Samsung 960 evo 800mb/s speeds....

[Vikerules]

i7-4790k
Asus z97-A with XMP memory profile enabled
GTX 1080 in the top slot
Samsung 960 evo installed in the m.2 slot in the center of the motherboard

I had these exact speeds when windows 10 was completely fresh as well. Is there anything I can do? Or have I just wasted a lot of money?

 

[SinxarKnights]

What does it say under NVMe Configuration in the BIOS (under Advanced)? Did you install your chipset drivers when you reinstalled Windows last time?

 

[Rdslw]

I think downloading and installing samsung magican will help or something else from here:
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/960pro.html
NVME is actually supported in version 4.9.7 of Samsung Magician.
you might get faster by installing nvme driver from samsung.
I found this:
It also allows 'Rapid Mode' to be enabled (not supported on NVMe SSDs)
yet still they say it can go 3500/2100

UPDATE:
small amount of digging:

Airflow? - Both Samsung and Intel have stated the new M.2 3.0 x 4 ssd's are subject to thermal throttling if airflow is inadequate. The subject was also documented in several excellent technical reviews. This is especially true for M.2 ssd's installed under a graphics card which blocks airflow.

Compatibility - Quite a few motherboards require a system BIOS update for improved M.2 NVMe ssd compatibility and performance.

 

[SinxarKnights]

That board only has PCIe 2.0 x2 speed for the NVMe slot. So the max is around 800MB/s. Seems like you wasted your money. Although good to know because I was going to buy one as well but now I won't (i use a Z97-E) so thanks for that I guess..

 

[Vikerules]

What does it say under NVMe Configuration in the BIOS (under Advanced)? Did you install your chipset drivers when you reinstalled Windows last time?

That board only has PCIe 2.0 x2 speed for the NVMe slot. So the max is around 800MB/s. Seems like you wasted your money. Although good to know because I was going to buy one as well but now I won't (i use a Z97-E) so thanks for that I guess..

So in order for me to get the full advertised speeds i need to buy a new motherboard, new cpu AND new ram. Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust great...

 

[SinxarKnights]

Yeah don't feel too bad I didn't know that either. Not something I really considered. Actually you can get a PCIe card for it to get full speed out of it. Not sure if it is bootable though but I don't see any reason it wouldn't be. Assuming you have the latest BIOS it should be able to boot from a card with a drive in it.

Something like this should do the trick but I would shop around and see if it is bootable like that: https://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/pci-express-m2-pcie-ssd-adapter~PEX4M2E1

 

[Vikerules]

Yeah don't feel too bad I didn't know that either. Not something I really considered.

I thought I had a good motherboard, apparently It's shit
Thanks for telling me that though so I don't have to waste my time troubleshooting anymore

 

[Rdslw]

get a PCIE m.2 adapter. should give you the speed, just check if bootable
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2839021/ssd-pci-adapter-worth.html

 

[Vikerules]

get a PCIE m.2 adapter. should give you the speed, just check if bootable
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2839021/ssd-pci-adapter-worth.html

How can i check if a PCIE > m.2 adapter is bootable?

 

[SinxarKnights]

How can i check if a PCIE > m.2 adapter is bootable?

Looks like if you can boot from NVMe device any will work. AFAIK our boards can boot from NVMe drives with the BIOS update (if it is latest you should be good).

https://www.techpowerup.com/211822/asus-announces-that-all-its-z97-and-x99-motherboards-support-nvme

The one I linked above should do fine and is cheap: https://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/pci-express-m2-pcie-ssd-adapter~PEX4M2E1

 

[Vikerules]

How can i check if a PCIE > m.2 adapter is bootable?

Looks like if you can boot from NVMe device any will work. AFAIK our boards can boot from NVMe drives with the BIOS update (if it is latest you should be good).

https://www.techpowerup.com/211822/asus-announces-that-all-its-z97-and-x99-motherboards-support-nvme

The one I linked above should do fine and is cheap: https://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/pci-express-m2-pcie-ssd-adapter~PEX4M2E1

Yeah i had to update my bios to even get the 960 evo to show up in the bios at all so thats updated.

So my motherboard has 3 x16 slots

================== > 3.0 x16

================== > 3.0 x16

================== > 2.0 x16

If i put the adapter in the lowest 2.0 x16 slot would that bring the adapter and my GPU down to x8? And what kind of speed would i get with the adapter in the lowest slot? If it brings the lanes down to x8 on the GPU and adapter i guess its better to just put the adapter in the middle 3.0 x16 slot? Would 3.0 x8 give me maximum ssd performance?

 

[SinxarKnights]

Whelp looks like there could be a problem. Glad you are on top of this because it is another detail I missed.

