X58 booting from m.2

[Csshaz3]

DISCLAMER: OLD PARTS I KNOW I WOULD SEE CONSIDERABLY LARGE IMPROVEMENTS JUST BUYING A NEWER USED PC. IM WAITING FOR THE RYZEN 9 AND PCIE 4.0 TO SETTLE DOWN IN PRICE FIRST, SO ONE MORE YEAR X58!

 

 

So I am pumping some life back into my old p6x58d-e powerhouse from back in the day since I am required to upgrade to windows 10. Just upgraded from a i7-950 to a xeon w3690 as well as removing all of my hdd's/ssd's and converted to only a single samsung 950 pro 512gb m.2 drive on a pcie x16 adapter. Everything is booting and running smoother and faster than it ever has which is great.

 

When running a read/write test I'm getting 200mb/s cap on the ssd (pcie x1). I did some bios digging and forgotten than these three pcie x16 slots can run in two configurations x16/16/1 or x16/8/8 across the three slots. This is where it gets a little tricky cause I'm running two 960 gtx 4gb in sli in the first two slots set to x16 and my ssd on the third in x1 mode. 

 

My question is this, with gaming as the #1 task on this computer and taking the lack of sli support into consideration, should I:

 

Buy a pcie x4 adapter for my m.2 caping it at 800mb/s and utilize my empty x4 slot

 

Leave the m.2 in the pcie x16 slot but change the bios to 16/8/8 giving the m.2 1.6gb/s speed but taking away from one video cards speeds

 

Buy one video card that will free up a x16 slot for 3.2gb/s speeds and be a upgrade from my sli setup

 

Or buy a used lga1366 mobo without the pcie slot issue.

 

Pretty much what would be the best option for me to get the best gaming experience and still take advantage of this new drive and will I really see a difference with these changes. Thanks

 

 

[ZeouLs]

To be honest in a normal use case, you wont really need much faster speeds. Especially if you consider upgrading in near future

[Fasauceome]

considering that you only noticed it was running slowly after you ran a synthetic benchmark, does it actually make a difference if you make it faster?

[Csshaz3]

I wont notice it till I'm rendering videos or transferring large files but mostly it's just to rationalize the 100$ I just spent for the speed of this drive vs just keeping my SATA ssd

[Zando_]

Run the cards at 16/8 and give 8 to the SSD. With 960s, I don't think you'll take a hit to performance only running PCIe 2.0 x8, though you could bench before and after to see. 

[Csshaz3]

I did an hour long furmark test last night just to make sure everything was good after the drivers and new os and such. Would I use furmark to determine gpu performance after x8 or is there a better utility. I usually would go for kombuster but something is preventing it from installing. I'm going to play around after work with this but I've never really hard core bench tested my builds so my knowledge is lacking in that department. I'm going to need to study up for sure.

[Intelfreak]

My sound advice would be, upgrade GPU´s to a single powerful GPU you can take with you over to a Ryzen system later on. As you say, SLI is a dying thing any way and also depending on resolution and settings are poperly close to running out of Vram as well. I know i had trouble with the only 4 GB Vram on my older GTX 970 SLI setup.

 

And let the NVMe SSD stay in the PCIe X16 port.

 

Dont waste money on another X58 motherboard, use them on a new GPU in stead.

 

I dit the same thing just 3 years ago. I upgraded from a I7 920 to a I7 980X and from GTX 970 SLI to a single GTX 1080 TI + from sata SSD to at Samsung 950 PRO 256 GB and i never looked back again for my old setup. The system ran better than ever at that time after upgrade and just as you i am moving on to at Ryzen system, but i am not waiting as i feel my I7 980X lags the power to keep up with the latest games these days. Metro Exodus, Far Cry New Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2 PC version is giving my old CPU a hard time, so it´s time to move on from X58 for my needs.

 

My system. Screenshot from 2 years ago, but havent change much since:

 

Boot of my system with Samsung 950 PRO:

 

[Csshaz3]

Awesome! And yes I'm only trying to spend money on things that carry over. Although I do have a local seller with a evga classified extended mobo that has the chipset waterblock and 1366 waterblock on it as well as 4pcie x16 slots for 40$

 

I was leaning towards getting at minimum a 980ti or 1070+ I dont have that rtx money right now. Maybe if someone wants to buy any of this gear I may. And as far as games go my family only really use the htc vive and emulators for n64 which neither are too gpu strenuous fortunately. I do run into fps drop in certain vr situations but I've noticed a considerable improvement with just the fresh win10 install and the m.2 drive.

[Mick Naughty]

Are you sure the cards are running it 16x/8x? 

Id just use a regular ssd in the mean time. Can’t really notice a difference in anyway unless you like to look at benchmarks. 

[Zando_]

3 hours ago, Intelfreak said:

settings are poperly close to running out of Vram as well. I know i had trouble with the only 4 GB Vram on my older GTX 970 SLI setup.

Yeah, that's the only issue I've hit so far on my SLI 780s, the 3GB VRAM. Most games I've tested so far scale well, and it's the stock i7 920 (lmao 2.66Ghz) holding me back.