NVMe support for x79 motherboards

[Shmee]

I think this should definitely be a thing. Lets start a petition here, for those interested, and maybe Gigabyte, ASUS, etc will release a BIOS update. Thanks!

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Looking forward to them/it too!

 

[Lil'John]

I would love that for my RIVE(non-Black Edition) board.

I just plunked down a bit of money to water cool it so I'd rather not restart to get NVMe bootable support.

 

[Shmee]

According to the article here http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/intel_750_nvme_1_2_tb_pcie_ssd_review,6.html

all that is needed is UEFI version 2.3.1 or higher, is this true or is there more to it?

 

[zir_blazer]

Based on my experience with Intel VT-d and AMD-Vi, which were also fixeable via BIOS updates, this is a mere pipedream. Motherboard manufacturers don't like to revisit old Motherboards to add (Or even fix) features since that makes new Motherboards less interesing. Why would they spend money improving the Firmware of older platforms that they can't get any money from since they already sold you the product?

 

[Shmee]

I saw on the ASUS site that they were considering it, but that is only one company, and its not Gigabyte :C

Looks like I may have to upgrade if I want NVMe, though I guess time will tell.

 

[guskline]

Shmee, lucky to have it on my X99 board. The real problem is if you have dual gpus like I do, the proposed adapter may not fit.

 

[Shmee]

Shmee, lucky to have it on my X99 board. The real problem is if you have dual gpus like I do, the proposed adapter may not fit.

I do, but there should be a spare PCIE slot or 2 available, depending on the board. Or is there something that gets in the way? I was eyeing the Asus X99 Pro USB3.1 myself.

 

[vailr]

You could get lucky:

Besides other Z97 boards, an AMD A88X-PRO was listed as being able to boot an Intel 750 Series NVMe PCIe SSD.
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Intel-SSD-750-Series-PCIe-Compatibility-Tested
It was initially recognized in bios as an IDE drive, and was then somehow able to continue boot-up process into Windows.

 

[Redstorm]

Based on my experience with Intel VT-d and AMD-Vi, which were also fixeable via BIOS updates, this is a mere pipedream. Motherboard manufacturers don't like to revisit old Motherboards to add (Or even fix) features since that makes new Motherboards less interesing. Why would they spend money improving the Firmware of older platforms that they can't get any money from since they already sold you the product?

This, why add a feature to an old board that they wont make any money on and will cost them money to develop the BIOS with NVMe support for it. When it makes better business sense for them to get you to buy new board.

 

[Shmee]

If a platform upgrade were required, what about the Gigabyte X99 SOC Champion? Obvious downside is the 4 DIMM slots vs 8, but it does have 8+4 pin CPU power connectors and the Gigabyte version of the OC socket, seems to be a solid OC board. Thoughts on this one?

Also, here is the Asus poll for back porting NVMe. http://pcdiy.asus.com/2015/04/asus-nvme-support-poll-voice-your-opinion/

 

[Redstorm]

According to the article here http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/intel_750_nvme_1_2_tb_pcie_ssd_review,6.html

all that is needed is UEFI version 2.3.1 or higher, is this true or is there more to it?

That article is so fulled with errors i would totally disregard it. The list of support at the bottom is dire.

X79, X79 ??

should just read Z97 and X99..

 

[zir_blazer]

Also, I have been reading that there is an UEFI NVMe Driver available. Some Motherboards allows you to load an UEFI Driver stored in the ESP (EFI System Partition). It may be possible to use a secondary HD with a ESP, use it to load the Driver during POST, then at that point you would be able to boot from NVMe. It should need some testing to confirm that it may work this way. You will miss having it embedded onto the Motherboard Firmware, but could make it functional anyways.

 

[bradly1101]

I got my X79 system to be future proof for a while, since the X58 has been going so well for so long. But I needed to upgrade when I did, and then here comes NVMe. I think what I might do is keep the OS on the SSD and stick an Intel 750 in there and install all programs to it. But it's of course speedy already...do I really need this...hmmm...

 

[bradly1101]

I went ahead and got the 400GB Intel 750 PCIe card for my X79 system. Unsurprisingly it didn't show up in the BIOS so I didn't install Windows on it. After installing the NVMe driver in Win7 and initializing it in Disk Management it shows up as a storage drive. I checked ATTO (below) and it performs to expectations.

I'm using it for programs and photo files. This drive causes programs to start and data to be read at speeds I expected my SATA SSD to perform at. Woohoo!

 

[bwanaaa]

@bradly

but u can't boot from it, right?

 

[imsims]

I went ahead and got the 400GB Intel 750 PCIe card for my X79 system. Unsurprisingly it didn't show up in the BIOS so I didn't install Windows on it. After installing the NVMe driver in Win7 and initializing it in Disk Management it shows up as a storage drive. I checked ATTO (below) and it performs to expectations.

I'm using it for programs and photo files. This drive causes programs to start and data to be read at speeds I expected my SATA SSD to perform at. Woohoo!

hi! what is your board and cpu?
i have an asus sabertooth X79 with i7-3930k

someone say it will boot look here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLaEoOtSjNI
also look here
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Intel-SSD-750-Series-PCIe-Compatibility-Tested

in comments this user Oliver2kk say

April 27, 2015 | 10:27 AM - Posted by Oliver2kx (not verified)
Hi, I have the 750 series 400gb pcie add in card perfectly working at top speed on my X79 Rampage IV Formula. My bios is 3101. I unpluged every other drive and put boot dealy to 0sec and csm compatibility to disable and installed windows 8.1 after on it. Than in win I installed the nvme driver and checked with atto benchmark and I reach over the top speed of the specs for the 400gb version. So the answer is YES it works on the X79. The 3101 is an old driver, maybe the reason...

moreover did you have full pci 3.0 speed?
x79 is not official support pci 3.0 ....


i'm very interested in this SSD but seems it's impossible to know if it wiil boot with my system ...

