[SOLVED] M.2 SSD LOWER SPEEDS than advertised running on PCIE Gen 2 x 2 instead of PCIE x4

[MixedCVG]

Hi guys, so i recently purchased an M.2 SSD Samsung Evo Plus 250gb NVME. I mounted it on my mother board GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H and installed windows on it. After some benchmarks i saw that the speed lock at 835mb/s on Reading and 775 on Writing. On the Samsung Magician program i saw that the SSD is running on PCIE Gen 2 x 2 interface instead of PCIE x4 and i think this is the problem. He should run at 3500mb/s Read and 2300mb/s Write. Can i solve this problem with an PICE x4 adaptor? Any tips? I've been struggling with this for 2 days..

 

[kanewolf]

Hi guys, so i recently purchased an M.2 SSD Samsung Evo Plus 250gb NVME. I mounted it on my mother board GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H and installed windows on it. After some benchmarks i saw that the speed lock at 835mb/s on Reading and 775 on Writing. On the Samsung Magician program i saw that the SSD is running on PCIE Gen 2 x 2 interface instead of PCIE x4 and i think this is the problem. He should run at 3500mb/s Read and 2300mb/s Write. Can i solve this problem with an PICE x4 adaptor? Any tips? I've been struggling with this for 2 days..

Other than benchmark results, you won't notice any significant difference if you do move to a PCIe card. BUT, you might reduce the available PCIe lanes to your graphics card. I wouldn't recommend the PCIe card.

 

[MixedCVG]

Yes, but i want the advertised speeds because this is what i paid for. If i cant somehow get that speeds i would do a refund and get a m.2 ssd at the half price of this one and get the same speeds like 800mb/s and 700mb/s.
So you say that if i get the PCie card adapter i would get the advertised speeds in benchmarks? And if you say that you don't recommend the PCIe card, is there any other method to get the advertised speed? Or should i go for the refund.

 

[kanewolf]

Yes, but i want the advertised speeds because this is what i paid for. If i cant somehow get that speeds i would do a refund and get a m.2 ssd at the half price of this one and get the same speeds like 800mb/s and 700mb/s.
So you say that if i get the PCie card adapter i would get the advertised speeds in benchmarks? And if you say that you don't recommend the PCIe card, is there any other method to get the advertised speed? Or should i go for the refund..

You are running a motherboard which has CPUs from 2014. You CAN'T be worried about absolute performance.
You can't get the advertised speeds with the motherboard you have without limiting bandwidth to your GPU.
Given the two options you allow, then attempting to get a refund would be the recommendation.
But my actual recommendation would be "be happy with what you have" or buy a new motherboard/CPU/RAM.

 

[USAFRet]

Hi guys, so i recently purchased an M.2 SSD Samsung Evo Plus 250gb NVME. I mounted it on my mother board GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H and installed windows on it. After some benchmarks i saw that the speed lock at 835mb/s on Reading and 775 on Writing. On the Samsung Magician program i saw that the SSD is running on PCIE Gen 2 x 2 interface instead of PCIE x4 and i think this is the problem. He should run at 3500mb/s Read and 2300mb/s Write. Can i solve this problem with an PICE x4 adaptor? Any tips? I've been struggling with this for 2 days..

May we assume it is a Samsung 970 EVO Plus?
The PCIe Gen2 x2 is exactly the issue as to why your drive is not seeing that advertised speed. Your old motherboard is limiting it. I have that same level board (parts list below).

Would you see full speed if used in a PCIe adapter in one of the slots? Yes, probably.
However, you may not be able to use that as a boot drive.
Not all Z97 era boards can boot from that. Only if there is a specific BIOS update that addresses that functionality.
And that may cut down your GPU performance.

In my ASRock Z97, I simply put my Intel 660p in a PCIe slot and adapter, and use it as a secondary drive.
The existing 850 EVO boot drive is just fine.

 

[FoxVoxDK]

Not to mention, that M.2 drive is limited to 10 Gbps, it even says right above it.
You could buy an M.2 PCIe expansion card, but I'm not sure you could boot from that. Mr. Chair Force confirmed it.

Unless you're running a 2080Ti, PCI 3.0 at 8x is more than adequate.

 

[MixedCVG]

May we assume it is a Samsung 970 EVO Plus?
The PCIe Gen2 x2 is exactly the issue as to why your drive is not seeing that advertised speed. Your old motherboard is limiting it. I have that same level board (parts list below).

Would you see full speed if used in a PCIe adapter in one of the slots? Yes, probably.
However, you may not be able to use that as a boot drive.
Not all Z97 era boards can boot from that. Only if there is a specific BIOS update that addresses that functionality.
And that may cut down your GPU performance.

In my ASRock Z97, I simply put my Intel 660p in a PCIe slot and adapter, and use it as a secondary drive.
The existing 850 EVO boot drive is just fine.

Yes, it is a 970 evo plus, sorry but i forgot to mention this.
I actually updated the bios yesterday because firstly it didnt even recognized my M.2 SSD. And i purchased the product for using it as a boot drive. Thanks for the advice and clarifications

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, it is a 970 evo plus, sorry but i forgot to mention this.
I actually updated the bios yesterday because firstly it didnt even recognized my M.2 SSD. And i purchased the product for using it as a boot drive. Thanks for the advice and clarifications

Technology advances.
You're expecting a 6 year old platform to keep up with brand new uberspeed tech. It won't.

I've seen people with hardware 2 or 3 generations older than yours, wanting to shoehorn a brand new PCIe 4.0 drive in thre, expecting it to work, and getting mad when it doesn't.
Trust me...you're not the only one in this boat. And that boat has been changing since PC's were a thing.

 

[MixedCVG]

But if i get an M.2 ssd with like 1000mb/s read and 1000mb/s write speeds i would still have the 835mb/s on Reading and 775 on Writing, right?. I was thinking to refund it and get another one not that powerful and like that save some money for the upgrades that i will make.

 

[USAFRet]

But if i get a M.2 ssd with like 1000mb/s read and 1000mb/s write speeds i would still have the 835mb/s on Reading and 775 on Writing, right?. I was thinking to refund it and get another one not that powerfull and like that save some money for upgradeing the pc.

Performance depends on the slowest device in the chain.
Here, the motherboard is the limiting factor.

Yes, even a compartively 'slower' Intel 660p or Crucial P1 would still be a bit limited.
But you'd have extra money.

 

[USAFRet]

And in my use case with Adobe Lightroom, I can detect zero difference between the Samsung 850 or 860 EVO, and the "3x faster" Intel 660p.

There are many other things going on beyond the raw sequential drive speed.

SSD's primary benefit is the near zero access time. This goes for SATA III as well as NVMe.
Where you would benefit from the uberfast NVMe is reading/writing data between two of them. Anything else, you also have to take the rest of the PC into account.