M2 SSD (over PCI-E adapter) on a CHVF-Z

[felix_w]

Hello,

i had the chance to test a Kingston HyperX Predator SSD last night.

I was curious firstly if it would be recognized and secondly if it would be able to boot an OS from it.

Well, tested with bios 2201 (i had 1302 previously, but didn't have much time to test both) and here are the results :







Please have in mind that CHVF-Z is only PCI-E v2.0, thus the results may be lower than newer systems with PCI-E v3.0.


I also have a bench to compare to the above, provided by user jax7480 from Thelab.gr & HWBox.gr with Samsung SM951 AHCI version on PCI-E v2.0 Intel System :





As you can see, the more powerful SM951 is also bottlenecked by PCI-E v2.0, almost same with Kingston, about 1300/1100 R/W.

So, that should be about max speeds for PCI-E v2.0.

The benefit is having a single drive for these speeds and i also believe TRIM works (didn't test, but i will try with SM951 in a few days).



Special thanks to pol77 from Thelab.gr for giving me the opportunity to test the SSD on my system

and jax7480 from Thelab.gr & HWbox.gr for providing the PCI-E v2.0 benchmark.

[Richie_2010]

i got the same reply as you more or less so lets hope it gets done asap
i keep checking the downloads page everyday 🙂

[Richie_2010]

have you had any updated news, i haven't heard anything since

[felix_w]

No, that was it. The support ticket ended there.

I tried with the modified BIOS but did not succeed in having the SM951 recognized as bootable.

I will send the SSD back to its owner.

[Richie_2010]

felix_w wrote:
No, that was it. The support ticket ended there.

I tried with the modified BIOS but did not succeed in having the SM951 recognized as bootable.

I will send the SSD back to its owner.

Still no news as of late might just sell the drive

[felix_w]

I believe that there will not be an update for M.2 compatibility in the following 2-3 months, if at all.

[felix_w]

Well....here it is :
950 Pro - Angelbird PX1 - 1090T 4.2/3.0/1866C8 - PCI-E@105MHz (OS drive)



960 Pro - Angelbird PX1 - 1090T 4.2/3.0/1866C8 - PCI-E@105MHz (OS drive)



Although bootable without mods (just install from Win7 UEFI installation ), i used a Bios with the NVMe module inserted.

Works like a charm, even capped by PCI-E v2.0...

DO NOT USE Win10, random performance is warped by an issue maybe with CPU cores scheduling, i haven't concluded, but this is my testing :



Running the benchmark with only one core, brings the random read/write close to Win7 numbers for this board.


Special thanks to Sickmode, for not giving up on this great board and modding the Bios for NVMe.

[JustinThyme]

This is slower than an AHCI SM 951. Its been proven multiple times across multiple boards that the BIOS mod may get it to read and write but the performance is just not there. Go check through the SSD threads on the G751JY SSDs for comparisons. You iwll see modded BIOS that yeiled about what you are showing then unmodded BIOS with AHCI hitting 2100MB/s easily.

IMO its a lost cause to mod something to meet OLD technology then be forced to run an OLD OS to go with it. A bit counter productive dont you think?

Especially when you ccan spend that time and effrort on current technology.
Heres my crappy speeds from a 1TB Samsung 960 pro.




Oh and....2 year old resurrection deserves one of these!

[felix_w]

Hello Justin.

Since i started this thread and the quest for NVMe on this board, do you still think that i should keep this for myself ?

Also, please note that the performance is capped due to PCI-E v2.0, not Bios mod. 4K numbers are still on par with ability of this drive.

Windows 7 x64 is used in this workstation due to software for my profession that does not run efficient in other OS. Win10 test was done only because i had the installation media available from media pc,

Samsung 950 Pro does have a Legacy mode ROM, in order to boot in older systems. Samsung designed it that way. If there was no reason for them to do so, this drive would not be compatible at all.

ASUS G751JY issues with M.2 performance has nothing to do with the CHFV-z NVMe compatibility. Laptops usually have more options in BIOS and sometimes their real performance is even capped by these settings (PCI-e v2.0 instead of v3.0 permanently or when certain PID's used, or even DMI 2.0 instead of DMI 3.0).
I do not know the main issue with modded BIOS crappy performance, nor is it relevant to the present thread, but a link would help.


Messing around with these two drives, was done just because i could give some feedback to the community, since both drives and board were in my hands.

Regards,

George