128GBs SSD/M.2 for booting OS

[gammaray]

and installing a few software,

which one should i get? price is not really a concern, although i don't wanna spend cash just for saying i got the top end thing while i paid a lot more for 10% extra performance...

i am planning to install windows 10 from windows 8.1

 

[nerp]

I'd go for the Intel 760p. Or I'd spend a little more for 256gb and get the 760p again, or the equivalent Samsung 250gb part.

 

[UsandThem]

128GB versions of almost any drive aren't that great of performers. You really want to stick with 250GB+ versions.

But even the 960 EVO in the 250GB version struggles compared to its bigger brothers, and places like Tomshardware don't recommend it in that capacity. But some of the competing drives like MyDigitalSSD BPX, and the Intel 760p like nerp mentioned don't lose as much performance in smaller capacities. You will just have to see how your options perform in smaller capacities.

 

[gammaray]

hmm, i just realized this motherboard has only a mSATA connector and a bunch of PCIe 2.0 slots. What are the alternatives to a standard SSD if any are worth it?

would something like this work?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=9SIAD6H7126574

board is msi gd65 Z87

 

[nerp]

Should work, but you have to confirm that the mobo will let you boot from PCIe.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

hmm, i just realized this motherboard has only a mSATA connector and a bunch of PCIe 2.0 slots. What are the alternatives to a standard SSD if any are worth it?

would something like this work?
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=9SIAD6H7126574

board is msi gd65 Z87

I'll stand corrected and say "I'm stupid!" if I'm wrong here.

But all three of those PCIE "Gen 3" slots on that board are PCIE 3.0 -- not 2.0. It's a Z87 board. A Haswell board.

The way the spec sheet is written on that board, using 16 lanes for a dGPU graphics card in slot PCIE x16 #1 would leave you with x4 lanes for the third slot -- ordinarily capable of PCIE x4. Read the motherboard documentation.

I have a Z170 board with three x16 slots (the latter performing at maximum x4, alternatively as x2 or "disabled.")

Obviously if you used slot #2, the graphics card would only use x8, and only 4 of the x8 lanes of #2 would be used for the NVME -- the remainder unusable.

I discovered that my GTX1070 card in slot #1 with x8 lanes shows no difference in performance than I can measure, and registers 9.9 out of 10 for graphics on the WEI. So I have an NVME in each of slots #2 and #3.

I don't know offhand how many lanes are provided by a Z87 chipset in addition to any provided by the CPU. But between the Z87 board and the Z170, I'd say we're talking about a generation "Tick" plus a "Tock" difference.

Would anyone know -- supposing there's a problem in making an NVME bootable with that board -- whether a BIOS upgrade would resolve the issue? I thought I read somewhere that it might just do that . . .

Also -- apologizing for my long digression so far -- you can get a 250 GB Samsung 960 EVO for less than $140 at Amazon today. Certainly the Intel NVMEs mentioned by others here are going to give you a noticeable performance boost, just a bit short of the Sammy's. The performance boost over standard SATA SSD of ~500MB/s is far more significant than the difference between the two brands of NVME.

 

[gammaray]

thx for the detailed information BonzaiDuck.

There's a gtx 1080ti in the 1st pcie 3.0 x16 and obviously this is the priority, i don't wanna compromise her speed for a faster booting OS. But you seem to say in your case it doesn't make any differences?

i would need something like that to fit the samsung NVMe ?
https://www.amazon.ca/Rivo-Riser-Ex...=UTF8&qid=1521478912&sr=8-9&keywords=ssd+nvme

mobo doc says x16, x8/x8 or x8x4x4

 

[XavierMace]

That board doesn't support booting from an NVMe device.

 

[gammaray]

That board doesn't support booting from an NVMe device.

thx, but do you have a link or something to confirm?

so NVMe could be used as long as it is not for booting an OS?

from: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z87-GD65-GAMING
Can I install Windows 7 on NVMe SSD ? Yes, please download the NVMe SSD driver from you SSD device vendor website, than install driver under OS or load driver during installation of Windows 7.

so if windows 7 can be installed, why not 8.1 or 10?

 

[fleshconsumed]

thx, but do you have a link or something to confirm?

so NVMe could be used as long as it is not for booting an OS?

from: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z87-GD65-GAMING
Can I install Windows 7 on NVMe SSD ? Yes, please download the NVMe SSD driver from you SSD device vendor website, than install driver under OS or load driver during installation of Windows 7.

so if windows 7 can be installed, why not 8.1 or 10?

Two things need to happen to enable boot from NVMe. 1 - BIOS support, 2 - OS support, i.e. NVMe driver. Windows 7 lacked NVMe driver, only Win8/10 included it by default, hence why you need to include NVMe driver when installing Win7. However, the motherboard also has to support booting from NVMe, keep in mind, that booting from NVMe is different than just accessing NVMe drive once OS is loaded. AFAIK none of the Z87 motherboards have been updated to support NVMe boot, and only a handful of Z97 motherboards have been updated to support NVMe boot. I highly doubt that your Z87-GD65 can boot from NVMe.

 

[gammaray]

Two things need to happen to enable boot from NVMe. 1 - BIOS support, 2 - OS support, i.e. NVMe driver. Windows 7 lacked NVMe driver, only Win8/10 included it by default, hence why you need to include NVMe driver when installing Win7. However, the motherboard also has to support booting from NVMe, keep in mind, that booting from NVMe is different than just accessing NVMe drive once OS is loaded. AFAIK none of the Z87 motherboards have been updated to support NVMe boot, and only a handful of Z97 motherboards have been updated to support NVMe boot. I highly doubt that your Z87-GD65 can boot from NVMe.

all right but they write in plain english "Yes, please download the NVMe SSD driver from you SSD device vendor website, than install driver under OS or load driver during installation of Windows 7"
https://www.msi.com/faq/mb-1951.html

it's about the installation of windows 7 on a NVMe, are they saying installing windows 7 as a non booting OS ?

