ASUS X99-M WS Motherboard

[The Original Ralph]

I noticed in 3 review threads on Newegg & amazon on the asus X99-M WS board, the posters indicated their mobo wouldn't run their samsung 950 PRO NVMe SSD - The date of the last review reporting that incompatibility was Feb 2016 - i checked Asus support page to review their BIOS updates but they no longer show all the updates with description of what that update improved, and the latest BIOS update doesn't say anything about NVMe compatibility.

Two of the posters indicated ASUS tech support indicated to them the X99-M board didn't support the 950 PRO. The posters had indicated their 950 PRO would run, but no where near full speeds. Only reason i wonder how accurate those reviews were, one of them indicated the "NVMe" page in their BIOS was greyed out, and no "windows boot manager" showing on the BIOS's boot page - but it's greyed out on my Z97M board, but is showing the "Windows Boot Manager", and it's running the 950 PRO fine

and oddly, RamCity's web shows the samsung 961 as compatible, but not the 950, and not stating if it's compatible under win 7 or win 10

Is anyone running a sammy 950 PRO on their asus X99 board at full speeds?

 

[ThomasLeong]

You do know that this motherboard's M.2 slot is only a PCIe2.0 x2 (10Gb/s), and not a PCIe3.0 x4 (32Gb/s) which is what the Samsung 950 Pro requires to run at its full rated speed.

To get optimum performance from the Samsung, a PCIe 3.0x4 M.2 Adapter card should do it, and slot it into either the 2nd or 3rd PCIe3.0x16 slots, when the 1st slot is occupied by your graphics card.

Re compatibility, to quote Anandtech's review of the Samsung 950 Pro :
"...in order to use an NVMe SSD you need an NVMe driver, and in order to boot from an NVMe drive your motherboard's firmware needs NVMe support. The NVMe standard has now been around long enough that virtually every consumer device with an M.2 slot providing PCIe lanes should have NVMe support or a firmware update available to add it, so booting off the 950 Pro poses no particular trouble (as odd as it sounds, some older enterprise/workstation systems may not have an NVMe update, and users should check with their system manufacturer)."
Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9702/samsung-950-pro-ssd-review-256gb-512gb/2

The review goes on to say that Microsoft 8.1 and 10 has a built-in NVME driver for basic functionality, but that it is best to use the manufacturer's driver for full functionality. Samsung's Magician software has the NVME driver that supports the 950 Pro.

 

[The Original Ralph]

yes, was aware of the board's M.2 slot's shortcoming, but that isn't what i was referring to- i've been running a xp941 and a 950 PRO since they first came out, on a PCIe expansion adapter card

for some reason, on this one board, ASUS has not provided full NVMe support. As an FYI, i posted this question on Newegg, as a question on this product's page, and one seemingly knowledgeable user responded that in an ASUS Hyper-X expansion card, the best he's been able to see in the way of read speed is something to the order of 1500, while write speeds are up to spec. Like i said above, a few posters have reported ASUS techs telling them the board's BIOS does not fully support NVMe.

There were a number of "teething pains" with this boards BIOS - search on youtube. What i assume were professional reviewers had bought this board, and end up RMAing them, only to have the same issues with the replacement boards - biggest issue was computer not booting with usb devices connected at time of boot up.

Asus apparently corrected those issues, but oddly, when they released the bios that corrected all the issues, they removed from their support page all the earlier BIOS updates, so it's impossible to review which BIOSs by their described improvements.

It's kind of an odd situation - and again, RamCity on their web, shows the board compatible with the samsung sm951 & sm961 but not the 950 PRO which is kind of odd

 

[ThomasLeong]

If the board's BIOS does not fully support NVME, that's a ah heck.

When the board was first announced and I noticed that it's M.2 slot was PCIe2.0x2, I did say to myself "What?...for a X99 LGA-2011 v3 board?...understandable for a Z97, but not for a X99". So I have short-listed the ASRock X99M Extreme4 or the Gigabyte GA-X99M Gaming 5 for my purchase when I'm ready. The Gigabyte is similar to the ASUS re the M.2 slot and would require a PCIe Adapter card for my SM951, but it is far cheaper.

 

[The Original Ralph]

there aren't that many X99 micro-ATX boards being offered out there. i thought about the Asrock Extreme4 but there seem to be a number of complaints on amazon & newegg re slow response or non-existent response from customer svc, and a surprising number of DOA (whether from bad DIMM slots to just totally DOA) complaints - and i don't believe the population of Asrock boards shipped is anywhere near ASUS's. Plus the ASUS motherboard support forum is a pretty decent resource - mods there are pretty knowledgeable and helpful, and made it a big difference when i built my Z97M system.

Don't get me wrong, i don't think the ASUS X99M is the gold standard by any means - there just seems to be a higher QC on the product, plus it's got a couple of USB 3.1 ports.

For whatever reasons, the X99M boards seem to be like our election right now, no matter which one i go with......

 

[ThomasLeong]

I hear ya! That's why I'm holding out for a while...to see what the Intel 7 series will bring in terms of new X99M motherboards, if any.

Meanwhile, I'm surviving with my two series 4 Intels - an i7 4790K on a MSI Z97M-G43 mobo in a low profile el cheapo case where I have cut a hole from the top to house the upper 120mm fan of a Noctua L12 when Turbo mode is enabled, with a Magewell low profile capture card and a PCIe M.2 Adapter for the SM951 while the mobo's M.2 slot takes the slower Plextor M.2, and the i7-4770K on a ASRock Z97 Extreme4 in a Cooler Master Haf XB.

Not that I need a X99 system, but it would be nice to have a small, portable one to act as backup to the X99 systems I build for my customers.