Aug '16 - So I have been looking at upgrading my main boot drive to an M.2, however I have not found any information on whether or not the Z97 chipset with DMI 2.0 supports any PCIe lanes on its own. I'm trying to avoid stepping my GPU down 3.0 X8. So I am curious to know if lets say that DMI 2.0 supported 2.0 X4 and I were to get a Kingston 2280 M.2 that is 2.0 X4, would that still cause the GPU to step down to 3.0 X8 or would it just run off the DMI 2.0 interface and not affect the GPU? Just for reference this is my current system:
NZXT S340 Xeon E3 1231 V3 Asus Z97 AR G.Skill 4(4) at 1866 XFX R9 390X Corsair CX750M Corsair H100I GTX Corsair Force 60GB Western Digital Blue 1TB(2)
Also I want to apologize if this is sloppy as this is my first post as I am an infant in the Tek Syndicate community.
If that is your motherboard: It has 10GB M.2 socket. Quote from the website: 1 x M.2 Socket 3, , with M Key, type 2260/2280 storage devices support (PCIE mode) Quote from the manual: *When the plugged M.2 PCIe SSDs are used as the OS drive and IRST cache at the same time, ensure the “Launch CSM” is set to [Disabled] in BIOS. Meanwhile, for the M.2 SSDs that contained OPROM, contact the SSDs’ vendors for Microsoft signed UEFI drivers. Otherwise, they will be only available for the data drive usage. Check the manual of Intel Desktop Responsiveness Technologies for the details of IRST setup.
I know that it supports the M.2 but does it take away PCIe lanes from the GPU making it 3.0 X8 or does it use PCIe 2.0 lanes from the DMI 2.0 interface from the board itself if the Z97 chipset has additional lanes? The reason why I as is because the Kingston M.2 I am looking at is 2.0 X4.
You realize your CPU have more than 16 lanes, right? Even if it is, 390X don't really use the entire 16X bandwidth, so you will not really feel much of a change, if any. My guess is no, the m.2 slot will not et up your PCI-E bandwidth, especially since the board is advertised as quad SLI/CFX support... But it may eat up a couple of your SATA connections.
Intels Ark say it has 16 but if a 390X can't saturate that bandwidth any way I guess I wont see a hit, but I'll sacrifice 2 Sata Express connections I dont for that lol but thanks for the quick responses and the info!
@Mr.Galaxy I own the ASUS Z97-AR and I just dealt with this last week when I bought a new SSD. Short answer = YES, you can boot from any M.2 drive, but it is complicated.
First - You need to flash update the BIOS to enable M.2 and PCIe SSD booting. Easy Second - You can use M.2 or SLI, but not both, you have to choose the mode in BIOS. No Problem Third - (This is the bad news, but it doesn't matter - see below) The M.2 slot maxes out at 600 MB/s because it is only PCIe 2.0 x2 lanes.
For that reason I selected an Intel 750 PCIe 3.0 x4 lane SSD and I now get a 2300 MB/s connection. But I found that in the real world I can't tell the difference between my SATA ssd's and the new super-fast NVMe ssd. Save your money and get a regular M.2 drive (Like a Samsung 850) and forget about the NVMe M.2 drives (Like the Samsung 950).
Dude I can see the difference coming from a Kingston Hyper X 3k to a SM951, idk about you but it made a world of difference for me.
Here is how the M.2 breaks down for your board. The native M.2 is pcie gen 2 by 2. It cannot saturate a 950 pro, SM951, Intel 750 series, or any other Pcie SSD that is a pcie gen 3 by 4. You can install a pcie ssd in the second PCIE slot that would be used for SLI, but that puts your graphics card at 8x mode which makes zero impact at all. I have a 980 Ti running at PCIE gen 3 by 8 and there is no notable performance drop off from the card in 16x mode. Now, the native M.2 on your board shares bandwidth with the sata express. So, you will either have the M.2 or sata express but never both. That said, the native M.2 does not have any impact on the Graphics or USB as was mentioned above. Those lanes are only for the M.2 and sata express to use. The only way you could get the full M.2 speeds of a 950 pro or such drive would be to add it via an add in card in the second pcie 16x physical slot as I mentioned above.
I had the same, m.2 on mobo was slow, but in a pcie slot with riser /add on card didn't cause any noticeable effect on 980ti. Running a 4790k so limited on lanes, but still running 1440p in ultra no probs. Not booting from the m.2 thought.?.