 

[fleshconsumed]

all right but they write in plain english "Yes, please download the NVMe SSD driver from you SSD device vendor website, than install driver under OS or load driver during installation of Windows 7"
https://www.msi.com/faq/mb-1951.html

it's about the installation of windows 7 on a NVMe, are they saying installing windows 7 as a non booting OS ?

I realize that the page you linked says the answer is applicable to Z87-GD65 model, however, I really do not think this is the case. I don't think any Z87 motherboard has BIOS support for booting from NVMe device.

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=278851.0
https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1312269

I think the support article on MSI website is in error. Feel free to buy NVMe drive along with required PCIe adapter, but my guess is you won't get it to work.

 

[gammaray]

I realize that the page you linked says the answer is applicable to Z87-GD65 model, however, I really do not think this is the case. I don't think any Z87 motherboard has BIOS support for booting from NVMe device.

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=278851.0
https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1312269

I think the support article on MSI website is in error. Feel free to buy NVMe drive along with required PCIe adapter, but my guess is you won't get it to work.

look at this page 17
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/s...ssdc/hpssd/sb/nvme_boot_guide_332098001us.pdf

 

[XavierMace]

look at this page 17
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/s...ssdc/hpssd/sb/nvme_boot_guide_332098001us.pdf

And? You don't have the board mentioned there. Asus is the only boards I know that got any NVMe support after the fact and even then it wasn't global. I know there's some unofficial/unsupported modded BIOS's out there to enable NVMe support on other motherboards but YMMV. Like @fleshconsumed said, feel free to buy the adapter and try it for yourself, but I wouldn't hold your breath on being able to boot from it.

 

[gammaray]

so now we went from, no Z87 board support NVMe to ASUS does. (while MSI states they do on a webpage.) You have no idea right?
look on p 20, it even works with a H77 board from intel, so apparently it works on older INTEL boards too.

again from intel pdf:
System Compatibility
In order to support the required UEFI NVMe driver, your system’s firmware must be based on UEFI 2.3.1 or later

 

[XavierMace]

so now we went from, no Z87 board support NVMe to ASUS does. (while MSI states they do on a webpage.) You have no idea right?
look on p 20, it even works with a H77 board from intel, so apparently it works on older INTEL boards too.

again from intel pdf:
System Compatibility
In order to support the required UEFI NVMe driver, your system’s firmware must be based on UEFI 2.3.1 or later

I never said no board Z87 board supported it. I said your board doesn't support it. You can make it work on systems as old as the 6 series with unofficial/unsupported mods but personally, I wouldn't recommend it. SOME NVMe drives (namely some of Intel's and some of Samsung's) also have their own option ROM built in so you can get them to boot in Legacy/CSM mode with Option ROM's enabled in your BIOS. That is what those Intel instructions are based off of, their drives having their own Option ROM.

 

[jlee]

so now we went from, no Z87 board support NVMe to ASUS does. (while MSI states they do on a webpage.) You have no idea right?
look on p 20, it even works with a H77 board from intel, so apparently it works on older INTEL boards too.

again from intel pdf:
System Compatibility
In order to support the required UEFI NVMe driver, your system’s firmware must be based on UEFI 2.3.1 or later

So buy it and prove that it works. Simple solution!

 

[gammaray]

So buy it and prove that it works. Simple solution!

I will write to MSI support to be sure...

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I will write to MSI support to be sure...

Best way to go in getting that answer, really.

 

[gammaray]

so they replied "no" that's it lol. So i guess i will have to wait until i want to upgrade my 4770k too.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

thx for the detailed information BonzaiDuck.

There's a gtx 1080ti in the 1st pcie 3.0 x16 and obviously this is the priority, i don't wanna compromise her speed for a faster booting OS. But you seem to say in your case it doesn't make any differences?

i would need something like that to fit the samsung NVMe ?
https://www.amazon.ca/Rivo-Riser-Ex...=UTF8&qid=1521478912&sr=8-9&keywords=ssd+nvme

mobo doc says x16, x8/x8 or x8x4x4

[I started my response here, having momentarily forgotten that you want to have a bootable NVME, and such might not be in the cards for you.]

I had looked into that question over the last year or so, about reducing PCIE lanes from 16 to 8 on a high-end graphics card. Various observations and bench tests I'd seen on this question suggest that any reduction in performance for the GTX 10xx cards is about 1%.

That's such a small margin you might wonder about error in measurement. The cards don't saturate the bus for only 8 lanes. If you overclock your graphics card as I do, it might matter even less.

I had been apprehensive that changing from 16 to 8 lanes for the graphics card would somehow ruin my overclock settings for the GTX 1070. It did not do so in any way. My WEI score shows 9.2 for graphics and 9.9 for gaming graphics respectively.

Again, given the prices, I'd recommend at least a 250GB NVME SSD. Truth be told, you can avoid adding further to your NVME drive, install a conventional SATA SSD, and begin to build "Program Files" folders on it, choosing it when you install new software. I have all my games on an SATA SSD which is cached to an NVME, but you don't need the caching -- my system was an experiment which turned out to work without flaw.

OF course, if you pursued the project of caching the second drive, a regular HDD would give you good gaming performance anyway.

[EDIT] Also, you could treat an unbootable NVME the way you might use the SATA SSD I mentioned above.

I think if you look on the internet, you will find procedures for editing the registry to move "Program Files" items from the boot-system disk to another disk. It just seemed a bit tedious to me.