Purely for steam / GOG and other games. Is there a noticeable difference between the 970 evo and 860 evo for gaming? I can't think of anything else than loading times. 860 is still really fast, no? Why I ask: I'm deciding to go big SSD's. 1 - 2 Tb. was looking to get 2 on my Asus Hyper x16 card. And the 800 series is cheaper, ofc.
Not really, but there are some exceptions in very few games that might load a bit faster from NVMe. Just go for the Evo+ instead if you choose the 970, there's not much of a point to buy the non+ unless it's at a better price. Personally I have a 970Evo+ and a 850Evo, both 500GB, and there's basically no difference whatsoever in any game I've tested on both, nor for the OS and day to day use, although in benchmarks the 970 is obviously very far ahead. As for that Asus card, I don't think you can put M2 SATA drives on it like the 860. You want to use that, you'll probably need to go for NVMe, it says "Support PCIE SSD only" in their support.
Ah, good point. I didn't think of that. 860 is indeed M.2 mSata. Bugger. But yeah it's all about the pricepoint, since I'll go for big volume to replace all my mech HDD's and old SSD's ( old Corsair Force one's ). Thanks for the info, Toyo.
If all you want is quantity and to use that card, look into Intel 665p and QLC as a tech, see if it fits the purpose.
If you or your games write a lot of data or your put virtual memory / page file on the drive, get TLC if possible. If you "write once, read many" with your data like large game installs, then QLC drives are just fine. The difference between the two on read is negligible, but on write you can easily see the difference with TLC coming out ahead, and TLC has much more endurance than QLC. Obviously MLC is better than both but that is WAY out of your price point unless you're made of money and/or are in a production environment (like using it to make Youtube / movies with). Example: A house brand at Micro-Center such as the 'Inland Professional' drive, while a bit pokey on long writes (it is!), is just fine even for an OS drive if you're not frequently writing a lot of huge files. If you'd frequently save multi-GB movies however, you might want something better like a Samsung PRO line of drives. The poster above is definitely right about sata on NVME daughter cards (that do not have sata ports for cables where you plug them in to the sata controller such as on the motherboard), those won't detect or be able to be used in the machine with the Hyper Card. You can however find very cheap adapters that will allow you to use the drive in any PCI express slot if you have a spare data cable and data port on your motherboard (usually where your sata controller is). It only uses the PCI-express port for power and physical support. Just buy a sata drive if you're not sure, you likely wouldn't notice the difference unless it's an OS drive *IF* you *DO* have a free NVME m.2 port. If you DO have a free m.2 NVME port, make sure it's an NVME drive (it's either SATA, or NVME), and make sure it's the right KEY on the drive's card-edge connector. Some slots accept more than one type of key while others do not. There's B key, M key and others (I believe), your motherboard manual will help you here, so make sure it's handy. Not all drives will fit into all slots. Not all slots OR drives run at the full x4, either - again refer to your manual or product description page(s) for this info. --Good luck!
