Do I need a PCI Express Card?

[vlb6]

Hi there,

 

I am looking to get either the ASUS X99-E WS or the X99-E WS USB 3.1 motherboard with the Samsung 960 EVO 500GB M.2 SSD
I've looked at the motherboard specifications on the ASUS website but can't seem to filter through all the terminology as I am new to hardware.

Do I need a PCI Express Card to make the SSD work with either of the motherboards?

 

[ZeusXI]

Just now, vlb6 said:

Hi there,

 

I am looking to get either the ASUS X99-E WS or the X99-E WS USB 3.1 motherboard with the Samsung 960 EVO 500GB M.2 SSD
I've looked at the motherboard specifications on the ASUS website but can't seem to filter through all the terminology as I am new to hardware.

Do I need a PCI Express Card to make the SSD work with either of the motherboards?

 

the 960 evo takes an M.2 slot. i dont think you need a pci slot since they are different in a way

[The_Askinator]

It's M.2, so no.

[vlb6]

3 minutes ago, ZeusXI said:

the 960 evo takes an M.2 slot. i dont think you need a pci slot since they are different in a way

This is off the ASUS website - am I right to understand that the mobo has a M.2 slot?

 

thanks for bearing with me

 

[ZeusXI]

1 minute ago, vlb6 said:

This is off the ASUS website - am I right to understand that the mobo has a M.2 slot?

 

thanks for bearing with me

 

yes. that is an M.2 slot for the 960 evo. the pcie/pci slots are for wifi cards/graphics cards/sound cards/capture cards. but yes, you could use a pci slot with an adapter to make the m.2 fit into the pci slot if you wanted

[vlb6]

Just now, ZeusXI said:

yes. that is an M.2 slot for the 960 evo. the pcie/pci slots are for wifi cards/graphics cards/sound cards/capture cards. but yes, you could use a pci slot with an adapter to make the m.2 fit into the pci slot if you wanted

brilliant - thank you very much for explaining this!

[vlb6]

6 minutes ago, The_Askinator said:

It's M.2, so no.

great! - thanks for the reply!

[vlb6]

Actually, just a quick one..

I've just come across a review of the SSD and I don't understand what this guy means...Do M.2 slots have different speeds that can be adjusted? or is he talking about the lanes
where the GPU's go? If so, what's that got to do with it?

so confused

 

 

[mariushm]

m.2 connectors have up to 4 pci-e lanes in them and a sata connection for backwards compatibility.

 

Some motherboards allow you to restrict the m.2 connector to only 2 pci-e lanes or no lanes at all, in order to enable some other parts of the motherboards like one or two additional pci-e x1 slots, or to convert one x1 slot into a x4 slot.

 

For example, you may buy a budget m.2 ssd which has a ssd controller that can only "talk" through the classic SATA connection, so in that case it makes no sense to keep those 4 pci-e lanes reserved to the m.2 connector, when the SSD would never use them. So in this case, you could go in BIOS and tell it to use those pci-e lanes to other things (like make a pci-e x1 slot working on the motherboard)

 

So if your m.2 ssd drive can use all those 4 pci-e lanes, you should just go in BIOS and make sure those 4 pci-e lanes are enabled in the m.2 connector otherwise the SSD may use only 2 pci-e lanes or may fall back to using plain SATA (6gbps)

 

ps. In the picture above they're using GB when they should be using gbps (giga bits per second). You need to divide all those numbers by 8 to get real MB or GB.

 

Each pci-e lane can transfer up to around 980 MB/s (almost 8 gbps) so a m.2 with 2 pci-e lanes can have almost 2 GB/s in each direction and 4 pci-e lanes give you almost 4 GB/s in both directions.

SATA backwards compatibility is 6gbps or around 550 MB/s in each direction.