Does my Mobo support NVME SSD's?

[RapidDevil]

Hey Guys,

 

New user (and noob) here, I came across your really helpful site whilst researching my query and you knowledgeable people sound like you may be able to help! Thanks for having me. 

 

I find it confusing as to whether my motherboard supports NVME through SSD. The PCIe lanes are particularly confusing to me. The manual lists that the mobo has an M.2 slot and 1 PCIe 3.0 x 16 slot & 2 PCIe 2.0 x 1 slot. I thought M.2. slots had 4 PCIe lanes, so is the M.2 separate to those other PCIe slots or would an SSD using the M.2. have to interface with one of those slots too? If the latter, my desktop has no GPU so presumably it could use some of the 16 slot lanes?

 

Manual mentions it can support 20 G/S in PCIe mode. What I want to know is whether it can support those juicy >3000 mb/s read speeds of NVME or not (not that I really need it but as there's very little difference in price, I may as well if my system supports it). 

 

Here's the link to my mobo's manual. I've attached what I assume if the main page of information. Mobo is Asus H110M-A/M.2.

 

Thanks very much for taking time to read this and thanks in advance for anyone that may be able to help. 

 

 

[Mister Woof]

seems like it does

 

m.2 socket storage devices both PCIE and SATA mode

[Light-Yagami]

20 gbps converts to exactly 2500 MBps. So no - you will not see speeds over 3000 MBps. Unless the text on the box is wrong and it supports higher speeds.

 

pcie x4 connection has a theorethical limit of 3940 MBps, which is just shy of 32 gbps. If the motherboard says 20 gbps, then it's probably not the full x4 connection speed.

[RapidDevil]

32 minutes ago, Light-Yagami said:

20 gbps converts to exactly 2500 MBps. So no - you will not see speeds over 3000 MBps. Unless the text on the box is wrong and it supports higher speeds.

 

pcie x4 connection has a theorethical limit of 3940 MBps, which is just shy of 32 gbps. If the motherboard says 20 gbps, then it's probably not the full x4 connection speed.

Thanks guys. @Light-Yagami that's a very insightful answer. A few follow up questions:

 

If I put an NVME capable M.2. SSD in that was say c. 3000Mbps read, would you expect the speed just to cap out at 2500 based on the mobo's limitations? i.e. it shouldn't cause any issues with the SSD's capabilities being higher? 

 

One of my earlier questions - does the M.2. have it's own PCIe lanes or would the SSD need to borrow from the 3.0 x 16 slot? 

 

Thanks again. 

[Light-Yagami]

7 minutes ago, RapidDevil said:

Thanks guys. @Light-Yagami that's a very insightful answer. A few follow up questions:

 

If I put an NVME capable M.2. SSD in that was say c. 3000Mbps read, would you expect the speed just to cap out at 2500 based on the mobo's limitations? i.e. it shouldn't cause any issues with the SSD's capabilities being higher? 

 

One of my earlier questions - does the M.2. have it's own PCIe lanes or would the SSD need to borrow from the 3.0 x 16 slot? 

 

Thanks again. 

PCIe 16x slot at the top of the slot stack has dedicated lanes to the CPU. Storage lanes are also dedicated to the CPU and to not touch unless stated otherwise  (depends on the board)

 

As you might know, the vast majority of consumer CPUs support 20 PCIe lanes. 16 for the GPU, 4 for NVME storage. If MB supports more than 1 nvme slot, the bandwidth is often shared and halves if you were to occupy both slots at once.

 

You don't have to worry about bandwidth sharing, as long as the CPU has 20 available PCIe lanes.

I believe you should see speeds between 2200-2400 MBps (I don't believe in theoretical speeds, 2500MBps in this case). There should be no issues with the drive having more to give.

 

Thank you for the praise, you're too kind. I try to provide people with useful information and treat them as if they have competency of critical thinking themselves, instead of wasting server space with pointless comments that serve no purpose.

[RapidDevil]

@Light-Yagami thanks again for the detailed reply, now I'm concerned it won't work very well.....

 

The CPU is very underpowered generally but serves it's purpose, it's a celeron G4600. Because it's good at single threading I've never needed to upgrade it, am I right in thinking it only supports 16 lanes? https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/97453/intel-pentium-processor-g4600-3m-cache-3-60-ghz.html

If so, what would this mean for the overall plan? 

