NVMe is basically a way to directly attach non-volatile (i.e. non-RAM) storage directly to the PCIe bus. It's something like sticking an SSD in a RAM slot, so that your drive can operate at its maximum speed without being constrained by SATA3 speeds (it still won't be as fast as RAM, but the current generation of NVMe drives can hit 2+ GB/s read rates). So, you've got 4 2TB SSDs, then. To me, that's crying out for a RAID10 configuration (one pair of disks with one pair of mirrors, for 4TB mirrored storage). Offhand, I'm not sure if Windows 10 lets you set up RAID during installation as I've never tried it. Alternatively, you could get a small NVMe drive to serve as the boot drive for Windows, and then set up the SSDs later; something like this: Your motherboard has an NVMe M.2 connector in the lower right corner, just to the left of the "3D Printing Mount" label in one of the images (you'll see M.2_PAD printed on the circuit board). The side benefit of this should be extremely fast boot times and installation of updates. I always like to physically separate Windows from everything else, as it makes it much less of a pain if you have to do a reinstallation for some reason. It should be fine without overclocking; at least, I've never heard of RAM that required overclocking to function.
Have also read the Freedom Series from her... worthy read but not as good as Pern. Though to be fair its total lack of Dragons may be causing me a bit of bias. Well i'll be damned... read Motherboard Instruction Book again & turned out it has two M.2 Connectors... but I may or may not be able to hold one more drive... depending on if I could find a way to sneak a NVMe Drive into that bay above the Blu-Ray Drive Bay that doesn't really have anything better to do with itself anyway... Definitely need to learn more into this NVMe stuff... Mom's been whining that i'm not keeping up with Tech Progress anyway... nevermind the fact that she can't even put damn Phone Handsets back into their Charger Base ever... I have to admit that "I always like to physically separate Windows from everything else, as it makes it much less of a pain if you have to do a reinstallation for some reason." part does sound persuasive... Edit: Have now scouted out "M.2 NVMe" on NewEgg & now see that they're actually RAM Stick-like in build & not at all like Drives, so Drive Availability isn't even a factor... I wonder if this means I can get 2 of these kinda dudes...? Won't even need Cables to go with them...? All the more tempting to use these for OS & free up even more Drive Space for Steam Games...
Correct, they go into slots like RAM or a PCIe card, so no cables needed. Unless you're planning to put them in RAID, though, I'm not sure I'd bother with more than one at this point. Well, I suppose that a possible use case for a second NVMe would be for selected games that could benefit from extremely fast read speeds and save files, leaving the SDDs for bulk storage of all other games. I guess it's really entirely down to how much you want to spend . EDIT: At least on the images of the motherboard that I can find on Amazon and Newegg, there only seems to be the one M.2 connector that I previously pointed out. Unless the images are wrong, I'm not sure why the manual is telling you that there are two.
Funny ya mention that... I think there are some games that could really use the help from extra Horsepower... especially Empyrion: Galactic Survival... i've noticed my current Rig struggling a bit on Hunt: Showdown as well, & I wonder if the extra Horsepower would be welcome while playing Mordhau too...? Also, if need be, I can get my New Build out & eyeball the Motherboard to see if that second connector the Instruction Book swears is there really exists or not. Gotta love it when researching Spec Info gets to feeling needle in a haystack, huh? Nonetheless, my Instruction Book swears there's a second such connector above the PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slot my Graphics Card now rests comfortably in... and amusingly pointing the opposite direction from the first one, for Portablization's sake. Also yes, I was wondering if i'd be able to get all 4 SSDs and both NVMe Drives all together into the Raid... speakin of which, for this scenario, would Raid 10 still be the best bet? I really need to learn more about this AHCI + Raid Force Powers stuff...
I did do a quick check of the Motherboard and it does appear to have TWO M.2 slots though only one is visible. I think on that particular board the other slot is hidden under a heat sink...not sure if the think above the PCIe x16 slot is removeable to install an M.2 under it. Still, specs on other websites - the one I use scan.co.uk - give much more detailed specs on the board and it clearly states 2 M.2. Looks like a good system and I expect you can get a good deal on Zen+ (Reyzen 2) 2700x's now Zen 2 (Ryzen 3) chips are out. Ah, just refreshed and saw you posted the same thing re: the other M.2 Scoob.
After research & consideration, I bought one of these & will get the 2nd one when able: GIGABYTE AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-Express 4.0 x4 3D TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) Dual Side Copper GP-ASM2NE6100TTTD I carefully made sure the CPU I put into my Build supports it, & as best as I can tell, it's a green go. (AMD Ryzen 7 2700X.)
