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What SSD PCIe with Asus PRIME X299-DELUXE Motherboard?

FoxAdriano
Level 11

Hi, I have a PC about 4 years old, with which I do video editing. My PC has Asus PRIME X299-DELUXE motherboard and various internal SSDs. The SSD I make video editing with (not the one with the OS) is Samsung 960 EVO PCIe M.2 NVMe (Gen.3 x4) and I would like to replace it with Crucial P3 4TB PCIe 3.0 3D NAND NVMe M.2 SSD (Gen.3 x4)  hoping it will give me some more performances. I use Windows 10.  A friend of mine is telling me I am making a mistake by replacing the SSD with a Gen 3 x4 and I should buy a Gen 4 x4. But I know that with Gen 4 x4 SSD I will have worse results than with a Gen 3 x 4. If you have experience, can you please advise me? Doing video editing is a big job and I don't want to make things worse. THANK YOU for your advice. Thanks for some info.

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11 REPLIES 11

Murph_9000
Level 14

@FoxAdriano wrote:

A friend of mine is telling me I am making a mistake by replacing the SSD with a Gen 3 x4 and I should buy a Gen 4 x4. But I know that with Gen 4 x4 SSD I will have worse results than with a Gen 3 x 4.


There's no reason why a gen 4 drive should provide worse results than a gen 3 drive; even if installed in a gen 3 system.  PCIe generations are backwards compatible, so a gen 4 drive in a gen 3 system will just run at gen 3 bus speeds.  You might not get the full performance that you would get if the same drive was installed in a gen 4 system, but it will not perform worse than a gen 3 drive with similar specifications.  If anything, a gen 4 drive might tend to outperform gen 3 drives in a gen 3 system due to the higher performance controller on the drive (e.g. it might give better IO/s numbers and perform better in random read/write loads).

The Crucial P3 is a QLC drive, so will perform worse under sustained load (e.g. very large file copy and write operations) than the Samsung 960 Evo (a TLC drive).  QLC drives are slower than TLC, once you pass a certain threshold of write activity (they cache writes in RAM and a SLC/MLC/TLC buffer before moving the data across to the QLC flash in the background, so perform well until the buffer fills up then slow to QLC speed).  The Crucial P3 is a perfectly good budget drive, but possibly not the first choice for professional workstation type use.

Forget gen 3 vs gen 4.  You have a gen 3 system, so your bus speed is capped at gen 3 speeds.  So, probably don't buy the super-fast (6 or 7 GBytes/s) gen 4 drives as you can't really take advantage of their performance.  For dealing with large files, TLC is higher performance than QLC, but more expensive.  Ideally, for video editing and other usage involving writing large files, you want a TLC drive with high endurance (the TBW / DWPD number on the spec sheets).

For usage which is not particularly write-heavy, such as gaming or general desktop PC use, the difference between TLC and QLC does not matter so much.  Read performance on both types of flash can be good, it's mainly when writing that the type matters.

I don't know how to thank you for your very valuable information. I ask you one last kindness: since you have a great deal of experience, I would be grateful if you could recommend me a couple of precise models, I would like to buy the ones you recommend. I already have Samsung in my PC, but I think I could put any brand. Thanks again.

I'd probably go for Samsung or Seagate TLC (or MLC) drives.  The Samsung QVO and Seagate Barracuda are QLC, so avoid those (I don't think Samsung currently have a QVO NVMe anyway).

Samsung EVO is TLC, and Pro is MLC (MLC is faster than TLC for writing).

The Seagate Firecuda 520/530 are TLC, as is their Ironwolf 525.  The 520 & 525 only go up to 2TB.  If you need 4TB, you'd need to go to the 530 which has extreme gen 4 performance and endurance (for a price).  The 530 is overkill on the performance side, but it's a superb drive in terms of high endurance TLC that has a 4TB model.

Choice is a bit limited for 4TB TLC drives, as they are kinda off the top end of the retail/consumer market.  The Kioxia XG8 is another I'd consider.  Sabrent are another that seem to be building up a positive reputation, although I've not used their stuff personally; they have 4TB offerings in their Rocket range.

