Is the 950 Pro M.2. SSD compatible with MSI GUARD-PRO ATX?

[Darth Monroe]

I want to buy a new M.2. Samsung 950 Pro (256GB model). But my motherboard is a MSI GUARD-PRO ATX with 2 PCIe x16 slots. One being the video card obviously.

System Specs:
• CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4790 3.60 GHz 8MB LGA1150
• HDD: (2) 3TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM
• SSD: 256GB ADATA SP600
• SSD: 512GB MX100
• HDD: 250 GB
• MEMORY: 16GB DDR3/1866MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Vengeance)
• MOTHERBOARD: MSI GUARD-PRO ATX, 2 PCIe x16, 4 PCIe x1, 3 PCI, 1 x M.2, SATA 3
• OS: Microsoft® Windows 8.1 (64-bit Edition)
o Soon to be Microsoft® Windows 10 (64-bit Edition)
• VIDEO: AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card
o Soon to be a GTX 980ti

The M.2. Samsung 950 Pro needs a PCI-e Gen 3 x4. I only have the 2.0 x16 which correct me if I am wrong I can get an adapter for. (To be honest I am not sure my Motherboard can run the x16 at x8 but even if it can I hear that it will effect my graphics card a bit. This might be a huge problem for me depending on the amount. Does anyone know if it affects your GPU and if so how much?
So if I do plug it into my other x16 slot, will my GPU go down to x8 performance? I realize there's not huge performance drop between x8 and x16 for GPU, but am curious if that is the case or if I can get x4 on one slot and x16 on the other?

It will indeed reduce the video card to PCIe 3.0 x8 and I think its possible to make it a 2.0 x4 (as shown below from MSI website) would that slow my 950 Pro down and cause me to lose my 4 x1 slots bc I have an Ethernet card in one. The rest I don’t care.
• 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (PCI_E2, supports x16 speed)
• 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slot (PCI_E4, supports x4 speed)
• 4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots
Thank you for any help.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

The 950 Pro doesn't NEED PCIe 3.0 x4, but it does perform best with that connection. You can run it on the M.2 port on your mainboard and it will still be faster than any SATA SSD.

The top blue slot is the only one with connections to the CPU so it gets the full PCIe 3.0 x16. The second blue slot only has PCIe 2.0 x4 connections to the chipset, and it will not affect your GPU at all.

My advice: Just plug the 950 Pro into the M.2 port so you don't have to worry about the other PCIe slots.

 

[Darth Monroe]

Well what would be my data transfer rate approx.? Because if you are saying it will be the same as say a 850 Pro or EVO then should I just get that or is there a way to tell what 2.0 x4 will get me with a 950 Pro? So this will not slow down my Video Card at all? Thanks

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

No, it will not slow down your graphics card at all.

I've seen others getting around 800MBps on a Z97 M.2 port with the 950 Pro. And since SATA SSDs top out at around 500-550MBps, the 950 Pro is still faster.

If you get a PCIe x4 to M.2 adapter card, you will get all of the write speed, and most of the read speed (tops out around 2,000MBps).

If you want larger than a 512GB size, Samsung will be releasing a 1TB 950 Pro sometime this year.