Help picking an SSD that will work well with my motherboard

[trickyninja21]

Hi, I'm not as tech savvy as I used to be when I built my rig a few years ago, so please bear with my lack of knowledge on choosing an ssd. I have an Asrock z97 Pro4 motherboard and I was wondering what types of ssd's are compatible with my system. I was doing some research on some m.2 drives, like the intel 600p, but it came to my understanding that my m.2 port only has PCIe 2.0 x2 which may be a too outdated for more modern m.2 drives out there. I really only use my PC for gaming and school work so should I just stick with a sata drive instead? I may be upgrading my rig entirely later so I just want to know if an ssd like the 600p should even be considered for me. btw I'm planning on using the ssd as my bootdrive.
Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks!

my rig
mobo: Asrock z97 Pro4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z97%20pro4/
Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 gaming
i7 4770 3.4 GHz
8 Gb RAM
1TB HDD

 

[Herc08]

Well SSDs are only for loading up stuff faster. It doesn't improve gameplay. But overall computer performance will seem faster. Loading Word faster, loading folders faster, etc. Some M.2s are just SSDs in that factor. To take advantage of faster PCIe speeds, you want to look for NVMe, but they can be a bit mor expensive. Honestly, unless you are transferring files or running raid, a simple SSD (Samsung EVO 850) is good enough.

 

[USAFRet]

For a Z97 board, just get a regular 2.5" SATA III SSD.
Samsung 850 EVO, Crucial MX300....whatever size your budget handles, 250GB minumum.

 

[JamesSneed]

I recommend you stick with a SATA based SSD like a Crucial MX300 or Samsung EVO 850. You wont be able to boot a PCIE based drive with that motherboard anyhow. Also for gaming and school work a SATA based SSD will almost be indistinguishable from a PCIE based one in real usage scenarios. If you haven't experienced it, moving to a SSD for your primary / OS drive is just lovely over a spinner. I would relegate that 1TB drive to backups, media, etc once you have a 256-512GB SSD.

 

[JamesSneed]

Cross posted, I was being long winded typing when USAFRet posted. We are essentially saying the same thing here.

 

[Richard_253]

Hi, I'm not as tech savvy as I used to be when I built my rig a few years ago, so please bear with my lack of knowledge on choosing an ssd. I have an Asrock z97 Pro4 motherboard and I was wondering what types of ssd's are compatible with my system. I was doing some research on some m.2 drives, like the intel 600p, but it came to my understanding that my m.2 port only has PCIe 2.0 x2 which may be a too outdated for more modern m.2 drives out there. I really only use my PC for gaming and school work so should I just stick with a sata drive instead? I may be upgrading my rig entirely later so I just want to know if an ssd like the 600p should even be considered for me. btw I'm planning on using the ssd as my bootdrive.
Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks!

my rig
mobo: Asrock z97 Pro4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z97%20pro4/
Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 gaming
i7 4770 3.4 GHz
8 Gb RAM
1TB HDD

You will need to update your bios (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Pro4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS) but you will be able to use an NVME M.2 SSD as your boot drive. You will also be able to obtain full speed from the drive by using a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 adapter in the MB's 3.0 x16 slot. The 960 EVO 256gb M.2 is a great value, IMO.

 

[trickyninja21]

Hi, I'm not as tech savvy as I used to be when I built my rig a few years ago, so please bear with my lack of knowledge on choosing an ssd. I have an Asrock z97 Pro4 motherboard and I was wondering what types of ssd's are compatible with my system. I was doing some research on some m.2 drives, like the intel 600p, but it came to my understanding that my m.2 port only has PCIe 2.0 x2 which may be a too outdated for more modern m.2 drives out there. I really only use my PC for gaming and school work so should I just stick with a sata drive instead? I may be upgrading my rig entirely later so I just want to know if an ssd like the 600p should even be considered for me. btw I'm planning on using the ssd as my bootdrive.
Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks!

my rig
mobo: Asrock z97 Pro4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z97%20pro4/
Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 gaming
i7 4770 3.4 GHz
8 Gb RAM
1TB HDD

You will need to update your bios (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Pro4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS) but you will be able to use an NVME M.2 SSD as your boot drive. You will also be able to obtain full speed from the drive by using a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 adapter in the MB's 3.0 x16 slot. The 960 EVO 256gb M.2 is a great value, IMO.