Check the spec sheets, the good TLC drives should always say they are TLC on the spec sheet, any that don't are probably QLC.  The spec sheets are also where you will find the endurance numbers (TBW / DWPD), as well as indicative performance numbers.

Sorry but I don't understand well. You wrote Samsung Evo, but it is a 3 x4 interface. It is not 4 x4. I mean it: https://www.amazon.it/Samsung-MZ-V7S1T0BW-Unit%C3%A0-PLUS-Arancione/dp/B07MLJD32L/ref=sr_1_6?__mk_it...

I think it is not good for the future newer PCs that have 4 x 4 interfaces. Is it right? Thanks

The Samsung Evo is just one I'd consider.  It essentially hits the max possible speed for a gen 3 x4 bus, uses MLC/TLC flash, and has pretty good endurance.  Yeah, it's a little less future proof if you are looking for something you could move to a future gen 4 system, but it's still a good drive today for your gen 3 system.  A gen 3 drive should work fine in a future gen 4 system, just will run at gen 3 speeds.

Your current system is gen 3.  You can put either gen 3 or 4 drives in it and they will run at gen 3 speed.  You can also put either into a future gen 4 system, but the gen 3 drive would be limited to gen 3 speed.

FoxAdriano
Level 11

I hope you don't get angry if I ask you one last question. I would also like to ask you which one do you like the most among these 2 SSDs. Then, in your opinion is it better I buy it with heat sink or is it not necessary to do video editing? 1000 thanks                                                                                                                                                                           https://www.amazon.it/Kingston-Renegade-Ideali-gamer-appassionati/dp/B09K36S11S?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C...https://www.amazon.it/Sabrent-Interno-Memoria-Prestazioni-SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-2TB/dp/B07TLZVBNC/ref=sr_1...

Hello,

The motherboard heatsinks work really well, my seagate firecuda 530 idles at 40c, playing games it will go up to 50c-55c. 

The throttling temperature for most M.2 ssd's is 70c. My ssd is single sided, a double sided ssd would probably run warmer.

 

Murph_9000
Level 14

Both of those drives should be good.  Kingston and Sabrent are both reasonably well respected brands.  Both drives are TLC and look like they should perform well for heavier usage.  Both drives look good, I guess I'd choose the Kingston out of those 2, but it's pretty much 50/50 for me between them.

As far as heatsinks go, you don't need a heatsink for M.2_1 on your board, as the board's decorative plate over it is also a heatsink for that M.2 slot.  The unusual vertical M.2_2 slot (beside the RAM) doesn't look like it has a heatsink supplied with the board, only a support bracket.  A heatsink could help with that drive, but you would need to be careful that it would fit in place with the support bracket.  There is also a M.2_FAN header beside the M.2_1 slot which you can optionally use with something like a Noctua 40mm fan to blow air over the decorative heatsink (I don't think the board comes with any way to mount a fan there, so you'd need to create a way to mount it).  You probably would be ok without an additional fan, as long as you case has generally good airflow, it's just an option if you find you need a little more cooling for it.

Having a heatsink is a good thing for heavier write usage.  NVMe drives heat up quickly when under sustained write loads, so managing that heat helps ensure performance (they will thermal throttle if they get too hot).  The motherboard's decorative heatsink is probably sufficient for keeping a drive in M.2_1 under control.

restsugavan
Level 13

SAMSUNGSSDDRIVER.jpg

For Samsung SSD NVME drive do not forget install Samsung NVME driver to archive its maximum performance.

 

W11CANARY 26085.1 Core i9 7980XE 02007006 MCE ME 11.12.95.2499 R6E OFFICIAL BIOS 3801 SAMSUNG OG9 FW 1019.0 SSD 970 EVO PLUS 1 TB x 3 NVIDIA RTX 4090 GAME READY 551.86 64GB GSKILL DDR4 3200MHz JBL 9.1 Sound Bar DTS-X