GENE VIII + Samsung 950 pro

[Popolon]

For my new system I'm looking at the Gene VIII in combination with the Samsung 950 pro M.2 SSD.

From the first reviews of the 950 it seems it gets rather hot. The M.2 slot on the Gene VIII is placed under where the videocard goes.
It seems to me this is a place that is rather difficult to cool. Add to that the heat the videocard will generate and now i'm worried.

I realize the 950 is not readily available yet. Still I'm hoping anyone (maybe Asus?) has done some testing already or has something constructive to say?

If i would have to order now i'd take the HYPER M.2 X4 MINI CARD and install the 950 on that (is that even sold separately i can't seem to find it anywhere?) . On the other hand if for cooling reasons thats not neccesary i'd rather save the PCIE slot.

Any ideas?

[neiljwd]

The throttling effect is small, and only for huge throughput for considerable length of time, it's not going to effect gaming or anything outside of industrial length video editing.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/Samsung-950-PRO-256GB-and-512GB-M2-NVMe-PCIe-SSD-Review/Thermal...

you would have to write nearly 150GB at over 1.5GB/sec to get a 950 PRO to warm up enough to throttle, and when it does, the throttling is very minor, dropping to only 1.2GB/sec intermittently. The slightest airflow prevents this from happening at all,

Also, ^5 good choice! I've had my system built for 3 weeks now... just laying there useless and taunting me while I await delivery of my 950 😛

[Cactuar]

I've also got a VIII Gene and my 950 Pro is on order at NCIX since it was available so I've also been reading about this. From what I read the chances of running into a real-life situation where the 950 Pro would throttle are very slim, unless you do some enterprise stuff on your PC, then you should opt for the Intel 750 as a more robust solution.
For everyday computing and workstation tasks you shouldn't have any issues, especially if your case already has decent cooling.

Check out this review: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Product-Review-Samsung-950-Pro-M-2-Drive-725/
The drive does get hot and throttles during a 205GB file transfer. This is a reality. Now the question is: according to your computing needs, how often will you perform this type of task? It's up to you to evaluate your needs and choose a solution that best fits. I feel that for many end users this performance will be adequate.

[neiljwd]

Cactuar wrote:

Check out this review: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Product-Review-Samsung-950-Pro-M-2-Drive-725/

That article mentions we need to install the 950 while in UEFI mode... any ideas exactly how to do this? Having no system at the moment I can't tell.

[Nate152]

In the bios on the boot tab select your optical drive or usb stick with UEFI in front of it and install windows.

[Cactuar]

Also you could use low profile heatsinks to help cool your 950 Pro, like this user did for another M.2 SSD:
http://ocaholic.ch/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?start=0&topic_id=721&order=ASC&status=&mode=0

[neiljwd]

Currently installing Windows 10 Pro on my Samsung 950 Pro 🙂

Bios saw it straight away, no problems so far, God willing. 😄
476.9GB reported storage when installing Windows 10 pro.
15:55 started the Windows install, PC restarted at 16:01, again restarted at 16:02, at my desktop at 16:05 after a minute of Windows 10 option bumf. 😄

FYI I've seen many people across the net complain the 950 is "upside down". Not so for Gene, and I'm assuming all ASUS Z170 board owners, looks fine for us

[Cactuar]

So cool! That was a fast Windows install 🙂 Where did you order your drive btw? NCIX still hasn't shipped it...

I'm very happy to see the SDD on the proper side, the chips will get better cooling this way.

[Menthol]

I just cloned my Win 7 install from my SM951 AHCI to the 950 Pro using Acronis Home so I wouldn't have to reinstall anything, OK so far but only been a couple hours

[ondersma80]

Curiousity question for you Samsung M.2 owners:

Our M8 motherboards report M.2 with both "SATA and PCIE modes". Is this determination made just by driver selection i.e. AHCI driver for SATA and NVMe driver for PCIe? Or does a UEFI/BIOS option appear if a M.2 device is found?

I am curious as "SATA mode" on my M8 apparently disables a couple SATA ports and PCIe mode does not (optimal).