If I configured the drive like this then where would my GPU go? I'm pretty sure my mobo has only one 3.0 slot available which I'm using for my GPU.

 

[trickyninja21]

I recommend you stick with a SATA based SSD like a Crucial MX300 or Samsung EVO 850. You wont be able to boot a PCIE based drive with that motherboard anyhow. Also for gaming and school work a SATA based SSD will almost be indistinguishable from a PCIE based one in real usage scenarios. If you haven't experienced it, moving to a SSD for your primary / OS drive is just lovely over a spinner. I would relegate that 1TB drive to backups, media, etc once you have a 256-512GB SSD.

Cool! Thanks for the quick response! Which SATA based SSD would you say is the best right now? I'm looking for something in the 100-200 dollar price range.
Thanks again!

 

[Richard_253]

Hi, I'm not as tech savvy as I used to be when I built my rig a few years ago, so please bear with my lack of knowledge on choosing an ssd. I have an Asrock z97 Pro4 motherboard and I was wondering what types of ssd's are compatible with my system. I was doing some research on some m.2 drives, like the intel 600p, but it came to my understanding that my m.2 port only has PCIe 2.0 x2 which may be a too outdated for more modern m.2 drives out there. I really only use my PC for gaming and school work so should I just stick with a sata drive instead? I may be upgrading my rig entirely later so I just want to know if an ssd like the 600p should even be considered for me. btw I'm planning on using the ssd as my bootdrive.
Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks!

my rig
mobo: Asrock z97 Pro4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z97%20pro4/
Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 gaming
i7 4770 3.4 GHz
8 Gb RAM
1TB HDD

You will need to update your bios (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Pro4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS) but you will be able to use an NVME M.2 SSD as your boot drive. You will also be able to obtain full speed from the drive by using a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 adapter in the MB's 3.0 x16 slot. The 960 EVO 256gb M.2 is a great value, IMO.

If I configured the drive like this then where would my GPU go? I'm pretty sure my mobo has only one 3.0 slot available which I'm using for my GPU.

If you decide to go with this set-up you will have to plug your GPU into the x16 2.0 PCIe slot. You won't see any loss in your GPU's performance. This is all up to you, but having owned the 850 EVO sata SSD and now the 960 EVO M.2 I will never go back to a sata SSD.

 

[JamesSneed]

Hi, I'm not as tech savvy as I used to be when I built my rig a few years ago, so please bear with my lack of knowledge on choosing an ssd. I have an Asrock z97 Pro4 motherboard and I was wondering what types of ssd's are compatible with my system. I was doing some research on some m.2 drives, like the intel 600p, but it came to my understanding that my m.2 port only has PCIe 2.0 x2 which may be a too outdated for more modern m.2 drives out there. I really only use my PC for gaming and school work so should I just stick with a sata drive instead? I may be upgrading my rig entirely later so I just want to know if an ssd like the 600p should even be considered for me. btw I'm planning on using the ssd as my bootdrive.
Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks!

my rig
mobo: Asrock z97 Pro4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z97%20pro4/
Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 gaming
i7 4770 3.4 GHz
8 Gb RAM
1TB HDD

You will need to update your bios (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Pro4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS) but you will be able to use an NVME M.2 SSD as your boot drive. You will also be able to obtain full speed from the drive by using a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 adapter in the MB's 3.0 x16 slot. The 960 EVO 256gb M.2 is a great value, IMO.

Cool I didn't realize Asrock updated the BIOS for NVME. Thats nice so I was wrong about the motherboard support of NVME. If you have experience with this board being able to boot a NVME drive then the OP should certainly look into that.