 

I have no separate GPU, does that make a difference? (integrated graphics) or is that the reason it matters how many lanes the CPU supports in the first place? 

 

Thanks!

 

 

[-rascal-]

1 hour ago, RapidDevil said:

Hey Guys,

 

New user (and noob) here, I came across your really helpful site whilst researching my query and you knowledgeable people sound like you may be able to help! Thanks for having me. 

 

I find it confusing as to whether my motherboard supports NVME through SSD. The PCIe lanes are particularly confusing to me. The manual lists that the mobo has an M.2 slot and 1 PCIe 3.0 x 16 slot & 2 PCIe 2.0 x 1 slot. I thought M.2. slots had 4 PCIe lanes, so is the M.2 separate to those other PCIe slots or would an SSD using the M.2. have to interface with one of those slots too? If the latter, my desktop has no GPU so presumably it could use some of the 16 slot lanes?

 

Manual mentions it can support 20 G/S in PCIe mode. What I want to know is whether it can support those juicy >3000 mb/s read speeds of NVME or not (not that I really need it but as there's very little difference in price, I may as well if my system supports it). 

 

Here's the link to my mobo's manual. I've attached what I assume if the main page of information. Mobo is Asus H110M-A/M.2.

 

Thanks very much for taking time to read this and thanks in advance for anyone that may be able to help. 

 

 

 

The NVMe M.2 slot is getting it's bandwidth from the H110 chipset.

Like all of the 100-series Intel motherboard chipsets, they were running at PCI-E 2.0, and not 3.0 or 4.0 like more modern boards.

You are capped at 20 Gb/s (= 2500 MB/s) because of the PCI-E 2.0 speed.

 

Correct, even if you get a PCI-E 4.0 NVMe drive that is capable of .... say 5000 MB/s, you are limited to 2500 MB/s.

 

28 minutes ago, Light-Yagami said:

PCIe 16x slot at the top of the slot stack has dedicated lanes to the CPU. Storage lanes are also dedicated to the CPU and to not touch unless stated otherwise  (depends on the board)

 

As you might know, the vast majority of consumer CPUs support 20 PCIe lanes. 16 for the GPU, 4 for NVME storage. If MB supports more than 1 nvme slot, the bandwidth is often shared and halves if you were to occupy both slots at once.

 

You don't have to worry about bandwidth sharing, as long as the CPU has 20 available PCIe lanes.

I believe you should see speeds between 2200-2400 MBps (I don't believe in theoretical speeds, 2500MBps in this case). There should be no issues with the drive having more to give.

 

Thank you for the praise, you're too kind. I try to provide people with useful information and treat them as if they have competency of critical thinking themselves, instead of wasting server space with pointless comments that serve no purpose.

 

The 20 lanes only applies to AMD CPUs / chipsets, where it is 16 lanes for GPU, and 4 for storage.

Intel is still limiting it's mainstream to 16 PCI-E lanes .... which is dedicated to the PCI-E X16 or X8 slots for GPUs.

 

Like for 8th / 9th Gen (or even 10th Gen) Intel for an example, the NVMe slots get their bandwidth from the Z390 / Z490 chipset, which provides the PCI-E 3.0 lanes.

 

ASUS PRIME Z490-A

[RapidDevil]

@-rascal-thanks for that, I'm relieved the 20 lanes is for AMD only! I think you were typing that as I was writing my previous post. 

 

So in summary, baring in mind I have integrated graphics and not a dedicated GPU (whether it makes a difference or not....?) do you think with my mobo and celeron g4600 CPU I'll be able to go with the M.2 NVME route and get around the 2500 read speeds? 

 

Thanks. 

[-rascal-]

10 minutes ago, RapidDevil said:

@-rascal-thanks for that, I'm relieved the 20 lanes is for AMD only! I think you were typing that as I was writing my previous post. 

 

So in summary, baring in mind I have integrated graphics and not a dedicated GPU (whether it makes a difference or not....?) do you think with my mobo and celeron g4600 CPU I'll be able to go with the M.2 NVME route and get around the 2500 read speeds? 

 

Thanks. 

 

G4600 with that motherboard is fine.

The CPU provides it's own PCIE 3.0 16 lanes to the top PCI-E 3.0 X16 slot, and doesn't play a role for the NVMe M.2 slot on the board.

Again, because the little H110 chip underneath the heatsink does that 

You are capped to approximately ~2500 MB/s, though.