds all at the same time with no impacts on GPU bandwidth or performance

My Mainboard (Crosshair VI Hero) according to the manual only supports 1x M2 @ Gen3 on-board, and 1x PCIE 2.0 x4 via the 3rd GPU slot. If I use the 2nd GPU slot, both 1st and 2nd slot are halved in bandwith capacity. All the other (small) PCI slots are 2.0 1x.
I don't want to switch board while it still works since it was a gift from a late family member, and However, I'm quite happy with my board (as I can still run all current games with it at decent frame rates with all ultra settings, and even not so cheap replacements - let's say an ROG Strix for about 200€, which I recently looked at - would have WAY fewer USB connectors, possibly fewer settings for custom RAM timings/settings, and other disadvantages.
Also, IF I were to buy a new MB, I would go for one with all the current standards (like DDR5 RAM, and AM5) - but since I recently upgraded CPU & RAM, I would have wasted all the money doing that and have to spend tons of money again just to get somewhat better NVME speeds in some situations. That's why I was asking about this.
Since I realized the board would support a PCIE 4x card without losing bandwith for the GPU (the RTX 3080 really needs the full PCIE 3.0 bandwith or it would get bottlenecked), my question is basically answered. A PCIE 4.0 card with an NVME would clearly be faster than SATA (I already have 3 SATA drives in addition to the on-board NVME), so that's what I'll get when I need more space.

Here is all the info I could find in my manual btw.
https://imgur.com/a/pv9VBXv

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Why would you need to use the 2nd PCIE Slot for exactly?
If it's for any PCIE card that only uses X1 speed, like a premium sound card or capture card, then it won't effect your NVME SSDs or GPU.

But yea, it's a limitation (all the NVME speeds per M2 slots) of the Chipset. Look towards a premium B550 Board