Samsung 950 pro PCIe link speed half the motherboard's capability

[bnetanel]

Hi everyone,

I have the GA-Z97X-Gaming 7 motherboard with Windows 7 SP1 64 bit installed.
I have recently purchased the Samsung 950 pro 256 mb SSD and installed samsung magician and Samsung nvme drivers.

my problem is that the PCIe link speed reported by magician is only half the speed this motherboard is capable of (5 gbps instead of 10 gbps), thus hinder's the SSD performance, how can I change the link to work on it's max capability?

here is the screen shot: http://imgur.com/8A2hlGe

[polypenko]

I had a X97 mb with a m.2 ssd, regretfully the m.2. slot only allows a max of 1000 mbs.

So I purchased a Delock pci-e add on card, placed the M.2 on it and got my Samsung sm951 to
run at read speed of 2500 mbs.

https://azerty.nl/8-5743-795022/delock-pci-express-card-1-x-.html

GIGABYTE 9 series motherboards come equipped with an onboard M.2 slot, providing users PCI-Express connectivity for SSD devices. Delivering up to 10 Gb/s data transfer speeds, M.2 offers users considerably faster storage performance than current mSATA and even SATA Revision 3 (6Gb/s) storage devices.

[bnetanel]

I had a X97 mb with a m.2 ssd, regretfully the m.2. slot only allows a max of 1000 mbs.

So I purchased a Delock pci-e add on card, placed the M.2 on it and got my Samsung sm951 to
run at read speed of 2500 mbs.

https://azerty.nl/8-5743-795022/delock-pci-express-card-1-x-.html

GIGABYTE 9 series motherboards come equipped with an onboard M.2 slot, providing users PCI-Express connectivity for SSD devices. Delivering up to 10 Gb/s data transfer speeds, M.2 offers users considerably faster storage performance than current mSATA and even SATA Revision 3 (6Gb/s) storage devices.

I have two gigabte 970's running in SLI which means adding another pci express card may reduce their their performance.
are you sure it's a good idea?

PLUS forgot to mention that this still doesn't explain why I get half of the motherboard's capability through m.2

[polypenko]

The new z170 mb have a m.2 slot with max 32gbs the z97 has only 10gbs, that is why you are not able
to run your 950 pro to the max of 2200 read.

[bnetanel]

The new z170 mb have a m.2 slot with max 32gbs the z97 has only 10gbs, that is why you are not able
to run your 950 pro to the max of 2200 read.

.

but as I said it's running on 5 gbs and not 10! look at the screen shot I added
why is that? and how to change it?

[shadowsports]

but as I said it's running on 5 gbs and not 10! look at the screen shot I added
why is that? and how to change it?

I see what you are saying.  I was in the process of typing a reply when you both had the above exchange.  I was going to ask what else you had installed. 

The m.2 is PCIe 3.0 x4 capable.  I seem to recall the Z97 chipset only being able to support x2 and does not offer full NVMe support (could be mistaken) but this would explain why you are only seeing x2 or half the bandwidth.  I haven't studied the architecture enough to know if the second GPU which does effectively reduce the graphics slots performance to 8x from 16, whether or not it has an effect on the storage interface as well since this could consume PCIe lanes, thus cutting available bandwidth in half.  I don't use NVMe disks currently, and have not followed the implementation too closely. 

I do believe however that the write speed limitation of 900mb is tied to the m.2 and not the controller.   polypenko, where did you read this?

[bnetanel]

but as I said it's running on 5 gbs and not 10! look at the screen shot I added
why is that? and how to change it?

I see what you are saying.  I was in the process of typing a reply when you both had the above exchange.  I was going to ask what else you had installed. 

The m.2 is PCIe 3.0 x4 capable.  I seem to recall the Z97 chipset only being able to support x2 and does not offer full NVMe support (could be mistaken) but this would explain why you are only seeing x2 or half the bandwidth.  I haven't studied the architecture enough to know if the second GPU which does effectively reduce the graphics slots performance to 8x from 16, whether or not it has an effect on the storage interface as well since this could consume PCIe lanes, thus cutting available bandwidth in half.  I don't use NVMe disks currently, and have not followed the implementation too closely. 

I do believe however that the write speed limitation of 900mb is tied to the m.2 and not the controller.   polypenko, where did you read this?

"M.2 for SSDs drives with up to 10 Gb/s data transfer" that is what's written in the motherboard in question's overview
http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4959#ov

shouldn't the link be X4 ?