 

[trickyninja21]

Hi, I'm not as tech savvy as I used to be when I built my rig a few years ago, so please bear with my lack of knowledge on choosing an ssd. I have an Asrock z97 Pro4 motherboard and I was wondering what types of ssd's are compatible with my system. I was doing some research on some m.2 drives, like the intel 600p, but it came to my understanding that my m.2 port only has PCIe 2.0 x2 which may be a too outdated for more modern m.2 drives out there. I really only use my PC for gaming and school work so should I just stick with a sata drive instead? I may be upgrading my rig entirely later so I just want to know if an ssd like the 600p should even be considered for me. btw I'm planning on using the ssd as my bootdrive.
Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks!

my rig
mobo: Asrock z97 Pro4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z97%20pro4/
Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 gaming
i7 4770 3.4 GHz
8 Gb RAM
1TB HDD

You will need to update your bios (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Pro4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS) but you will be able to use an NVME M.2 SSD as your boot drive. You will also be able to obtain full speed from the drive by using a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 adapter in the MB's 3.0 x16 slot. The 960 EVO 256gb M.2 is a great value, IMO.

If I configured the drive like this then where would my GPU go? I'm pretty sure my mobo has only one 3.0 slot available which I'm using for my GPU.

If you decide to go with this set-up you will have to plug your GPU into the x16 2.0 PCIe slot. You won't see any loss in your GPU's performance. This is all up to you, but having owned the 850 EVO sata SSD and now the 960 EVO M.2 I will never go back to a sata SSD.

Hi, I'm not as tech savvy as I used to be when I built my rig a few years ago, so please bear with my lack of knowledge on choosing an ssd. I have an Asrock z97 Pro4 motherboard and I was wondering what types of ssd's are compatible with my system. I was doing some research on some m.2 drives, like the intel 600p, but it came to my understanding that my m.2 port only has PCIe 2.0 x2 which may be a too outdated for more modern m.2 drives out there. I really only use my PC for gaming and school work so should I just stick with a sata drive instead? I may be upgrading my rig entirely later so I just want to know if an ssd like the 600p should even be considered for me. btw I'm planning on using the ssd as my bootdrive.
Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks!

my rig
mobo: Asrock z97 Pro4
http://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/z97%20pro4/
Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 gaming
i7 4770 3.4 GHz
8 Gb RAM
1TB HDD

You will need to update your bios (http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Pro4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS) but you will be able to use an NVME M.2 SSD as your boot drive. You will also be able to obtain full speed from the drive by using a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 adapter in the MB's 3.0 x16 slot. The 960 EVO 256gb M.2 is a great value, IMO.

Cool I didn't realize Asrock updated the BIOS for NVME. Thats nice so I was wrong about the motherboard support of NVME. If you have experience with this board being able to boot a NVME drive then the OP should certainly look into that.

Unfortunately in my Mobo's manual it says the PCIe 2 slot, which is supposed to have 16 lanes, is limited to 4 lane width GPUs for somereason. So my 1070 was bottlenecked when I was placing it there. Should I still try an NVME m.2 SSD in my m.2 port even if its limited to only 2 lanes, or would a SATA based drive still be a better option?

 

[JamesSneed]

Honestly for a gaming machine SATA is the reasonable choice as its almost as fast as NVME m.2 in practice say game load times, cheaper and you wont have to worry about compatibility issues. Coming from a HDD I think you would be pretty happy with either a Crucial MX300 or Samsung EVO 850. Just don't go under 256GB whatever you do.

 

[trickyninja21]

Honestly for a gaming machine SATA is the reasonable choice as its almost as fast as NVME m.2 in practice say game load times, cheaper and you wont have to worry about compatibility issues. Coming from a HDD I think you would be pretty happy with either a Crucial MX300 or Samsung EVO 850. Just don't go under 256GB whatever you do.

Cool, thanks so much again!