M.2 PCIe to M.2 adaptor questions

[Lambofreak]

I have an older Z97X motherboard, this one here: https://www.gigabyte.com/au/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-Gaming-7-rev-10#ov

I have a couple of questions about getting M.2 NVMe drives to work, from my research although this board does have an M.2 port any drive wouldn't run at NVMe speeds and wouldn't be bootable.

If I got an adaptor such as: https://www.pccasegear.com/products/44270/silverstone-ecm23-m-2-to-pcie-adapter

Would I then be able to run an NVMe drive such as: https://www.pccasegear.com/products/42352/samsung-970-evo-m-2-nvme-ssd-500gb

My questions are:

1. Would it run at full NVMe speeds or only SATA/AHCI speeds?
2. Would it be bootable?
3. I understand my processor (4770), only has 16 PCIe lanes, I have a GPU running x16, and a wifi card which says it only uses PCIe x1 https://www.pccasegear.com/products/19489. Would it bump my video card down to x8 instead of x16?

Thanks for your help!

 

[jay.wooster]

If your loaded you could just get a PCI-e Optane SSD

Can you confirm is this for something other than gaming and booting windows ? Just wondering why an M.2 and not a SATA SSD is all.

 

[jay.wooster]

This thread may help....

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3303487/pcie-ngff-adapter.html

 

[jay.wooster]

Moving your GPU from a x16 to a x8 slot would impact gaming at between 1-3 FPS from the testing i have seen so next to no impact if it comes to that but by all accounts from the thread link i sent you you should be able to put the adapter in the x8 or x4 slot without an issue.

 

[coozie7]

Personally, I wouldn't bother about it and just drop a 2.5" SATA drive in and be done, unless you're using the system as a heavy lift server you won't notice much performance difference, especially when we consider the M2 slot won't run at the maximum speed ( PCI-E 3.0x4 ) of a modern M2 NVMe drive anyway.

 

[jay.wooster]

He already has the M.2 Drive

 

[USAFRet]

My questions are:

2. Would it be bootable?

Probably not.

Unless you can find direct documentation that says yes, or a BIOS update that addresses that, or someone else with that exact same motherboard...I'm leaning to 'No, it won't boot from that'.


Do you already have this drive? If not, don't do it.

 

[Lambofreak]

Thanks all for your replies.

To answer questions from a couple of posts, my reason for buying is eventually when there's enough reason to I'll upgrade the processor and chipset with it. 9700k, 10700k or whatever it'll be called maybe. When I do that I'd like to upgrade to an NVMe drive and boot from it. Was just trying to break up some of the cost and buy the NVMe drive now, but if I can't boot from it there's not much point, and I might as well wait. Already have a 840 Evo 2.5in SSD as system drive.

Usage will just be to have Windows installed on, programs and whatever space there is left over for games.

But again if I can't boot from it I'll just wait and get it all at once with the new chipset.

One other question that's been largely unanswered, would it run at NVMe speeds same as what it would through an NVMe enable M.2 slot or would it be capped at SATA3 speeds?

 

[USAFRet]

One other question that's been largely unanswered, would it run at NVMe speeds same as what it would through an NVMe enable M.2 slot or would it be capped at SATA3 speeds?

I believe it would run at full NVMe speed.
Just not bootable on that motherboard.

But also, SSD prices are dropping like a rock. What is $175 today may be $100 by the time you're ready for a new board that can natively handle that drive.

 

[Lambofreak]

One other question that's been largely unanswered, would it run at NVMe speeds same as what it would through an NVMe enable M.2 slot or would it be capped at SATA3 speeds?

I believe it would run at full NVMe speed.
Just not bootable on that motherboard.

But also, SSD prices are dropping like a rock. What is $175 today may be $100 by the time you're ready for a new board that can natively handle that drive.

True, yes especially if it's not bootable I think I'll just wait...

Thanks all for your help!

 

[Lambofreak]

I just thought I'd update this thread for anybody else wanting the info. Probably less and less relevant because everybody has probably moved onto new chipsets but - I found an Adata XPG 1tb M.2 drive on sale for a rediculously low price so bought it and thought I might as well give it a go. Boots fine straight up, didn't have any setup problems and haven't had an issue running it

 

[hang-the-9]

I have an older Z97X motherboard, this one here: https://www.gigabyte.com/au/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-Gaming-7-rev-10#ov

I have a couple of questions about getting M.2 NVMe drives to work, from my research although this board does have an M.2 port any drive wouldn't run at NVMe speeds and wouldn't be bootable.

If I got an adaptor such as: https://www.pccasegear.com/products/44270/silverstone-ecm23-m-2-to-pcie-adapter

Would I then be able to run an NVMe drive such as: https://www.pccasegear.com/products/42352/samsung-970-evo-m-2-nvme-ssd-500gb

My questions are:

1. Would it run at full NVMe speeds or only SATA/AHCI speeds?
2. Would it be bootable?
3. I understand my processor (4770), only has 16 PCIe lanes, I have a GPU running x16, and a wifi card which says it only uses PCIe x1 https://www.pccasegear.com/products/19489. Would it bump my video card down to x8 instead of x16?

Thanks for your help!

Why spend $50 on an adapter when you can just buy a sata drive for the same cost? The speed difference between sata and pcie in real world use is pretty much 0, you won't notice it.