Inspiron 5680, M.2 SSD or Intel Optane

That's easy.

Windows should be on bootable SSD. (period)

SATA SSD is about 5 times faster than spinning HDD

M.2 PCIe/NVMe is about 5 times faster than even a SATA-SSD

Set BIOS to UEFI and AHCI.

Leave that spinning HDD disconnected for now.

Install M.2-PCIe/NVMe SSD in that motherboard slot. I suggest a 240gb-512gb one. 

Clean-Install Windows. Do NOT install Intel-RST.

Enjoy you fast computer :Smile:

The intel Optane is used as a Booster (Accelerator) to the HDD. In terms of write/read speeds :

From slowest to fastest : 

1-HDD only

2- SATA SSD only ( size ; m.2 or 2.5in)

3-Optane + HDD

4- SSD NVME(m.2)

Some prefer the optane as it's a fast/cheap/easy way to upgrade an existing HDD. it is intended for Business/gamers users looking to upgrade and match/exceed SSD speeds.

Some prefer SSDs are they are more future-proof, can boot from it and can be used/swapped on practically all motherboards

you can pair the optane with SSDs but you will have approx same write/speeds than the when it's paird with an HDD.

So the question is : what team are you in :) ?

Performance Wise. M.2 NVME is much faster than Optane+HDD. But at this stage, the NVME is a bit of an overkill. He'd likely not notice the difference if the intended usage is gaming.

The advantage of the optane ( main selling point) is that you'd be able to utilize the full 1TB HDD instantly. it costs less , you'd have a better performance/$ for now with it.

in your situation i'd go for :

1-Optane (for now) - you'd have to run the games a couple of time to start noticing the difference.

2-SATA SSD (mid term) / + sell the optane.

3-M.2 NVME.

Thanks again for the response...I guess one reason I was considering M.2 SSD NVME is so it would be more future proof, and being a fresh pc I wouldn't have to mess with down the road. On the flip side, it sure would  be nice to just add the Optane module & be good to go.

just curious, if his main usage is for gaming & M.2 SSD NVME is much faster than using Optane, why wouldn't there be a noticeable difference?

From what i understood about this question, it's related to the CPU and the memory themselves.

You can throw 800mb/s to A CPU or 1800MB/s, it is limited to X MB/s of processing. thats why loading times (boot, gaming) wil be similar. the CPU/memory  will not handle more than what it can.

to exploit the full capacity of m.2 NVME you need a Faster CPU (more threads) and higher Memory.

Back to the Overkill situation, the M.2 NVME is worth it only if you upgrade/match it with a CPU/memory capable of handling its speeds/performance.

based on the research I've done, I don't see the bottleneck on the CPU/RAM, what am I missing?

Intel i5-8400 
Bus Speed: 8 GT/s DMI3

DDR4 2400MHz
data transfer rate: 19.2 GB/s

Intel Optane 
Sequential Read (up to): 1350 MB/s
Sequential Write (up to): 290 MB/s

Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Sequential Read Speeds up to: 3200MB/s
Sequential Write Speeds up to: 1900MB/s

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@Med Redawrote:

 

to exploit the full capacity of m.2 NVME you need a Faster CPU (more threads) and higher Memory.

Back to the Overkill situation, the M.2 NVME is worth it only if you upgrade/match it with a CPU/memory capable of handling its speeds/performance.

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I think we are "splitting hairs" here. :Smile: You have to remember that todays desktop Intel-i3 chips provide better performance than a nice desktop Intel processor from 7 years ago (something like a i7-930 with 4-cores and 8-threads).

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@omjwrote:
Thanks for the response.

The 5680 only has (1) m.2 port so I'm trying to decide which route to take, either add a 32gb Optane module or a 256gb m.2 SSD NVME. This pc is for my son, so I know a 256gb SSD will not be sufficient for all his games, so I thought keeping everything on the 1tb HDD with the Optane module might be easiest, but I will go with what performs the best, unless it's very close.

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Install a PCIe/NVMe SSD in the one M.2 slot.

240gb NVMe SSD will hold Windows, all programs, favorite large game

512gb NVMe SSD will hold Windows, all programs, and all (3-5) favorite large games.

Additional large games and large-media files can be stored on spinning HDD. Since you have NVMe doing all the heavy lifting, they performance should be good. Steam provides for multiple "Install Folders". You can put one on each physical drive.

Or, substitute the spinners for 2.5inch SATA SSDs (fairly large ones are pretty cheap now-days).

When i researched it, One of the most common"theories" as to why was that it was due to the nature of files being loaded and CPU/memory factor. it had to do as well as to how many PCIE lanes are allocated to the terminal ( nvme /SATA3 ports) so " the CPU/memory bottlneck" was good enough for my curiosity . and i didn't want to go that far down the rabbit hole to have the answer.. you might be luckier than me and found out why, i'd be happy to know. 

You bet. Go ahead and roll-the-dice ...

https://www.google.com/search?q=is+optane+as+fast+as+a+real+ssd

But to make an Inspiron a "gaming computer" without a boot-able C: (real physical) SSD would be a shame (I think). Believe me, he will appreciate it. I also have a problem actually buying Optane instead of a SSD (of any kind).

Either way, let us know what you do and how it turns out. Maybe you will sway my opinion of Optane (but I doubt it ... just look at these benchmarks) :Cool:

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/Aurora-R6-Hard-Lockup-and-crash-while-gaming-SOLVED/td-p/5504111/page/2

Well, as long as @omj ends up with Windows-10 booting from a SSD (either SATA or PCIe/NVMe) the machine should be fast enough. There appears to be other motivations here other than performance (so frankly, I'm getting a little bored with it) :Smile:

I'm now getting the feeling that either "easy" and/or "money" is more important.

@omj could try adding a cheap 2.5inch SATA SSD as bootable C:

... and then add the Optane to speed-cache the 1-tb spinning HDD. That might work, although since I'm not an Optane advocate (I'm a believer in "real" SSDs) I can't really say. At least with PCIe/NVMe drives, anything in the M.2 slot likes to take system precedence.