Hey Guys,

I was looking to tweak my system and I was looking into the new Intel Optane Memory modules that go into a M.2 Slot.. Now I watched their little video and from what I saw and how they explained it seems like it would be a benfit. Now I was wondering what others thought or have read about it..

On my Current system I am using a Veloci Raptor HDD from WesternDigital and it seems I would benfit from the optane memory the most or people who still use a HDD..

Now I would like to get a New 1080GTX abd a 32GB Module of Optane memory was wondering what others thought of the idea..

I thought you still kept your SSD? Optane + SSD = negligible gains. Optane + HDD = good gains. But why go HDD + Optane when you can just get an SSD?

Well I do modding with 3D Migoto and the nature of the program often forces me to do hard reboots and as it turns out SSD's are very sensative to those and I had nothing but issues running a SSD as the main drive, that is why I currently use a HDD.. I use the SSD as my Games drive which works well..

So with that being said, what are your thoughts on a Optane module.. it seems people with HDD would benefit the most..

I would suggest doing the research for yourself. I can only give opinions based on my experience and needs and I use SSDs... one for OS and one for games.

You obviously have a specific set of needs and that's why you're sticking to a HDD, so only you can really determine if it's something for you. While Optane + HDD = good gains, it'll also be up to you to determine whether that is worth the price of the Optane module. Also make sure you have the recommended system (Kaby lake).

Well I did the research was just looking for other peoples thoughts. Perhaps someone here was already used one or whatnot... guess I will just go away somewhere..

I was excited about it too.... but then I just had to settle for an M.2 NVMe drive instead

Some things are worth the money, some things are just like burning money. 16GB RAM kits come to mind. After a certain speed, things get more expensive, which isn't really paid for by an equivalent level of performance. More than 16GB of RAM and again, things get more expensive but performance does not scale anywhere near the cost. Another example is SLI/Crossfire configurations... double the price for maybe a 30% increase in performance? And not for all games but only for a select few? And possible WORSE performance in other games?

No offense meant to those with such setups and with money to burn, of course!

Well SLI setups really come into play with multiple monitors and very high resolutions 1440P above..

From what I have read the Optane memory is best used with a HDD as the main drive which I am using.. So I guess I would like to try it if it can give me a little bit more perfomance.. I am always looing to tweak my system for optimal performance, I do not have money to burn but am willing to at least research a bit get peoples thoughts on different things and then try and make a decision..

I really think I will benefit from tyhe optane memory.. I am also toying with the Idea of going with a M.2 NVMe drive for my games drive and replace the SATA SSD..

Not always true. You'll still get the non-scaling performance. SLI/Crossfire also have issues with some games such as microstuttering. One big, powerful GPU is usually the best solution and then depending on the games you want to run and your tolerance for fixing any SLI/Crossfire issues would dictate whether SLI/Crossfire would be for you.

Simply put, would you rather have a setup that WORKS or are you willing to go "under the hood" every now and again for maybe a 30% gain in FPS in SOME games and even worse performance in others?



While that is totally true, it is also made under the assumption that a better solution would just be to buy an SSD. You mentioned doing some modding and the program not being friendly with SSDs... that may cause issues with Optane as well?



By all means, give Optane a try and tell us how it goes!

As for NVMe for gaming.... again, no significant difference over SSDs... and SSDs do nothing for games anyway aside from shorter loading times and possible microstutter solution. Higher FPS? Nope, go find that solution elsewhere. I think one issue as well is that with games on the SSD/NVMe, I'm used to stuff loading in 5 seconds (as an example) but then I don't know how long the loading time would be if it were on an SSD or on a HDD, so I can't really appreciate the difference But at least I know it's loading as fast as I can make it; that I've taken out potential bottlenecks.

I decided to make a comparison between my M.2 drive and a mechanical HDD for loading times. The only game I can currently do that with is World of Warships. I usually play it from my M.2 but I also have it backed up onto my mechanical HDD.

M.2 is Samsung SM951 256GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe

HDD is Western Digital 750gb Black

I timed it 6 times,3 for each drive. This is from clicking 'play' to arriving in the port screen. The results were surprising...

The M.2 did it in 33 seconds. The HDD did it in 30 seconds. What???? What's going on here? You can physically see the loading bar is slower/jerkier when playing from the M.2.

I did a speed comparison some while ago,the M.2 blitzed the HDD so I can't explain what's going on here.

I'd like to do some more comparisons,stay tuned.

Ok,I moved a few more games around.

Elite:Dangerous - made no difference,both around the 44 second mark (I didn't click through any of the screens,just waited for main screen to load up).

