Samsung PM961 M.2 poor performance

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Having problems with a Samsung PM961 M.2 ssd connected to the M.2 port on the mobo, in the bios it shows Sata Port5/M.2 - not present, but I am able to select it from a list of boot options, any way to fix this?
Ran some tests using AS SSD Benchmark app, CrystalDiscMark 5 & Samsung Magician 4.9.7 & read times dont seem much better than my old 840 evo, but the write speeds look way off compared to the 840 & the 4K test took ages to complete on the AS SSD app.
The PM961 isnt supported by the Samsung Magician software so it seems.
Anyone got any ideas what the problem might be & how to fix it?
Pic's of test results below, 3x M.2 tests & 3x 840 Evo tests (without being optimised by magician software & no rapid mode) With rapid mode enabled on the 840 its performance is way faster.
I was expecting the M.2 to be way faster than the 840 evo... :/

My system, MSI mobo Z97 Gaming 7 MS-7916, latest bios 1.C0. Samsung PM961 M.2 ssd, Samsung 840 evo ssd, Intel i5 4670K cpu, 8gb ddr3 2400mhz ram. Windows 10.


840_test_Magician.jpg
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You shouldn't have to do that. You can download it instantly. I did a few days ago. I noticed on both my systems, in other benchmarks including Samsung, both my 950 pro and sm961 was getting poor results like you. Tried a few other benches like you and tried atto which started to show me figures I was expecting.

Seems there's a few reasons why the others show poor results, data size blocks, compression etc.

With atto, just run it, don't alter any settings
 
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Cant see where to download it from, just the "email me Disk benchmark" bit?
So guys do I need a M.2 X4 PCI-E adapter card , would my motherboard be able to run it at full speed then?
I'm a bit confused about it as I'm sure I remember seeing on the MSI website when I bought the mobo that the M.2 was capable of 10 gb/s?
 
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How much too slow would you say it is? So do I need a M.2 X4 PCI-E adapter card , would my motherboard be able to run it at full speed then?

Theoretically, a 10Gbps slot is capable of a max of 1.2Gbps. (10/8)
But I think your hitting the ceiling of your board.

You're running a Z97 chipset, unfortunately it's all about PCIE 3 lanes and from your CPU, the max lanes avalaible to you are 16. Your mobo has no PLX chips so that's your limit.

All 16 lanes will be in use by your graphics card, so if you add a PCIE card it will take lanes away from the GFX.

Translated, this means your GFX will operated at x8 lanes and the m.2 will use x4 (equivalent of 32Gbps (32/8 = max of 4Gbps)

So whilst it will work (You would need to make sure your mobo can boot from it using a PCIE card) your system will suffer in other areas (GFX)

That's why of Rig one in my sig, I had to get the 5930K as it supports 40 PCIE lanes, as I wanted to run 2 GFX (16x2+4 for m.2) and Rig 2 has skylake, whereby the mobo carries the 4 lanes off the m.2 leaving 16 lanes dedicated to the GFX)
 
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Gaming is a big part of my pc so I dont want to take anything away from the graphics so looks like it will have to stay in the M.2 slot, so are you saying that if I use any of the pci-e slots for anything else it will take lanes away from the graphics card?
Is there anything I can do to boost the speed of it, as you said its on the slow side?
I had a look on the Samsung website & they only do a NVMe driver for the 950 pro so thats no good I guess?
As I said my old SSD is a Samsung 840 evo, with rapid mode enabled it shows fast test result better than the M.2, is it actually faster or are the figures fiddled in some way, would I be better off going back to the 840 evo as my boot drive?
 
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In this instance I would leave it as is. I doubt you notice it over time and you can always get more performance if you ever upgrade.

I wouldn't use the 950 driver, no.

Isn't RAPID mode where it uses RAM to cache? If so it's a bit of a false result and presumably your losing out RAM usage as a result.

I know it's a bit disappointing but if I were you, I'd keep the m.2 as boot and the Evo as a games drive.
 
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I was hoping the M.2 would give me a nice little speed boost until I upgrade, which probably isnt going to be until early 2018 now, oh well.. :(
I think rapid mode does use ram to cache yes, and the test results do look impressive.
Thanks for trying to help...
 
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You're running a Z97 chipset, unfortunately it's all about PCIE 3 lanes and from your CPU, the max lanes avalaible to you are 16. Your mobo has no PLX chips so that's your limit.

All 16 lanes will be in use by your graphics card, so if you add a PCIE card it will take lanes away from the GFX.

I was just reading an old review of my mobo & it says "it's equipped with three PCIe x16 slots hanging off the CPU" & also on the MSI website it says "Get up to 3 PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots" so does that not make 48 lanes? Or is this mean something totally different?
The pic below show my mobo with 3 graphics cards installed so are they all sharing 16 lanes or have 16 each?

image hosting over 5mb
 
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https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z97-GAMING-7.html#hero-specification

Your mobo has 3 x16 physical slots but it will run in x16, x8/x8, x8/x4/x4 speed because your CPU only has 16 lanes, so what I put above stands.

In the pic you posted, working top down.

GFX 1: x8
GFX 2: x4
GFX 3: x4

Total: 16 lanes. Even if you got an i7, it would be the same.

All it means is that if you wanted, you could add a single GFX to any of the 3 lanes on the board and still get 16 lanes, however the moment you then start adding devices via PCIE, the lane amount will drop the above speeds.

Physical 16x is slot that has full pins that run the length of the PCIE slot.
Physical 8x is half the slot
Physical 4x is a quarter of th slot

In some cases you get x2 too. Some motherboards don't have full 16 physical slots to save money/don't need it.
 
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That pic you posted is also demonstrating cross fire as your mobo (according to msi) does three way cross fire and 2 SLI - it's because nvidia need a minimum of x8 which your mobo can only do x8 times 2.
 
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Yeah sorry I've done a bit or research myself & I understand it a bit better now, even the i7 skylake cpu's only have 16 lanes, looks like i'll be getting something more on the lines of a 5390k or equivalent for my next build.
Thanks for taking the time to explain.. :)
 
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