[SOLVED] M.2 drive on a GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK

[Pizzabroodje]

Hi!

I just bought a PC with GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK motherboard.
I was planning on installing a m.2 drive but it doesn't have a slot for it.

It has two 16x PCI-E slots. If I would be to use one of the slots, would I still have the full 16x on the other slot?
On the Gigabyte website it only says that the 8x slots share capacity with the adjacent 16x slots and thus decreasing the 16x on that slot to 8x, but not that the 16x slots share the same capacity.
So would I be able to use one of the slots for the M.2 SSD while still having the full 16x for a graphics card?

What it says on the Gigabyte website:

1. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1~2)
   * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots.
2. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1~2)
   * The PCIEX8_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_1 slot and the PCIEX8_2 slot with PCIEX16_2. The PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode when the PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2 is populated.
   (All PCI Express x16 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
3. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots
   (The PCI Express x1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

Thanks!
Daniel

 

[USAFRet]

What do you plan to use this M.2 drive for?

You almost certainly can't boot from it, and the actual user facing difference in not a whole lot greater than with a typical SATA II SSD.

 

[Pizzabroodje]

What do you plan to use this M.2 drive for?

You almost certainly can't boot from it, and the actual user facing difference in not a whole lot greater than with a typical SATA II SSD.

I was planning on using it as boot drive and for storing programs.
That really wouldn't be possible?

 

[USAFRet]

I was planning on using it as boot drive and for storing programs.
That really wouldn't be possible?

"Maybe".
The F7 BIOS update mentions: "Support NVMe device. "
But that does NOT say "Boot from..."
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-Gaming-G1-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

In reality...there isn't that much difference vs SATA III. Especially with everything else being 'older'.

 

[Pizzabroodje]

I also contacted gigabyte themselves about it. Hope to hear from them soon.

I know there's just a minimal difference in practice, but the price difference is also quite small, so I would rather go with a NVME drive. (I need a bigger SSD anyway as there is only 128GB installed).