z97x gaming 3 and Intel 750 400GB SSD

[pauleden]

http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=16833.0

Over in the above-linked topic a z97x Gaming 3 user who had a Samsung 950 Pro SSD was disappointed by the poor performance , I felt his pain as I have the same motherboard that has the M.2 slot that fits the drive, but no NVMe firmware to run it flat out.

In my quest for speed and the need to burn off some birthday money, I continued my search for a super super fast SSD and settled on the Intel 750 400GB. While it looks funky, reviews say it also needs NVMe so I was preparing for further disappointment until I found this page here on this very website!

http://www.gigabyte.com/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=1358

Basically, Gigabyte say that my motherboard does support the Intel drive and has done for some time. It needs BIOS F6  and I've been on F7 since the day after I got the motherboard.

So... all the pieces APPEAR to be in place for a sub 4 second cold boot.

[dmdilks]

I would do some more research on that before you buy it. It isn't even in their list of supported drives. It might say that but does it really work. I not saying if it will work or not work. I would wait till somebody has really use one and you get the speed that you are looking for.

Plus on the post by absic he is using a program that helps him with speed. Does Intel have boost program too. All the X99, Z97 and H97 Series Motherboards. Came out way before the new drives came. The thing is why would they say that when there isn't a updated bios for the Z97 and H97 that support NVMe.

[pauleden]

I have looked around. That SSD really isn't consumer grade so I've not found anyone using it on a motherboard even remotely similar to my Z97X Gaming 3. There are a number of reports of it working well on boards using the 99 boards presumably because these builds are much newer and their owners have the cash to splash on a Skylake mobo and cpu, they might be able to stretch to one of these SSDs too. Us Haswell peasants don't have that around.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is... as long as it does actually work and turns in speeds more or less comparable with the full Samsung 830 it replaces, I'll be happy.

Someone has to blaze the trail and while it's expensive, Gigabyte does explicitly say it works. On the page, they even give a BIOS revision required for it to work.

[dmdilks]

Gigabyte does explicitly say it works. On the page, they even give a BIOS revision required for it to work.

The thing is that they don't even list that bios on their web page for bios updates. The date they are showing is Taipei, Taiwan, April 3rd, 2015 – GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd. The bios F6 didn't come out to 04/24/2015. So where did they come up with F6h it doesn't show on the bios page.

All I'm saying is yes it might work but don't believe everything you read. If you do get it I hope it works out for you. 

[pauleden]

It's cool, I know what you're saying.

Yes, I'm a little nervous about it, especially since, under the bonnet, it really is an NVME drive, which we know will work, but only at slow speeds. Fingers crossed!

[shadowsports]

The 750 relies on 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes to achieve 2,200mbps.  While the architecture on the board is there, support is not.  I think folks were averaging 700-1100mbps depending on CPU and memory.  One guy had to return his after working with both intel and Gigabyte support.  I'd avoid it personally.  Like dmdilks pointed out..  not mainstream.  More of a niche piece of hardware.  I'd go with standard SSD's in RAID 0.  Less expensive, and more future proof.  But that's up to you. 

[pauleden]

I'd be well chuffed with 1100 MB/s. Anything over 700 would be acceptable. You see, this drive will go in future builds, ones that do support it's full readspeed goodness. So it's as much an investment as an immediate requirement for performance, though the Samsung 830 it replaces is full up.

I have considered RAID, but a pair of 850 Pros is rather more expensive than this Intel and to be honest, the internet isn't all that pleased with consumer grade SSDs in RAID 0.

[shadowsports]

about 7-9 sec cold boot to my desktop.  I know there are faster sustained read / writes out there, but this works for me.     Good luck with the 750.  Let us know how it performs. 

[pauleden]

Ordered.

[pauleden]

[shadowsports]

Writes are nearly 1k.  You should be stoked!  Congrats   

[pauleden]

I am!

But there's more. The installation and migration were an absolute breeze.

I made full backups, just in case; downloaded and installed the driver and SSD Toolbox. Toolbox saw the drive, but as it wasn't partitioned, couldn't do much else.

I installed and ran AOMEI Backupper. To get it's full cloning functionality, you have to advertise the software on social media, so I used my twitter account that nobody ever reads. So, that done, I started the cloning, it took less than 20 minutes. I think it handled the partitioning - if it didn't, it still works just fine. *shrugs*

I shut down, physically removed the Samsung 830, rebooted and it all worked first time.

Booting is quicker, though not by much. In actual use, it does feel faster, large applications are quicker to start.

I was nervous about all this. I couldn't find anyone who had done this before and you guys were clearly unconvinced too. So am I relieved it's all gone well and that performance is right at the top end of what this drive is capable of. A good day.