[SOLVED] System upgrade to allow Samsung 970 Evo Plus run in full potential.

[Pablix360]

I recently brought a Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVMe and I found out that my MOBO does not allow it to work to its full potential. I am looking for a budget upgrade for my MOBO, CPU and RAM.

My full spec is:
Intel i7 - 4790k (oc to 4.9GHz)
Cooling NZXT Kraken x62
Asus Z97-PRO GAMER
Corsair 16GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM
GTX 1080 Ti FE

I'm looking for an upgrade around £400 but will consider other options. The main purpose is to allow the NVMe to run at its full potential and to future proof the system with a good MOBO. The CPU can be upgraded later but for now I will need something so I can run newer gen CPUs. 16GB of RAM is a 'must have'.

I would prefer Intel CPU but will consider AMD due to the low budget available and I know AMD can provide better prices on CPUs while performance is similar to Intel.

I'm looking at good performance in newer games so I can run them at 60 FPS at least at 1440p.
Reading up i5 9600k seems like a reasonable CPU, and I'd overclock it to 5.0GHz but then I've seen reviews that it would struggle with Battlefield V already and its better going for i7 8700k or 9700k...
I also would like to max out World of Warcraft to 60fps+.

 

[Dfence]

What makes you think its the MB? As far as i can see your MB should work fine with the M.2.
have you bench marked the M.2? What results did you get?

 

[Pablix360]

What makes you think its the MB? As far as i can see your MB should work fine with the M.2.
have you bench marked the M.2? What results did you get?

I have had another thread to find out whether it is the MOBO just to confirm my findings. Asus Z97 PRO GAMER supports m.2 but that slot runs at slower speed causing my 970 Evo Plus only to work in 1/3 of its potential (roughly 800MB/s seq. read and write where it should be 3,000MB/s +).

I could get a PCIe adapter for it but I would not be able to boot from it then and that is what I want to do.

 

[Dfence]

Strange, i have the ASUS Z170 Pro gaming MB, which has identical M.2 specs as yours. I have a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 drive and runs at full speed.

Actually you have the Z97 board, and you right, its only 10GBits rather than 32.

To save money, if you happy with the CPU etc, then get a Z170 MB if its only the M.2 that you need to improve.

 

[Pablix360]

Strange, i have the ASUS Z170 Pro gaming MB, which has identical M.2 specs as yours. I have a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 drive and runs at full speed.

Maybe check BIOS settings first.

I have already checked and the BIOS is at version 2203 which I saw was newest on ASUS website.

I also updated drivers for the drive to Samsung ones from Microsoft ones.

Enabled M.2 in BIOS as well prior to any above. Strange thing is that in my BIOS on the right side where boot options are shown I don’t see that drive and only my old crucial SSD which I had windows on prior to buying this NVMe but after installing windows on it works fine.

 

[Dfence]

Mine did the same, the M.2 not showing in the BOOT menu. Had to go to the setting that says FORCE boot, it was showing in there and boots fine from it, however, still does not show in the boot menu in the BIOS (but it works)

 

[Pablix360]

Mine did the same, the M.2 not showing in the BOOT menu. Had to go to the setting that says FORCE boot, it was showing in there and boots fine from it, however, still does not show in the boot menu in the BIOS (but it works)

Yes, same situation happened to me but as I say I Boots fine but the performance is only 1/3 of what it should be.

 

[Dfence]

Mind you, upgrade the MB and I see you have DDR3 ram, that will have to be DDR4.

To be honest, i went from a Samsung 850EVO SSD to the M.2 drive and have not noticed the difference in anything, boots the same speed ETC. Only benefit is the boot times of games and levels but not by a great margin.

Think M.2 drives are only good if you do video work and transfer files ETC

 

[Pablix360]

Mind you, upgrade the MB and I see you have DDR3 ram, that will have to be DDR4.

To be honest, i went from a Samsung 850EVO SSD to the M.2 drive and have not noticed the difference in anything, boots the same speed ETC. Only benefit is the boot times of games and levels but not by a great margin.

Think M.2 drives are only good if you do video work and transfer files ETC

I went from Crucial SSD to M.2 but I’d like to reach the speeds I paid for, if I wanted to get 800Mb/s I wouldn’t of brought the M.2.

 

[Dfence]

The only option you really have as you said is a upgrade. You can only keep the cooler, GPU and case, everything else needs upgrading.

AMD would be cheaper route to take, esp as you need MB, RAM, and CPU. You dont state your PSU but as you have a 1080, i assume its fine.

Good luck choosing, its always a battle of Intel and AMD. If just games, stick with Intel, if you use it for other things, then would consider AMD.

 

[dudeman509]

Strange, i have the ASUS Z170 Pro gaming MB, which has identical M.2 specs as yours. I have a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 drive and runs at full speed.

Actually you have the Z97 board, and you right, its only 10GBits rather than 32.

To save money, if you happy with the CPU etc, then get a Z170 MB if its only the M.2 that you need to improve.

Can't use the 4th gen CPU in a 170 motherboard. CPU, RAM, Mobo will need to be upgraded to a totally newer platform.

If it helps you decide whether or not to stick with your current platform, I can tell very little difference between my 250 GB 850 Evo (SATA) and 512 960 Evo (NVMe) drives in every day usage. The 960 will extract huge zip files slightly faster; boot time and general Windows operations are almost EXACTLY the same (the 960 is new to me, and I timed boot after cloning the drive out of curiosity - it was <2 sec difference). Mine is paired with a Ryzen 3700x.

 

[Pablix360]

Can't use the 4th gen CPU in a 170 motherboard. CPU, RAM, Mobo will need to be upgraded to a totally newer platform.

If it helps you decide whether or not to stick with your current platform, I can tell very little difference between my 250 GB 850 Evo (SATA) and 512 960 Evo (NVMe) drives in every day usage. The 960 will extract huge zip files slightly faster; boot time and general Windows operations are almost EXACTLY the same (the 960 is new to me, and I timed boot after cloning the drive out of curiosity - it was <2 sec difference). Mine is paired with a Ryzen 3700x.

Yes, sorry, I am looking for recommendations for upgrading CPU, MOBO and RAM to the new platform but I’d like to buy good future proof MOBO and RAM and a CPU that will match mine in performance or better but the whole thing fit in around £400 budged.

I know the difference probably won’t be that big but if I brought a drive that can do 3,600 read/write then I’d want it do to that and not 1/3 of it if you know what I mean. 😉

 

[dudeman509]

Yes, sorry, I am looking for recommendations for upgrading CPU, MOBO and RAM to the new platform but I’d like to buy good future proof MOBO and RAM and a CPU that will match mine in performance or better but the whole thing fit in around £400 budged.

I know the difference probably won’t be that big but if I brought a drive that can do 3,600 read/write then I’d want it do to that and not 1/3 of it if you know what I mean. 😉

Whoops, mine is actually the 970 Evo, just looked at my order.

I am VERY impressed with the new Ryzen platform; I came from an i7-3770k. I went with an X470 board rather than 570 - they are expensive and I don't need PCIE 4.0. The 3600 cannot be beat by anything Intel has for price/performance ratio, and the upcoming 3700 will probably be a great deal as well.