1150 socket Motherboard that fully supports M.2 SSD PCIe3?

MrBlackandWhite

Reputable
Aug 24, 2014
180
0
4,690
I am replacing my Samsung 840 Evo as samsung tell me it may be faulty.

However I thought ok I will quickly order a newer 850 Evo. Then I started reading about the different bandwidths and connections!! Wow I am so confused. I was considering the following card

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb-samsung-sm951-m2-%2822x80%29-pcie-30-%28x4%29-ahci-ssd-mlc-nand-read-2150mb-s-write-1200mb-s-90k-70k-i

Hopefully I wont get into trouble for posting that link? Sorry if this is not allowed on the forum!

Are there any boards out there (unfortunately I am sticking with 1150 for the next year or so) that fully support the new SSD PCie3 cards? I may go /crossfire/SLI at some point in the future so I will need 2 pci3 slots for the GPU's, however if I am right...most motherboards (1150) do not fully support both SLI/crossfire and full SSD M.2 pcie3 as their does not appear to be sufficient bandwidth to run everything at the same time?

I was going to rebuild my system today with the Asus Maximus ranger Vii I recieved in the post this morning but I see that unfortunately it only has M.2 Pcie2.

I dont fully understand the pros and cons of the speed issue but understand that PCie M.2 SSD's are much faster! But every board I read about so far steals bandwidth from pcie sockets?

I have read a little about NVMe but dont really know if 1150 boards support this either.

I would like the extra performance. I use my PC mainly for playing games, surfing etc, no heavy media work. Maybe as I am gaming, I wont notice much difference?

Can someone clear this up for me?

many thanks indeed, in advance!!
 
Solution
NVMe 1150 board support:
Many, not all, Intel Series 9 chipset motherboards have a BIOS update available to support NVMe.
I don't think this extends back to legacy Series 8 chipset models.

PCIe 3.0 (x4) SSD models may require an adapter to work in a x4 PCIe slot on older model motherboards if you want the x4 PCIe speed. The older motherboards usually use only X2 PCIe for M.2 the socket. (up to 10Gb/s data-transfer)

Addonics M2 PCIe SSD - PCIe 3.0 4-Lane Adapter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=12K-017B-00001

Most Z97 on-board M.2 sockets are only allocated 2x PCI Express lanes.

This one has Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4), which I believe you are looking for. There are a few others too.
ASRock Z97 Extreme6...
My suggestion is to use a Samsung 850 PRO if the price premium is not great.

The advantage of M.2 is potentially faster sequential speeds. 2x or 4x, depending on the M.2 interface.
But 90% of ssd accesses are small and random where the interface speed is irrelevant.
I would not chase M.2
I recently changed from a 500gb 850 PRO to a 500gb 950 PRO M.2.
The as ssd benchmark did show better sequential performance but in actual usage, it feels no faster.
I did the upgrade in part because I could, and in part because I needed the 500gb 850 pro for another use.
By itself, it was not worth the change.

I do not think you want to use the sm951, it is not commercially supported. The 950 pro is cheaper and performs better anyway.
Samsung has NVMe drivers you need to install if you will be using a NVMe device.
 
NVMe 1150 board support:
Many, not all, Intel Series 9 chipset motherboards have a BIOS update available to support NVMe.
I don't think this extends back to legacy Series 8 chipset models.

PCIe 3.0 (x4) SSD models may require an adapter to work in a x4 PCIe slot on older model motherboards if you want the x4 PCIe speed. The older motherboards usually use only X2 PCIe for M.2 the socket. (up to 10Gb/s data-transfer)

Addonics M2 PCIe SSD - PCIe 3.0 4-Lane Adapter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=12K-017B-00001

Most Z97 on-board M.2 sockets are only allocated 2x PCI Express lanes.

This one has Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4), which I believe you are looking for. There are a few others too.
ASRock Z97 Extreme6
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Extreme6/

 
Solution