Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5 - M.2?

May 18, 2018
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Hi!

I'm looking to get an upgrade to my PC. At the moment I have a Kingston HyperX SSD (120GB) as my boot drive. I'm doing some research for an upgrade to a M.2 SSD.

At the moment my preference is a Samsung 960 EVO (250GB). I have read that my M.2 slot is not fully compatible with this M.2 drive. My slot seems to be a 2x one, instead of a 4x one.

I'm wondering what kind of impact this will have on my system performance. Will it still be faster than my installed SSD?

In the future I might upgrade my CPU/Motherboard, so buying this SSD might also be a worthwile investment for the future, when I buy a fully compatible motherboard.

My specs at this moment:
CPU: i5 4690K @4.6Ghz
GPU: Nividia GTX 960
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5 (Bios version F7)
Storage: 1 Kingston HyperX SSD (120GB), 1 Seagate Barracuda 2TB, 1 WD Black 1TB
RAM: 16GB DDR3 HyperX Fury

Thank you in advance!
 
Solution
For that board, I wouldn't bother with an m.2 NVMe drive.
I have a similar level ASRock board, and chose not to add an NVMe drive on it.

1. You can't utilize it fully

2. For most uses, you won't really see a huge speed benefit

3. If wanting to use it as an "investment" for future systems...prices will almost certainly reduce over time, per GB. The same drive that costs $200 today may only be $150 later.


I would just change from your current 120GB Kingston to a 250GB or 500GB Samsung or Crucial SATA III drive.

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
For that board, I wouldn't bother with an m.2 NVMe drive.
I have a similar level ASRock board, and chose not to add an NVMe drive on it.

1. You can't utilize it fully

2. For most uses, you won't really see a huge speed benefit

3. If wanting to use it as an "investment" for future systems...prices will almost certainly reduce over time, per GB. The same drive that costs $200 today may only be $150 later.


I would just change from your current 120GB Kingston to a 250GB or 500GB Samsung or Crucial SATA III drive.
 
Solution