Asus Maximus VI Formula M2 ssd choice

nlz242 · October 24, 2018

Hello,

I'd like to upgrade my old Corsair Neutron SSD, so i started looking at what's possible with my current motherboard.

I have an Asus Maximus VI Formula with the little mPCIe Combo II expansion card.

Reading about this card, I get super confused. I'm not used to nvme/m.2 drives, i got one inside my laptop but it came with it.

Seems like even tho they only specify 2242 in the manuals/spec, it will accomodate 2280 drives. This would only be a physical difference (longer pcb), right ?

Then, it's slot supports both PCIe and SATA III... but for PCIe it is 2.0 and only one lane... so that would be a theorical 500 MB per second, right ?

If im not mistaken, SATA III is 6gbps, which devided by 8 gives us 750 MB per second.

I do understand there are protocol overhead for SATA and I was under the impression that when given the choice PCIe should be the prefered interface over SATA. But those numbers lead me to beleive I would be better off with SATA in my case..

In all cases, Samsung 860 (sata m2) / 960 (pcie m2) are gonna saturate the interface, thus I should choose the faster interface, which in my case would be SATA ?

This seems super counter-intuitive... halp plz!

Thanks!

dizmo · October 24, 2018

I'd just get a SATA one, as you're unlikely to notice a huge difference with an NVME/PCIe drive in day to day use.

Since you seem to be bottlenecked anyway, might even be smart just to grab a 2.5" SSD if it's cheaper; m.2 doesn't gain you any speeds if you're using SATA.

I'd just wait for Black Friday and see what goes cheapest.

Welcome to the forum!

Fasauceome · October 24, 2018

getting an M.2 is nice for when you upgrade, it's cable clutter free and looks cool, and you'll get that full 3.0 connection on a modern board. For gaming use, there's no difference, but that didn't stop me from using a force MP500 on my Z97-AR

nlz242 · October 24, 2018

Thanks for the info!
I was planning on refreshing my motherboard/cpu/ram combo somewhere in mid-2019, so i guess i'll just go with PCIe drive (Samsung 900 series) even tho i won't get full benefits from it now.