While that looks like a good Drive, do be aware - if you're not already - that this drive is PCIe 4.0 whereas your Motherboard is PCIe 3.0 being on the older (but still good) 470 chipset. Note that the drive should work just fine, it'll just not hit the peek speeds. Personally, and perhaps you've already done this, I'd see if I could find an older (but still perfectly current) drive of the PCIe 3.0 standard as perhaps you can get more for your money. Note that I've not researched PCIe 4.0 vs. 3.0 drives from a value standpoint, but it's worth you doing so if you haven't already. Ahem, I just re-read your post and note you've already bought it. This is 100% fine and it should work fantastically, it'll just not quite hit the advertised speeds. Realistically you're likely talking peek reads of 3000 MB/s or so (vs. 5000) and peek writes of 2-3000 MB/s (vs. 4400) - though I expect only during a benchmark or large file transfer - to equally fast storage - would you notice a difference. Scoob.
Ok,ok, ok...lets see. All your SSD drives are Sata III drives so using the sata connectors and ACHSI is what I would do, but thats my preferance over raid (I have always found raid finicky, call it a bad experiance and hate it for personal use) If you still have some spare cash to spend I would recommend looking at investing into an m.2 NVME drive. NVME drives run on the 16x PCI-e lanes giving it quite a bit of speed over your sata SSD's (table below for referance). As you can see it runs roughly 5 times faster then Sata 3 ssd. and on your board it will fit here: I have 2 x 2 TB of these running in my system, but you can look at getting a smaller one for your OS drive and games that really makes use of it. just search amazon as for some weird ass reason links dont work. Most ram, even if it states higher then 2133, will run at 2133 with default settings. Your ram will run and so will you CPU you wont be using your rig to its full potentially, definately not the CPU - Ryzen loves 3000mhz so yes you will need to tweak some settings for your RAM - lots of youtube videos and if you want I can skype and assist - My ram is happily running at 3200mhz on my Ryzen rig. Overall you got a decent system going there (Powersupply is a bit overkill ) but its future proof. Only change I would make is to get a NVME drive to make sub 2second boot times
I thought that at first as well, but if you account for ~100-200+ W from overclocking CPU+GPU+RAM, that puts full-load power usage somewhere over 50% of that PSU (which is apparently where modern PSUs like to run).
Doh... well, I guess it'll at least be futureproof... So... AHCI vs Raid 10 is still up in the air... wish I knew how to understand the 'nuts & bolts' of those two things... Too late, done. Sweet, that means the RAM will function at all on first boot up... I was nervous of if that'd be the case... but the greed was real & I wanted that RAM Strength Badassery, especially now that Discord's come out with Integrated Streaming Capabilities in it for Nitro Subscribers like me. I'd heard before that as a PSU ages, it can degrade bit by bit till it loses as much as 40ish% of its Watts Horsepower so it's never a bad idea to overshoot this to enable your Rig to last longer in overall lifespan... plus, those sweet badass Amps on its +12V Rail... ^_^ (87.5A <3 ) Again, too late, done... though i'm likely to get a second one eventually. Oh yeah, that too... especially cause OCing will be attempted on the CPU AND the RAM.
Oh, wait, if we're talking about how to set up the disks in the bios, then definitely just AHCI. Don't rely on your motherboard to do raid . What I was talking about was software raid 10.
Yeah, I wanna set up all Drives to something superior to "New IDE" for New Build before I ever even THINK of Installing the OS on top, causing the 'Drive Format Foundation' to end up hard baked foundation. Current Rig, I used New IDE outta not knowing what I was doin & after it was runnin THEN found out about there bein better options, too late to be able to take advantage. I wanna avoid that same fate in the next Build.
I generally spec my systems PSU's to run at an expected 50% load or there abouts after overclocking etc. Have done that for years and my PSU's just last as it's an easy life for them. I've noticed that hardware, especially GPU's, have generally become less power hungry in a given performance bracket. That combined with SSD rather than spinners has brought the power requirements down even more. As such, PSU's last several builds. A decent PSU that's not breaking a sweat to power your system is good, as it can definitely help keep things more stable than a PSU that's perhaps being taxed from time to time. Just my take on it - I've always gone for decent PSU's and will be "recycling" a Corsair 860i for my next build. Reading this thread does make me keen to start planning my own new build, but my current PC is still doing all that's asked of it very well, so I'll just wait...or suddenly splurge on the spur of the moment cos I'm bored lol. Scoob.
