• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

PCI Speeds with 970 EVO and wireless card

L

LucaScheer

Junior Member
Hi, I am looking at buying a Samsung EVO 970 for my older desktop, as it doesn’t natively support NVMe. I want to buy a riser card to allow me to do so.


Something like:


· https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...?ie=UTF8&psc=1&tag=linus21-20#customerReviews

· https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...Tgg5VuL-aXmhoCMnUQAvD_BwE&smp=y/?currency=EUR


Here are the specs:


· Motherboard: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z68AP-D3-rev-20#sp

· CPU: https://ark.intel.com/products/65523/Intel-Core-i7-3770K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz


Now the CPU is Ivy Bridge, which is a 22nm CPU. On the Motherboard page it states that that enables PCI 3.0.


It also states that if I were to use the PCIEX1_2 or PCIEX1_3 slots, then the PCIEX4 slot will operate at up to x1 mode.


Which has me worried because I currently have my Wireless Adapter: https://www.asus.com/za/Networking/PCE-AC88/ plugged in there.


So will this firstly work and secondly will my wireless card effect my 97 EVO performance?


Thanks
 
LTC8K6 said:
PCE-AC88 is only an X1 card.
Click to expand...

Yeah i know, I have it plugged into the PCIEX1_3 slot as I said. My question is still if this will influences the speed of the NVME is its plugged into the PCIE x4 slot, due to them saying that "to use the PCIEX1_2 or PCIEX1_3 slots, then the PCIEX4 slot will operate at up to x1 mode"
 
ok so to confirm, having both cards (wifi in pcie x1 and nvme in pcie x4) in the system, will cause the nvme to drop performance?

Im just going to use it as a drive for my editing work, so wont need to boot form it, but yes thanks read about the UEFI requirements.
 
Regarding the placement of the card: Move your WiFi up to PCIEX1_1 as that doesn't share, then install SSD on riser into PCIEX4.

Regarding UEFI. The issue is NVMe support. The riser card gives you an M.2 form factor port. It does not give you NVMe support. Some SSD's (namely some of Intel's and some of Samsung's) have their own Option ROM for legacy compatibility but it's generally not terribly well documented. I know the 950 PRO has specifically been verified to have an onboard legacy option ROM.
 
LucaScheer said:
no msata is just sata 3 ina smaller form factor, which is limited to 600mbs https://youtu.be/fJCHx7mZEKo?t=178
Click to expand...
The link you gave for the mobo lists an msata connector and the pics of the board show an msata connector. Should be 3gb/s?

9) mSATA (Solid-State Drive Connector, Controlled by the Intel Z68 Chipset) The mSATA connector conforms to SATA 3Gb/s standard and can connect to a single solid-state drive.
 
XavierMace said:
Regarding UEFI. The issue is NVMe support. The riser card gives you an M.2 form factor port. It does not give you NVMe support. Some SSD's (namely some of Intel's and some of Samsung's) have their own Option ROM for legacy compatibility but it's generally not terribly well documented. I know the 950 PRO has specifically been verified to have an onboard legacy option ROM.
Click to expand...

I'll just add that this is only an issue for boot drives. An NVMe drive will work just fine as a secondary data drive in pretty much any mainboard with PCIe, once the OS has loaded drivers.

OP, if you want an alternative for a high performance AHCI drive, the 860PRO is your best bet currently. You'll just miss out on sequential R/W, and I doubt you'll be able to "feel" any difference between the 970EVO and 860PRO outside of benchmarks. If you get the larger capacities, even the 860EVO is no sloth. Both pretty much max out the SATA interface.
 
Insert_Nickname said:
I'll just add that this is only an issue for boot drives. An NVMe drive will work just fine as a secondary data drive in pretty much any mainboard with PCIe, once the OS has loaded drivers.

OP, if you want an alternative for a high performance AHCI drive, the 860PRO is your best bet currently. You'll just miss out on sequential R/W, and I doubt you'll be able to "feel" any difference between the 970EVO and 860PRO outside of benchmarks. If you get the larger capacities, even the 860EVO is no sloth. Both pretty much max out the SATA interface.
Click to expand...

Good point. I missed him saying he didn't need to boot from it.
 
XavierMace said:
Regarding the placement of the card: Move your WiFi up to PCIEX1_1 as that doesn't share, then install SSD on riser into PCIEX4.

Regarding UEFI. The issue is NVMe support. The riser card gives you an M.2 form factor port. It does not give you NVMe support. Some SSD's (namely some of Intel's and some of Samsung's) have their own Option ROM for legacy compatibility but it's generally not terribly well documented. I know the 950 PRO has specifically been verified to have an onboard legacy option ROM.
Click to expand...

That's it in a nutshell. The PCIE x1 slots go through the chipset. One would think he has an Ivy Bridge motherboard like Z77 as he describes with x16/[x8/x8] slots and the x4 slot. he has to observe the table showing how other motherboard hardware either pre-empt or make free the x4 slot, design a plan to overcome any limitations, and enable the x4 fully.

I haven't really noticed any benchmark performance differences between using an x16_2 slot and the x4 slot 3. The latter seems just a tad slower. The verdict is still "out" for me personally, whether there's any noticeable impact for reducing the graphics card bandwidth from x16 to x8 if using the x16_2 slot for NVMe-PCIE card.
 
BonzaiDuck said:
I haven't really noticed any benchmark performance differences between using an x16_2 slot and the x4 slot 3. The latter seems just a tad slower. The verdict is still "out" for me personally, whether there's any noticeable impact for reducing the graphics card bandwidth from x16 to x8 if using the x16_2 slot for NVMe-PCIE card.
Click to expand...

Having run that exact configuration for years, there is absolutely no noticeable impact for gaming. The performance loss is in the order of 1-2%, which is within the margin of error anyway.

Compute is a slightly different story, bandwidth between CPU and GPU is halved. But again, outside of benchmarks, its not something you'd notice in regular usage.
 
BonzaiDuck said:
That's it in a nutshell. The PCIE x1 slots go through the chipset. One would think he has an Ivy Bridge motherboard like Z77 as he describes with x16/[x8/x8] slots and the x4 slot. he has to observe the table showing how other motherboard hardware either pre-empt or make free the x4 slot, design a plan to overcome any limitations, and enable the x4 fully.

I haven't really noticed any benchmark performance differences between using an x16_2 slot and the x4 slot 3. The latter seems just a tad slower. The verdict is still "out" for me personally, whether there's any noticeable impact for reducing the graphics card bandwidth from x16 to x8 if using the x16_2 slot for NVMe-PCIE card.
Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure what you're talking about but you seem to be trying to compare apples to oranges. On OP's motherboard, yes all the PCIe slots save for PCIEX16 are coming off the chipset. However PCIEX1_1 is right off the chipset. PCIEX1_2 and PCIEX1_3 are off a switch with PCIEX4 which is why PCIEX4's bandwidth gets reduced if PCIEX1_2 or PCIEX1_3 get used. Therefore, given the OP's goal, wireless card gets moved up to PCIEX1_1 and SSD goes in PCIEX4 which allows it to retain the full bandwidth.
 
I don't see where you say what drive you have now? If its a spinning disk, then even the cheapest SATA SSD is going to make it feel like a new machine.

Unless you really need the NVMe performance most people won't notice any practical difference between a decent SATA drive like a crucial mx500 or Samsung 850/860 ego and the 970. For me when I went from an 850 EVO to a 960 EVO , for the most part it isn't noticeable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top