M.2 to PCIE adapters

[Scoobyd00]

I am looking to put a 950/960 in my Asus Z97 pro gamer but understand it will not run at full speed using the onboard m.2.

Would this type of adapter board let it run at full speed if I put it in my Pcie 3.0 x 16 slot?

https://smile.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-1...d=1476319292&sr=8-2&keywords=m2.+pcie+adapter

Would it slow down my 390X that is in the other 3.0 x 16 slot?


Thanks guys
Scoob

 

[Billy Tallis]

That's the adapter I use.

On most motherboards, installing an x4 card like this adapter into the secondary x16 slot will cause 8 PCIe lanes from the primary slot to be re-routed to the secondary slot. So you'll have 8 lanes to the GPU, four to the M.2 adapter, and four unused.

 

[Scoobyd00]

That's the adapter I use.

On most motherboards, installing an x4 card like this adapter into the secondary x16 slot will cause 8 PCIe lanes from the primary slot to be re-routed to the secondary slot. So you'll have 8 lanes to the GPU, four to the M.2 adapter, and four unused.

So it will slow down my video card, that blows 🙁

Thanks for the your reply.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So it will slow down my video card, that blows

Well, basically expected. You only get 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU, and another few from the PCH for the x1 slots. If you have two PCI-E 3.0 x16 (physical) slots on a Z97 platform, they basically split the lanes if you have both slots populated, and they both get x8 PCI-E 3.0 lanes to each slot. (Which is still enough for SLI, or whatever.)

If you weren't happy with that arrangement, you should have invested in the x99 / Socket 2011-v3 platform. I believe that it comes with up to x40 lanes of PCI-E 3.0 from the CPU, if you buy the more expensive CPUs.

 

[mnewsham]

and another few from the PCH

And on Z97 it's only 8 PCIe lanes and they're only PCIe 2.0 not 3.0.

 

[Accord99]

So it will slow down my video card, that blows 🙁

The difference between x8 and x16 is extremely small and essentially imperceptible. Even with a GTX 1080, it's maybe 1% max:

http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2488-pci-e-3-x8-vs-x16-performance-impact-on-gpus

 

[shabby]

Are there any adapters that use an 8x or 16x slot? Im still on pcie 2 so a 4x adapter will only give me 2000mb/sec while the evo 960 does 3200mb/sec.

 

[Billy Tallis]

Are there any adapters that use an 8x or 16x slot? Im still on pcie 2 so a 4x adapter will only give me 2000mb/sec while the evo 960 does 3200mb/sec.

A passive adapter wouldn't be able to accomplish that. You would need one with a PCIe switch chip to convert four lanes of PCIe 3 to eight lanes of PCIe 2. Amfeltec's latest Squid boards would probably work. However, it really wouldn't be worth the expense just to get a single M.2 drive to perform marginally better.

 

[shabby]

A passive adapter wouldn't be able to accomplish that. You would need one with a PCIe switch chip to convert four lanes of PCIe 3 to eight lanes of PCIe 2. Amfeltec's latest Squid boards would probably work. However, it really wouldn't be worth the expense just to get a single M.2 drive to perform marginally better.

When there's a "request a quote" on a page you know it'll be expensive, thanks though.

 

[Scoobyd00]

The difference between x8 and x16 is extremely small and essentially imperceptible. Even with a GTX 1080, it's maybe 1% max:

http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2488-pci-e-3-x8-vs-x16-performance-impact-on-gpus

Are there any adapters that use an 8x or 16x slot? Im still on pcie 2 so a 4x adapter will only give me 2000mb/sec while the evo 960 does 3200mb/sec.

Thats awesome, thank you.
I doubt I would even be able to tell a difference on my 390X. 1 FPS is really not going to matter in World of Tanks 🙂 But that 960 pro will be a nice boost to lightroom, photoshop & encoding.

 

[sauria]

Mine was about $450 shipped.