*edit* Re-ran the E:D test this time clicking through the screens.Both managed it in 24 seconds.

Miscreated - M.2 in 17 seconds,the HDD in 23 seconds.

A couple of Graviteam games,Muis Front,Tunisia 1943,both loaded in under 3 seconds.

Maybe this isn't a very scientific way of doing it but I am wondering what the point is of having an M.2 right at this moment,especially for games.

Have you short-stroked your HDDs?


linky


Basically, if your game data is in the faster section of the hard drive, then access to it may be pretty quick. Short-stroking ensures that you've partitioned the faster sections of your hard drive and thus make the most use out of those areas.

The biggest difference in SSD/NVMe drives and HDD would be boot times and program startups.

Some interesting bits from this video:
Obviously, Z270 and Kaby Lake systems...
Cannot select which programs you want it to prioritize...
Only accelerates primary boot drive, not other drives...


linky

That's very interesting Ice.I always wondered why when I benchmarked my HDD's it would tail off further into the test.

I just ran HD Tune on one of my 750 WD Blacks. Performance drops off at around the 300 gb mark. Max was 115.5 mb/s and Min was 67 mb/s. Will that make a difference in the real world environment? I might try it if I find myself with nothing to do later tonight.

Again, not really ran tests to see what the performance difference is. Basically, I have a M.2 NVMe for OS, an SSD for games, then a short-stroked partition for other games. The rest of my storage is either the non-short-strokes section of the HDD or external HDDs.

Basically, the idea is to "cut" the partition just before it takes a nose-dive performance-wise so essentially, you have one HDD with a fast partition and a slow partition.

Ok,I just 'short-stroked' my gaming HDD .I can't test its performance because both HD Tune and the speed tester in WinOptimizer don't allow individual partition testing so instead I ran some of my games a few times through the timing process.

NO noticeable difference as I suspected. The only way to find the 'Holy Grail' of performance tweaks is to throw lots of money at hardware,and keep throwing it at it every 12 months or so.

Of course,as I have 2 identical HDD's in my system I could try RAID. No,bollox to that,I can live with a few seconds extra loading time and none of my present games have stuttering due to disc access problems. I gave it a go but I'm done here

HD Tune should allow partition testing....

You won't see a difference if your games were already on the fast section of the disc. Have you tried putting it in the slow partition and seeing what the performance is?

Should it? I didn't see that option. On your second point,yes you are right but I'm done testing...for now.

Interesting stuff folks, thanks.

Did you plan to get an Optane module, Nixer?

Nah Ice, just reading for info.

No big need for speed for me right now. I just surf the web some and do mostly homework.

Well I went ahead and Bought the 32GB Module.. Things I learned..

1. Had to set AHCI mode to Optane/Raid Mode, When I did that windows did not Boot. I ended up reinstalling Windows.. I am unsure if I had to do this or not will read up on it so dont let that hold you back.. I seen a IRST Driver with Optane support maybe I was supposed to use that still unsure but maybe I should have called support..

2. Some small bug maybe a setting in BIOS I need to turn off but sometimes when I bootup the Optane module initializes again, seems it should only do that 1 time. but it may be a BIOS setting I have to turn off now???

3. The PC does Boot much faster I did not time it but I do see a difference it seems even faster when I had the SSD as the Boot drive..
4. The Module is supposed to learn and adjust to my usage so it may take a while to get optimal settings..

Well just having it boot back faster was good looking to see if any games will be affected or not.. Not sure what else this Module does but it works..

Would definitely be faster compared to a HDD startup but I doubt if it's faster than an SSD.... by a second or two, maybe, but shouldn't be much faster than that or noticeable unless you're there with a stopwatch.

Do tell us how stuff progresses going forwards! Congrats on the new toy!!

Well I do know that when I was running the Raptor drive it wen through a few different BIOS screens and now it is just one and boots really fast.. So there is a definite improvement there.. Hard to tell but programs do seem a bit more responsive and snappier to start..

Now sure how much effect I am getting ingames maybe load time and such would be improved but there is no way to tell what data is being cache'.. For what I paid for it and how it made windows boot quicker I think that alone was worth it..

Well they did say make a backup but not sure what good that would have done as it was not able to boot either way.. I did try a repair of startup, maybe I should have tried a repair of Windows but I didn't think if that

It was not too bad as I only took a few hours to get all back up and running worst thing was had to reactivate modules in DCS.. I should have booted into the drive and deactivated them.. but that was my fault.. I have not seen the Optane memory reinitialize yet on the couple of bootups I did so maybe just a glitch in the matrix..