I've always speced my psu at 50% idle and 70% full load. It also depends on the rating of your psu as this will determine where your best efficiency sits. Silver rating: 85%/89%/85% -20%/50%/100% load Gold rating : 88% /92%/88%- 20%/50%/100% load Platinum rating: 90%/94%/91%- 20%/50%/100% load. (For 230v ). @Tyrax Lightning also psu don't loose that much efficency anymore. Today's psu are quite good in what they do. I have a 1200w play psu that's now 10 years old sitting in my server, and its current rating is 1155w. On overclocking, oc a ryzen x series is not worth it for getting extra ghz. They almost maxed out already and the gains doesn't justify the stress. This also comes down to what cooler you slapping on. What i recommend is to oc it to get stable ghz on all cores and oc the ram.
Funny ya mention that... I was hoping to OC both the CPU & RAM... Also didn't know before that PSU Longevity had gotten buffed since last I had heard Intel on it. Fortunately it was still worth getting for its sweet sweet +12V Rail Amps... Hmm... I can't remember if i'd yet said anything about what CPU Cooler I was gonna use. My CPU came with a dork stock one, which i'm gonna put in the Closet as a just-in-case backup in case of trouble... while all along I was planning to use the CPU Cooler I tried out for Mom's Builds's 4.7 Ghz CPU & has worked well, so I imagine how well it'll handle my CPU even after OC...: ... Oh great... NewEgg no longer has this exact Model, only its siblings now... so its Bookmark Link now goes to the wrong thing... i'm gonna have to be non-lazy & actually manually type out its name... >_< ...: MasterLiquid 240 All-in-one CPU Liquid Cooler with Dual Chamber Pump by Cooler Master Uses dual side by side 'blows through cooling grill' 120m Fans that I set to Outtake in the Case area of the ceiling that seems like it was specifically designed for such purpose.
My apologies for the Double Post, but I now have the 2 M.2 Drives & just need to await a chance to get them safely plugged in. I'm still very tempted to follow the advice to eventually when ready Install the OS onto one of them... meanwhile i'm still pondering what to do with the other one... then I got to wondering... For my current Build, I used a 1TB External Hard Drive dedicated to holding Windows Backups while it claims to have its own Firewall to itself so Viruses that attack & breach the Computer don't simply traipse over to the Windows Backup & blow that up too & defeat the whole point of the plan... Is it possible to do similar with a M.2 Drive & secure it from attack in combat with the rest of the Computer, or would the 2nd M.2 Drive Backup be exactly the same vulnerability as the first M.2 Drive thus never be able to do the External Hard Drive's job...?
Any online drive will be vulnerable to infection (or encryption, in the case of ransomware). If you want a secure backup, a separate system or a removable drive are your only real options.
Oh well, so much for that idea. *shrug* Is it possible to Raid 10 the M.2 Drives and AHCI the SSDs at the same time?
Sounds like it's going to be quite the impresive monster Tyrax --- Just to tack on a bit. As mentioned, nothing beats an "air gap" for a truly secure backup. AKA some kind of 'sneaker net', physical can't-touch-this setup. Since I don't like fan or disk noise, my external backup drive array now sits on a shelf in the closet. Nor did I enjoy trying to find the data cable after it disappeared into the jungle and plug it back into the array (it was only plugged in during backups, to act as the air-gap). So I 'hill-billied' it by making an On/Off extension cord that the backup arrays wall-wart power tranformer plugs into. The cord comes off the power block under my desk, then the switch is velcroed out of the way to the side of the desk, then into the closet to the disk array. Turn the array On via the switch, let it get up to speed and mounted, then fire off a backup. When done, unmount the array, give the array ~30 seconds or so to settle (for mine anyway), then switch it Off. (I've since seen what's basically a plug-with-remote-On/Off-switch for sale, that would have worked as well) Since the array is just a pair of mirrored 5400 rpm drives it only draws ~35? Watts. Meaning I could use one of the really wimpy extension cords, like for a single lamp, and just spliced in a decent push-button On/Off switch. For me it was worth it to reduce the desk clutter, and noise, plus it's off 99% of the time, saving a bit of juice, mainly the air-gap of course, but should also really extend the life of the backup drives. But that setup is just for this old gaming box, which I haven't backed up in 6 months. No need, nothing important has changed. Anything truly important to me gets encrypted then burned onto Write-Once DVD/BluRay disks.
I now have both new M.2 Drives in! Hopefully this Re-Completes Phase 1 & I can backtrack back to Phase 2... the damn careful planning of the Software side of things...
