[SOLVED] Samsung 970 Pro

[Nerzul007]

Hello!
I searched for compatibility issues between my mobo and the Samsung 970 Pro.

I have a Gibabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 with an i7 4790K. I heard that the m.2 ssd might get electrical damage due to the m.2 slot on my motherboard.

Might this be true? I don't mind the performance being slower than on a new mobo. I will change mine in the near future. But is it compatible and usable?

I want to have my OS on it alongside some programs.

 

[Dragos Manea]

As long as it is a m.2 PCIE and not SATA you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Nerzul007]

here is the link of the motherboard. https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-Gaming-5-rev-10#ov
It says

• M.2 for SSDs drives with up to 10 Gb/s data transfer

 

[USAFRet]

You will get much reduced performance with that drive on that board.
The 970 Pro would be a poor, expensive, choice for that.

And I wouldn't count on being able to boot from that drive.
The latest BIOS version is from 2015, and it doesn't say anything about boot support from the M.2 port.
It might do it, it might not.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z97X-Gaming-5-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios


I know my ASRock Z97 board wouldn't boot from a drive in the (slow) M.2 port unless it were the latest BIOS release, that specifically enabled that function.

 

[geofelt]

Here is an interesting thread you might want to read:
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/samsung-950-pro-ga-z97x-gaming-5-solved/93727/20

The bottom line is that the 950 PRO can boot from either the m.2 slot or from a pcie x4 add in card.

But, in the m.2 slot, sequential read will be at x2 speeds. using an adapter, it gets the full x4 speed.

Next, the big advantage of a PRO version is greater endurance. Any performance gain is minimal and only detectable via synthetic benchmarks. Endurance, these days with larger devices is simply no longer an issue.
The EVO will be very close and much cheaper.

The sequential speeds of a pcie ssd do not make much real world difference.
On a virus scan, perhaps.
It is the small random I/o that windows does most.
Performance differences between evo/pro, and even a sata device are not meaningful.

I might suggest a 970 evo instead and use the price difference for a larger device.
Some time ago, I made such a switch.
My key was to install the Samsung pcie drivers for the device first.
Then, I was able to use the Samsung ssd migration app to move windows C drive to the m.2 device.

 

[Nerzul007]

So you are saying that I should better use a PCIe x4 adapter rather than use the M.2 slot on the mobo. I will change to a new motherboard soon-ish. Most likely by the end of the year. I will be able to use it then. I will go for the 970 EVO 1TB one then. But I want to know if it will be able to boot on this mobo too. I don't want to invest into a iece of hardware that I will keep on the shelf for 4 months

 

[USAFRet]

Here is an interesting thread you might want to read:
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/samsung-950-pro-ga-z97x-gaming-5-solved/93727/20

The bottom line is that the 950 PRO can boot from either the m.2 slot or from a pcie x4 add in card.

Maybe I'm missing it, but I see nothing in there that verifies a 970 can be used as the boot drive on that board.

As a secondary drive, sure. Varying performance whether in the native M.2 port (slow), or a PCIe adapter (full speed).

Support for booting from one of these drives is spotty for that vintage motherboard.

 

[Nerzul007]

I see. Alright thanks for the info boys. I will leave this open till tommorow. Maybe I get lucky with someone who has this combo

 

[Nerzul007]

BIG UPDATE:
I bought the Intel 660p 1TB M.2 SSD and with the latest BIOS update (F7) it works. It will boot the OS from the M.2 port and everything is up and running.

Only problem is that it has lower performance as expected. I am more than happy to wait untill the next build with this setup.