TechyTalk | Samsung 960 Pro vs SATA SSD - game loading times tested @TechyTalkUK | Uploaded November 2016 | Updated October 2024, 6 hours ago.
Will buying a crazy-fast 960 Pro SSD make your games load lightning fast?
Buy from Amazon:
UK - Samsung 960 Pro 512GB: amzn.to/2jSSsl7
UK - Crucial MX 300 525GB: amzn.to/2eZysKc
USA - Samsung 960 Pro 512GB: amzn.to/2fhlxRU
USA - Crucial MX 300 525GB: amzn.to/2fJcSeg
Testing procedure:
The 960 Pro was loaded with Windows 10 Pro 64-bit and all relevant drivers. The three test games were then installed. The drive was then cloned to the Crucial MX300. Both drives were then installed one after the other and the same game load tests run on each.
Times were stopped as soon as a point was reached where human interaction was required (press enter to start, or press Esc to skip the intro animations).
The test system:
Intel Core i5-6600K
Asus Z170-A
16GB Corsair DDR4 3200MHz
Nvidia GTX 670
Caveats:
This test very clearly showed that in typical gaming scenarios a very fast SSD shows next to no advantage over a low- to mid-range SATA SSD when it comes to game load and level load times.
However, slightly more of a difference might be seen if the system were loading even more graphically intense games with very high quality textures, although the difference would still be very small.
Also, if the system was equipped with faster hardware elsewhere - a faster graphics card, CPU and memory - then there might have been more room for the speed of the SSD to be exposed. Again, it seems unlikely the difference would be all that great, though.
Finally, there may be other games that simply take longer to load and so expose the difference more. However, I tried a handful of other games and none took noticeably longer.
However, one area where a difference was noticeable was in exiting the games. Here, the slower write speed of the MX300 made for slightly longer pauses before the games menu or the desktop was shown - as data was being unloaded from memory and written back to the drive. In the region or a second or two.
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Will buying a crazy-fast 960 Pro SSD make your games load lightning fast?
Buy from Amazon:
UK - Samsung 960 Pro 512GB: amzn.to/2jSSsl7
UK - Crucial MX 300 525GB: amzn.to/2eZysKc
USA - Samsung 960 Pro 512GB: amzn.to/2fhlxRU
USA - Crucial MX 300 525GB: amzn.to/2fJcSeg
Testing procedure:
The 960 Pro was loaded with Windows 10 Pro 64-bit and all relevant drivers. The three test games were then installed. The drive was then cloned to the Crucial MX300. Both drives were then installed one after the other and the same game load tests run on each.
Times were stopped as soon as a point was reached where human interaction was required (press enter to start, or press Esc to skip the intro animations).
The test system:
Intel Core i5-6600K
Asus Z170-A
16GB Corsair DDR4 3200MHz
Nvidia GTX 670
Caveats:
This test very clearly showed that in typical gaming scenarios a very fast SSD shows next to no advantage over a low- to mid-range SATA SSD when it comes to game load and level load times.
However, slightly more of a difference might be seen if the system were loading even more graphically intense games with very high quality textures, although the difference would still be very small.
Also, if the system was equipped with faster hardware elsewhere - a faster graphics card, CPU and memory - then there might have been more room for the speed of the SSD to be exposed. Again, it seems unlikely the difference would be all that great, though.
Finally, there may be other games that simply take longer to load and so expose the difference more. However, I tried a handful of other games and none took noticeably longer.
However, one area where a difference was noticeable was in exiting the games. Here, the slower write speed of the MX300 made for slightly longer pauses before the games menu or the desktop was shown - as data was being unloaded from memory and written back to the drive. In the region or a second or two.
Facebook: facebook.com/techytalkUK
Instagram: instagram.com/techytalkuk
Twitter: twitter.com/TechyTalkUK
TechyTalk is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme & Amazon Services LLC Associates, affiliate advertising programmes designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.com
Music: Dreams by longzijun: vimeo.com/33073541
