Mother boards supporting TWO PCIe NVMe SSDs [SOLVED]

[meokubad]

I'm doing my first PC build. I'd like to install *two* Samsung 960 EVO PCIe NVMe drives. I am considering the following motherboards:

-MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC ATX LGA1151

-ASUS ROG Strix Z370-E Gaming LGA 1151

-ASRock Z370 Professional Gaming i7 LGA 1151

-Gigabyte - Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 (rev. 1.0)

Each of these boards has at least two m.2 slots. However, I became concerned that one or more of these boards might only be able to accept a single PCIe NVMe SSD such as the 960 EVO, and that the other M.2 slots could only be occupied by SATA SSDs. Specifically, this concern was triggered by the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon user guide (available at https://us.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON-AC#down-manual). The manual appears to say (p.16, "Storage" at the "*") that the board supports a maximum of one PCIe SSD. The manual appears to contradict itself at p.34, where a table seems to indicate that the M.2 slots can support two PCIe drives. Likewise, on p. 34, a diagram appears to show a configuration with two PCIe drives.

I also started looking at the user manual for the ASRock board, but I didn't see a clear answer and decided it would be best to inquire here given my general noobitude.

So, will the boards listed above support two 960 EVOs? if not, are there other bpards you can suggest for an i7-8700K?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: ASRock - Z370 Extreme4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $124.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-11-30 15:03 EST-0500

 

[BadAsAl]

SR-71 digging the new graphics!

 

[Snipergod87]

I have the extreme 4 is does indeed accept 2 PCI-E NVMe drives, only down side is that they are both through the PCH along with the SATA ports, meaning that SATA ports and the 2x NVM-E slots are connected/limited by a PCI-Express 3.0 4x connection back to the CPU

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I have the extreme 4 is does indeed accept 2 PCI-E NVMe drives, only down side is that they are both through the PCH along with the SATA ports, meaning that SATA ports and the 2x NVM-E slots are connected/limited by a PCI-Express 3.0 4x connection back to the CPU

Built my youngest son's with the Z370 Extreme 4 with the 960 EVO as a boot drive takes 6 to 8 seconds too boot.

 

[BadAsAl]

I have the extreme 4 is does indeed accept 2 PCI-E NVMe drives, only down side is that they are both through the PCH along with the SATA ports, meaning that SATA ports and the 2x NVM-E slots are connected/limited by a PCI-Express 3.0 4x connection back to the CPU

Did you benchmark Read/write speeds?
I have a single EVO Pro 960 and got between 2500 and 3000 MB/s. Just curious what yours would do.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

3250 WAS MY BEST SO FAR.

 

[Snipergod87]

I have the extreme 4 is does indeed accept 2 PCI-E NVMe drives, only down side is that they are both through the PCH along with the SATA ports, meaning that SATA ports and the 2x NVM-E slots are connected/limited by a PCI-Express 3.0 4x connection back to the CPU

Did you benchmark Read/write speeds?
I have a single EVO Pro 960 and got between 2500 and 3000 MB/s. Just curious what yours would do.

Right now I only have 1 NVMe drive installed A 960 EVO (No SATA or other devices) as I had some issues I was attempting to resolve.

For a single NVMe drive it will be fine, but if you intend to RAID 0 them you wont see any performance increase, and if you hit both hard at the same time you will be limited by the 3.0 4x link to the PCH (Max of 4GB/s). But normal every day usage its perfectly fine.

 

[meokubad]

I have the extreme 4 is does indeed accept 2 PCI-E NVMe drives, only down side is that they are both through the PCH along with the SATA ports, meaning that SATA ports and the 2x NVM-E slots are connected/limited by a PCI-Express 3.0 4x connection back to the CPU

Sorry...which one is the Extreme 4? Is it the ASUS ROG Strix Z370-E that I listed above?

 

[Snipergod87]

AsRock Z370 Extreme 4, not one in your list but one I know that works/supports it.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Best 370 deal on the market:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: ASRock - Z370 Extreme4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $124.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-11-30 15:03 EST-0500

 

[meokubad]

AsRock Z370 Extreme 4, not one in your list but one I know that works/supports it.

Aha. OK, thanks.

 

[meokubad]

Just want to update this to note that I did end up going with the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon and I'm happy to say that it does indeed work with two M.2 NVMe SSDs.