Plextor M.2 M8peG 256GB Nvme on AsRock Z97X Killer 3.1 motherboad

[zackinaus]

Dear All,

I have recently purchased a Plextor M.2 M8peG NVME drive for my Z97 system.
I have 2x GTX 970 running SLI in two PCIE 3.0 @8x/8x configuration.

The Plextor M.2 drive is currently installed at the M.2 slot which is rated only at pcie 2.0 x2 (10Gb/s).

I would like to know how can I get the most performance out of the drive.

Should I install the drive on a m.2 pcie converter and plug into the 3rd PCIE 16x slot? Would it be reducing the bandwidth for my SLI setup to 8x/4x?

I heard of my Core i5 4590 has direct PCIE controller of 16 lanes, how can I utilize that so my graphics card's pcie lane would not be affected?

PCIE Slot spec of my motherboard are as follow:
- 3 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 Slots (PCIE2/PCIE4/PCIE6: single at x16 (PCIE2); dual at x8 (PCIE2) / x8 (PCIE4); triple at x8 (PCIE2) / x4 (PCIE4) / x4 (PCIE6)

Thank you all in advance for your input.

Regards,

Zack

 

[USAFRet]

If the board does not natively support the NVMe drive, I wouldn't bother.

I looked into this late last year for my z97. Not worth the hassle for the minimal overall performance increase over a regular SSD.

 

[zackinaus]

If the board does not natively support the NVMe drive, I wouldn't bother.

I looked into this late last year for my z97. Not worth the hassle for the minimal overall performance increase over a regular SSD.

I have already purchased the drive because a decent discount but only found out the M.2 slot on my motherboard only support PCIE 2.0 x2. I have read on the web that someone has installed the drive on an PCIE adapter. I am wondering if that would reduce my SLI lanes or it will be linked directly to CPU PCIE lane?

 

[neiler0847]

This is one of those cases where you have to pore over your motherboard a few times. The info is probably in there, but possibly in an obscure reference.

You will only get the full speed from the NVMe drive if you can procure Gen3 x 4 PCIE lanes for that last PCIE slot. It kinda sounds like putting something in PCIE6 is going to steal 4 lanes from PCIE4.

You could also pose your query to ASRock support.