Does Samsung 950Pro M.2 fit Asus Z97 Pro Mobo?

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alexb75

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Oct 12, 2004
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I am confused by the M.2 form factor. My motherboard Asus Z97 Pro support M.2, but I beleive at x2 speed, and Samsung SSD 905 Pro need x4, right?

What does this mean? Does it mean that it won't work on my motherboard? or that it's be slower? If the latter, is it even worth going for this, or should just get a SATA SSD instead?

 
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I have an MSI Z97 Gaming 5 board and Ive done ALOT of reading on this topic. You can install it into the M.2 slot on the board BUT its a X2 / 2.0 slot so it will not run at its true X4 / 3.0 speeds. That being said, there is a workaround.
If Im correct here, you can install an adapter card (pci-e 3.0 x4 support) into the second PCI 3.0 slot on the motherboard, this will force your board/cpu to run in x8 / x8 mode in stead of x16. You will however be able to take full advantage of the m.2 3.0 x4 drive speeds AND you wont be loosing your sata 5 and 6 plugs. If you think this will affect your GPU performance, trust me you WILL NOT notice any difference.

I recently purchased the Addonics Card for this purpose, just waiting for the prices...
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iXeon

iXeon

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it doesn't need x4 , it supports x4 m.2 which means this device is faster then your socket but it can operate as fast as your motherboard could get.!and you could get an extra PCI-E card for x4
 
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ShadyHamster

ShadyHamster

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It doesn't need PCI-E x4 in order to work, it will work in any M.2 slot providing the slot supports PCI-E SSDs and the motherboards BIOS supports it.

AFAIK most, if not all, Z97 boards that support M.2 are rated at PCI-E 2.0 x2, which gives around 10Gb/s bandwidth, so you won't see the drive run at it's full potential.
This doesn't mean the drive isn't worth buying, you will still see speeds faster then a normal SATA SSDs, 10Gb/s vs 6Gb/s.
Later on down the line if you upgrade to a platform that supports PCI-E 3.0 M.2 drives you will then see another performance boost to go along with your upgrade.

If you want to boot from the 950 Pro make sure you update your bios to the latest one so it supports NVMe.
 
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alexb75

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Thanks guys. So it works but not at full speed. I also have a normal SSD Intel 730 SATA and want this for boot drive. Would M.2 drive with my x2 speed provide any benefit to using the SATA drive I already have?
 
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alexb75

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I wanna know if anyone could help me find an answer. Would Samsung 950Pro M.2 running my mobo, run the following things NOTICEABLY faster than Intel 730 - 240GB SSD SATA?

- Boot
- Opening Office apps, Chrome, Word, PPT, Excel
- Opening Photoshop, Moviemaker
- Editing Videos
- Running Games like Grand Theft Auto

I am still curious if spending money on this would yield any results. I am THE MOST impatient person, and HATE when things take time to load, but I've heard apart from benchmarks, in real world I may not see much improvement... ideas?
 
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alexb75

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A follow-up, if I used a card that supports M.2 x4 PCI-E, how many slots do I lose? This M.2 is super confusing! I only plan to use a GPU card, Wifi card, and possibly a sound card in the future (unlikely).

Here's a screenshot of the mobo, and the list of expansion slots.


Z97_expansion.png


Z97.png
 
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M

Moofahssa

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I have an MSI Z97 Gaming 5 board and Ive done ALOT of reading on this topic. You can install it into the M.2 slot on the board BUT its a X2 / 2.0 slot so it will not run at its true X4 / 3.0 speeds. That being said, there is a workaround.
If Im correct here, you can install an adapter card (pci-e 3.0 x4 support) into the second PCI 3.0 slot on the motherboard, this will force your board/cpu to run in x8 / x8 mode in stead of x16. You will however be able to take full advantage of the m.2 3.0 x4 drive speeds AND you wont be loosing your sata 5 and 6 plugs. If you think this will affect your GPU performance, trust me you WILL NOT notice any difference.

I recently purchased the Addonics Card for this purpose, just waiting for the prices to come down on the Samsung 950 Pro NVME 3.0 X4 drives.

Also, a reminder if using this as your boot drive you may have to download Samsung drivers and/or make sure your bios is set correctly to recognize the drive, once set properly your system will notice and use it as a boot device.

With regards to the wi-fi and sound cards, Im pretty sure they can and should be installed into the PCI 2.0 slots therefore not affecting your PCI 3.0 lanes

Hope that helps
 
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