In your manual it says the bottom x16 slot only runs at x2 so putting it there would be pointless as that is what your m.2 slot is. It appears if you put it in the middle slot it will drop the top slot to x8 and the middle slot will run at x4. It would allow the SSD to run at full speed but not sure how that would affect your 1080.

At this point I don't know what you could do anymore. May want to get a second opinion on this as I am not sure if it will actually run at x8 - x4 mode or how exactly that will play out.

 

[Solandri]

So in order for me to get the full advertised speeds i need to buy a new motherboard, new cpu AND new ram. Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust great...

Well, you could buy a PCIe card with an NVMe slot that uses x4, x8 or x16 PCIe lanes, and move the drive to that.

But for most people, the NVMe SSDs simply aren't worth it. The reason is that MB/s is the inverse of how we perceive drive speed. We don't think a drive is fast because it has high MB/s, we think it's fast because we don't have to wait as long for it to finish tasks - sec/MB.

If you compare these drives in sec/MB, you'll find that the bigger MB/s becomes, the less difference it makes. Say you're copying 1 GB of sequential files.

125 MB/s HDD = 8 sec
250 MB/s SATA 2 SSD = 4 sec
500 MB/s SATA 3 SSD = 2 sec
1000 MB/s NVM SSD = 1 sec
2000 MB/s NVM SSD = 0.5 sec

Notice how every time MB/s doubles, the additional time saved is halved? So even though the jump from an early 1000 MB/s NVM SSD to a newer 2000 MB/s NVM SSD sounds like a big deal (+1000 MB/s), it only shaves 0.5 seconds off this hypothetical copy. Whereas what looks like a small jump (SATA 2 SSD to SATA 3 SSD, +250 MB/s) saves 4x as much time - 2 seconds.

Or put another way, compared to the speedup from a HDD to a 2000 MB/s NVM SSD (7.5 seconds):

A 250 MB/s SATA 2 SSD gives you 53% of the speedup
A 500 MB/s SATA 3 SSD gives you 80% of the speedup
A 1000 MB/s NVM SSD gives you 93% of the speedup
A 2000 MB/s NVM SSD gives you 100% of the speedup

The bulk of the speedup is at the lower MB/s speeds. Since the SATA 3 SSD gives you 80% of the speedup (wait time reduction) of a 2000 MB/s NVM SSD, most people aren't going to notice the difference between the two in normal everyday use.

On top of that, sequential speeds are the fastest so have the least impact on overall wait times. It's the slowest speeds of the drive which force you to wait longer. So people really should be comparing SSDs based on their 4k speeds, since that's the slowest. And pretty much every NVMe SSD I've seen still has non-queued 4k speeds below the SATA 3 bandwidth limit.

The only real-world tasks significantly impacted by sequential speeds are real-time video editing, and copying large amounts of sequential data (e.g. movies or backup files) from one SSD to another.

 

[SinxarKnights]

Well, you could buy a PCIe card with an NVMe slot that uses x4, x8 or x16 PCIe lanes, and move the drive to that.

That has been established. Look at the other question.

So my motherboard has 3 x16 slots. If i put the adapter in the lowest 2.0 x16 slot would that bring the adapter and my GPU down to x8? And what kind of speed would i get with the adapter in the lowest slot? If it brings the lanes down to x8 on the GPU and adapter i guess its better to just put the adapter in the middle 3.0 x16 slot? Would 3.0 x8 give me maximum ssd performance?

@Solandri Here is the slot config: See it says the 2.0 slot runs at x2. If put in a 3.0 slot it will drop to x8/x8 mode. Here is also a link to the english manual http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb...6.1623125254.1503631203-1661912649.1503526804. That is what it says right?

 

[Vikerules]

Whelp looks like there could be a problem. Glad you are on top of this because it is another detail I missed.

In your manual it says the bottom x16 slot only runs at x2 so putting it there would be pointless as that is what your m.2 slot is. It appears if you put it in the middle slot it will drop the top slot to x8 and the middle slot will run at x4. It would allow the SSD to run at full speed but not sure how that would affect your 1080.

At this point I don't know what you could do anymore. May want to get a second opinion on this as I am not sure if it will actually run at x8 - x4 mode or how exactly that will play out.

according to benchmarks a gtx 1080 will lose 0-1% performance going from x16 down to x8, but maybe this whole thing isn't really worth it if im pretty much not even gonna notice a difference in speed...

 

[SinxarKnights]

If I were dropping that much cash on a high end SSD I would want the full speed whether I noticed it or not. Maybe its just me though.

 

[Vikerules]

If I were dropping that much cash on a high end SSD I would want the full speed whether I noticed it or not. Maybe its just me though.

Yeah i definitely gotta think about it, but thank you very much for all this information, it has cleared up all the questions that i had before