 

[bradly1101]

hi! what is your board and cpu?
i have an asus sabertooth X79 with i7-3930k

someone say it will boot look here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLaEoOtSjNI
also look here
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Intel-SSD-750-Series-PCIe-Compatibility-Tested

in comments this user Oliver2kk say





moreover did you have full pci 3.0 speed?
x79 is not official support pci 3.0 ....


i'm very interested in this SSD but seems it's impossible to know if it wiil boot with my system ...

I'm not sure if all x79 boards are PCIe 3.0 but mine is (Gigabyte X79-Up4).

I'm glad the OS isn't on it, it leaves room for more programs and data, swap file, caches, etc.

 

[Steel]

I have just registered on this forum so I could post on it. I have the same motherboard and SSD drive that you have (gigabyte x79-up4 rev 1.1 and the 400GB version). Everything works fine until I listen to music via my creative audigy 4 pro audio card, when the read speed of the SSD drive drops from 2300MB/s to 1200MB/s. Also strange is that when I plug my creative inspire S2 bluetooth receiver into any of the internal USB 2.0 slots (linked to my cooler master case), the read speed drops to 600MB/s. USB 3.0 is not affected.

I have tried moving the SSD from the PCIEX16_2 slot to PCIEX8_2 slot, still the same thing happens. PCIEX8_1 slot is 1mm close to the graphics card so I cannot utilize it. I have the latest BIOS, F7, and latest driver on the SSD (1.2.0.1002) and audio card as well. I managed to test another SSD drive (identical) from the local store, they lent me another one to do the tests and the problem was the same so it's not the SSD drive. I am just curious how the drive is performing in your system and if everything works fine on your part I have windows 7 service pack 1 installed build 7601 and currently waiting for windows 10. I have not managed to boot from the drive at all, I can only use it like you do, as storage. No conflicts in my windows IRQ, windows reports no errors.

Please let me know. Thanks!

 

[xxstrikeholo]

I have just registered on this forum so I could post on it. I have the same motherboard and SSD drive that you have (gigabyte x79-up4 rev 1.1 and the 400GB version). Everything works fine until I listen to music via my creative audigy 4 pro audio card, when the read speed of the SSD drive drops from 2300MB/s to 1200MB/s. Also strange is that when I plug my creative inspire S2 bluetooth receiver into any of the internal USB 2.0 slots (linked to my cooler master case), the read speed drops to 600MB/s. USB 3.0 is not affected.

I have tried moving the SSD from the PCIEX16_2 slot to PCIEX8_2 slot, still the same thing happens. PCIEX8_1 slot is 1mm close to the graphics card so I cannot utilize it. I have the latest BIOS, F7, and latest driver on the SSD (1.2.0.1002) and audio card as well. I managed to test another SSD drive (identical) from the local store, they lent me another one to do the tests and the problem was the same so it's not the SSD drive. I am just curious how the drive is performing in your system and if everything works fine on your part I have windows 7 service pack 1 installed build 7601 and currently waiting for windows 10. I have not managed to boot from the drive at all, I can only use it like you do, as storage. No conflicts in my windows IRQ, windows reports no errors.

Please let me know. Thanks!

Are you using USB 3.0? Because I read somewhere that because of the PCI requirements for this ssd that you would need to pick, and chose whether or not you would use usb 3.0 or the drive. If you have any USB 3.0 devices plugged in usb 3.0 ports try unplugging them, I know you said usb 3.0 is not affect, but I was unsure what that meant so please excuse me if I am being redundant.

 

[pauljo]

hi! what is your board and cpu?
i have an asus sabertooth X79 with i7-3930k

someone say it will boot look here :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLaEoOtSjNI
also look here
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Intel-SSD-750-Series-PCIe-Compatibility-Tested

in comments this user Oliver2kk say





moreover did you have full pci 3.0 speed?
x79 is not official support pci 3.0 ....


i'm very interested in this SSD but seems it's impossible to know if it wiil boot with my system ...

I have successfully booted samsung sm951 on a ga-x79-ud3 r1.0

Insterted nvme roms from x99 bios, inserted nvmexpress_dxe.

Shows up as pata ss:, then after windows 7 x64 uefi installation, it lists in the uefi boot list as uefi hard drive. Plus playing with bios settings and pcie port the adapter goes in. Boots fine, runs at rated speed. The board has gen 3 and spare 4x lanes to run it. No issues yet.

 

[nite2099]

guys after 1 year of buying crap in ebay,,,I finally found it,,,,there is one board asus p9x79ws with 4802 bios supports booting from intel 750 pcie ,,,with no bs,,,,no other board works ,,if someone says their x79 bord works they lie,,,i bough all boards from foxcon,,evga dark,,rampage black,,,as rock ext11,,,,and the only one that boots from pcie 750 is the asus p9x79 ws,,I ahev photos to prove it,,,

 

[LocutusEstBorg]

guys after 1 year of buying crap in ebay,,,I finally found it,,,,there is one board asus p9x79ws with 4802 bios supports booting from intel 750 pcie ,,,with no bs,,,,no other board works ,,if someone says their x79 bord works they lie,,,i bough all boards from foxcon,,evga dark,,rampage black,,,as rock ext11,,,,and the only one that boots from pcie 750 is the asus p9x79 ws,,I ahev photos to prove it,,,

You should have just inserted the NVMe UEFI modules into your BIOS and used your existing board.

 

[Fizzy Coca-Cola]

u.2 connections are going to increase on new boards being released this month in germany, watch for those. They're raid 0 boot compatible, and just as fast as M.2 key-m