[shadowsports]

Its the "up to" part I'm looking at. I honestly don't know.  Should be easy to confirm with Gigabyte directly.

[bnetanel]

Its the "up to" part I'm looking at. I honestly don't know.  Should be easy to confirm with Gigabyte directly.

yea... I doubt it simply because refering to an actual speed of 5 gb/s as "up to 10 gb/s" would be in every sense a harsh cross of the boundaries of the term's "up to" fair use.
I think that either we miss some fundamental information about the m.2's pcie link speed or my settings are wrong
that's what I really wanna find out.

[polypenko]

On a x97 mb you will not get the max. read capability of the Samsung pro 950 in the m2 slot since this is only pci-e x2

You need a Z170x mb with the new m2 (x4) slot of 32 bp/s

Shadowsport is right

quote

The m.2 is PCIe 3.0 x4 capable.  I seem to recall the Z97 chipset only being able to support x2

Unquote

The only workaround for the x97 mb is to use a pci-e add on card than you will get the full capacity of the m.2. ssd
provided there are enough pci lanes still available.

However since you are using two gpu's in sli there might not be sufficienty lanes available to run the extra
pci-e add on card.

Suggest yoy check the specifications of your mb to determine how many lanes are available.

Normally when you use 1 GPU 16 lanes are allocated , so when using 2 gpu's the 16 lanes are divided to  2 x 8 lanes

[Ice returns]

I'm using a pair of Samsung 950s in raid 0,  on my gaming 7, I'm pretty sure I'm getting full speed too

Read at 3.5 Gbps write at just over 2. On the Asus boards with the same chipset it's recommended that you change some settings in the bios from auto to X4 when running an m.2, I should look through the gigabyte bios here for anything similar.

[bnetanel]

I'm using a pair of Samsung 950s in raid 0,  on my gaming 7, I'm pretty sure I'm getting full speed too

Read at 3.5 Gbps write at just over 2. On the Asus boards with the same chipset it's recommended that you change some settings in the bios from auto to X4 when running an m.2, I should look through the gigabyte bios here for anything similar.

 can you please share your link speed of a single m.2 through Samsung Magician and your mobo model? 2 ssds on a raid 0 will always score higher on benchmarks but the link speed is just a link speed so it's a solid value

[Ice returns]

I'm using a pair of Samsung 950s in raid 0,  on my gaming 7, I'm pretty sure I'm getting full speed too

Read at 3.5 Gbps write at just over 2. On the Asus boards with the same chipset it's recommended that you change some settings in the bios from auto to X4 when running an m.2, I should look through the gigabyte bios here for anything similar.

 can you please share your link speed of a single m.2 through Samsung Magician and your mobo model? 2 ssds on a raid 0 will always score higher on benchmarks but the link speed is just a link speed so it's a solid value

I'm sorry but that would require me blitzing my Windows installation and starting again.

My motherboard is a gaming 7, I have a video with boot times in a thread on here.

I will look for the option to lock the last PCIe slot on X4 instead of auto and run ATTO again to see if there is any improvement. Like I said though that was an Asus recommendation.

I suppose the other way I could check would be to see which SATA ports are still active, if I'm running X2 then I should have 2 more ports than I'm expecting.

[dmdilks]

The thing is and you are not like what I have to say. But the Z97 boards don't really support the NVME drives. Yes you can run them on your board. I have a X99 2011v3 board and last yr we got a bios update to support those drives.

Till Gigabyte updates the bios it will treat it just like any other SSD sorry. Gigabyte didn't really start supporting the NVME drives till the Z170 boards. Even some of the Z170 boards had to have a bios update to help with those drives sorry.

[bnetanel]

The thing is and you are not like what I have to say. But the Z97 boards don't really support the NVME drives. Yes you can run them on your board. I have a X99 2011v3 board and last yr we got a bios update to support those drives.

Till Gigabyte updates the bios it will treat it just like any other SSD sorry. Gigabyte didn't really start supporting the NVME drives till the Z170 boards. Even some of the Z170 boards had to have a bios update to help with those drives sorry.

no real nvme support sounds like a valid answer as the motherboard simply doesn't set the link as optimally as it can, though I wonder if it's true.
honestly I would have loved to upgrade to z170 chipest but with Intel's current offering of compatible skylake CPUs in comparison to the haswell 4790k that would be a pure waste of hard earned money so I am trying to get the best out of my z97.