GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 Samsung 950 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 slow read / write speed

[Goose997]

Dear all

I have a Z97X-Gaming 3 (BIOS Rev F6) with a Samsung 950 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD installed.  I run Windows 10 with the Samsung NVMe driver.

The benchmark with the Samsung Magician software indicates only a read speed of 417 MB/s and write of 391 MB/s, which is far away from the theoretical 2500 MB/s read and 1500 MB/s write speeds.  The Magician software shows that the link speed is 2.5 Gb/s vs a max of 10 Gb/s, and the link width is x2, vs a max of x4.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Goose

[dmdilks]

The thing is by what I'm reading the board doesn't really support NVMe drives. That is maybe why your are only getting those readings. The X99 & Z170 boards are the only ones that support those drives.

[Goose997]

The thing is by what I'm reading the board doesn't really support NVMe drives. That is maybe why your are only getting those readings. The X99 & Z170 boards are the only ones that support those drives.

hi, I am not sure. 

If I look at the official specs (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5383#sp), it states:

M.2, SATA Express, and SATA3 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time. The SATA3 4/5 connectors will become unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed.

Giving up 2 SATA3 ports should provide enough bandwidth?

[dmdilks]

If you don't have one of these Bios update or in the listing NVMe support it doesn't support sorry. The Z97 board doesn't list any where it supports it. They might come out with a bios update but at this time no support. Yes it will run but not at the right speed.

X99
F12   8.17 MB   2015/01/29  Support future NVMe SSD drive

Z170
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5497&dl=1#ov

[Goose997]

If you don't have one of these Bios update or in the listing NVMe support it doesn't support sorry. The Z97 board doesn't list any where it supports it. They might come out with a bios update but at this time no support. Yes it will run but not at the right speed.

hi dmdilks

You are a lot more knowledgeable on these than I am.  I made the mistake of believing this press release: http://www.gigabyte.co.za/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=1358 where the BIOS was listed as compatible.  Well, next time I will know better.

[dmdilks]

Don't feel bad I too have made some mistake and not really reading everything. As I have learn you learn from your mistake. But the good thing about this is when you do decide to upgrade you already have the drive. Plus I know this isn't the same drive but here some of my #'s.

Windows 7 raid drives.


Windows 10 M.2 drive

[absic]

Sorry to jump in on this thread but is there any Turbo software available for your M.2 drives?

I'm running a Plextor M.2 drive on my GA-Z97X-UD5 (Review here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=14703.0 ) and I am using Plextor's Turbo Boost software that utilizes some of the system RAM. As you can see I am getting some very good figures. My original review can be found here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=14710.0 for the Plextor M.2 drive







Results vary over the various bench marking software and I know that using RAM in the way that the Turbo Boost does, will improve the figures considerably but, even without the Turbo software I was getting pretty good figures.

[dmdilks]

Sorry to jump in on this thread but is there any Turbo software available for your M.2 drives?

Don't be sorry absic you are welcome to any thread. That is why we are here to help and give some body as much info we can. Plus I'm running one those drives (Plextor PCIe M2 SSD 128-gb)

[Kaisaron78]

Hi Goose997,
I decided to reply since I'm - almost - in the same situation as you are.
I have a Samsung SM951 256GB m.2 SSD installed on the Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3, the SSD works in NVMe since I have the latest avaiable BIOS (F7) and I can boot Windows 10x64 out of it without issues. However I'm limited (and I have checked it using Sandra) to pci-ex x2 and my atto benchmark results are capped. I tried looking for possible solutions but actually I found none. I suppose x2 is the default speed for m.2 pci-ex SSDs, and since Samsung 951 doesn't figure in the compatibility list it's probably set like that. At this point we can only hope Gigabyte will add both our M2 SSds to the compatibility matrix and enable x4 on them accordingly...
Happy new Year

K.

[pauleden]

If you don't have one of these Bios update or in the listing NVMe support it doesn't support sorry. The Z97 board doesn't list any where it supports it. They might come out with a bios update but at this time no support. Yes it will run but not at the right speed.

X99
F12   8.17 MB   2015/01/29  Support future NVMe SSD drive

Z170
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5497&dl=1#ov

Could we use a PCI-E-4 adapter, like the LyCOM DT-120, to get nvme to work full speed on this motherboard?

LyCOM DT-120

[maks28rus]

Hi, I need help.

Does GA-Z97X-Gaming 7 support Samsung 950 PRO PCIe NVMe M.2 ??
Will I get a maximum work speed of ssd?

[dmdilks]

The OP is having a problem with speeds. Your board vs his board about the same. So you be able to run it by what he has said but you will not get the speeds out of it.

[maks28rus]

The OP is having a problem with speeds. Your board vs his board about the same. So you be able to run it by what he has said but you will not get the speeds out of it.

Thank you!

[Hektor2000]

I wonder is NVMe a driver issue or is it component for it?

couse there must be a way if this is just softwear related issue.
just make a note to Gigabyte Dev to make Bios update on NVMe for this Board.

or if it's really a component issue then we are kinda screwed on that one.

[shadowsports]

Greetings Hektor2000,
I believe this comes down to hardware support via BIOS implementation.  I have a Z97 based board as well.  The chipset was released on the cusp of x2-x4 transition.  I'm not expecting full speed NvME x4 support.  My RAID cold boots W10 in 8 or 9 secs.  Plenty fast for me.