GA Z97-D3H and m.2

[Ulysses69]

Can somebody please clarify what PCI Express compromise means for PCI Express graphics cards, when used with an m.2 SSD. Does it mean the m.2 SSD will effectively prevent the closest PCI Express slot from being used by anything else? or can

[dmdilks]

I run a M2 SSD on my board. The only thing that will happen when you install the M2-SSD you will not be able to use sata ports 4 & 5. That is it as far as I know. It shouldn't have any thing to do with the PCI Express slots.

[Ulysses69]

I run a M2 SSD on my board.

Thanks for replying.

Are you using a PCI Express graphics card with your M2? what performance are you getting?

I was understanding that to use 4 PCI Express lanes (and achieve fullest potential of the M2), one of the PCI Express 16 slots would need to give up it's lanes? Or similarly, the performance of the M2 would be greatly reduced as per SM951 M 2 SSD Review which suggests the Z97 uses PCI Express 2.0 rather than the Gigabyte specs that says the Z97 "PCIEX16 slot conforms to PCI Express 3.0 standard". Confusing.

The way I understand it, the M2 would like to use 4 PCI Express lanes for full potential. The Z97 has 2 x PCI Express 16 slots conforming to 3.0 standard. A single graphics card in one of those PCI Express 16 slots should not affect the performance of the M2 as the Z97 either has 2 x PCI Express equalling 32 lanes, or 2 x PCI Express sharing 16 lanes (maybe even a third reality). Either way, many people use dual PCI Express 16 graphics cards for increased graphics performance over one card, so surely either way, the M2 should still be able to make use of 4 lanes without noticeable performance degradation for one PCI Express 16 graphics card!?

Additionally, what was it like to setup booting?

[dmdilks]

I game a lot and never had any performance problems. I play Diablo 3 and other games. But I only use one video card in the first slot. I run the M2 SSD windows crap 10 on it. I run array with 2 - 240gb SSD with windows 7.

On boot I have it setup so when I boot I have to hit F12. I didn't want the two OS to have dual boot. The other thing is I don't read all the crap that is out there on all the little details. It will just drive you nuts.

Plus I don't use any SSD for gaming. So far they haven't found any real improvement with SSD vs a HHD. I run all my games off of 10,000 rpm drives. I do have a program that I can run to see what the read / write speed are at.

Plus the M2 drive does run a lot faster vs a sata SSD. So even if you did lose a little performance with everything setup you might not really see it. I'll get back on you with the test.

[Ulysses69]

I run the M2 SSD windows crap 10 on it. I run array with 2 - 240gb SSD with windows 7.

Thanks for replying, it is much appreciated. Are you getting good M2 reads/writes?

I am looking at building a Hackintosh to supersede my i7 Macbook Pro that greatly benefitted from an 840 Evo SSD upgrade (replacing a stock 180/200 HDD). But being that the Evo averages around 400/500 read/write, and SATA bottles at approx 550-600 I was attracted to the M2 1000/1500 read/writes, otherwise I will just stick to Evo SSD over more expensive SSD for measly extra 50-100 read/write, for the time being.

I will be setting up a Windows system first on a separate drive first to ensure all my hardware works, especially as M2 discussions suggest OS X will need that anyway.

So the only thing I am still unsure of, is will the M2 bottleneck at SATA 600? will the M2 give me 1000 limit due to PCIE 2.0? or is PCIE 3.0 going to give me closer to 1500?

I am not planning to do gaming, so expect my usage to maximise PCIE bandwidth for the M2.