M.2 via Adapter in 2nd x16 PCIe slot worth it?

End Creditz · 3 Jun 2019 at 11:11

I'm running an old G1. Sniper Z87 mobo with a 4770K @ 4ghz with an RTX2080 in the top PCIe x16 slot of which it has 2, the 2nd drops to 8x when populated with a 2nd graphics card, also a few x1 slots.

I'm looking at the Samsung 970 evo M.2 as the lead candidate right now.

My question is will using a M.2 adapter 4x have a significant impact on my graphical performance?
Is it worth such a hit for the faster loads in games/apps/windows in general or is it such a tiny hit that I won't really notice?
System doesn't struggle with anything I play except that tech demo star cit (realistic dreamer).

Long term goal is a new build but that's still in the planning stage so I'm making do with parts I can take with me to the new build later in the year (M.2 drive being one of them).

troops · 3 Jun 2019 at 20:05

From my experience with a Z97 board and M.2 adapter 4x the board was supposedly NVME m.2 compatible but it wasn't recognised in bios till i modded the gigabyte bios

End Creditz · 3 Jun 2019 at 23:27

I'll have to dig around as not something I've ever attempted before.

adrichardson81 · 9 Jun 2019 at 13:26

In terms of graphics performance you won't notice the hit. I'm doing the same with my current build as my 2nd m.2 slot is 2.0 not 3.0.

BIOS wise, you'll need to see if yours supports booting from a pcie slot. Some z87 boards had updates to support it but some didn't. If it doesn't have boot support, you might be able to mod the bios (which is what I did with my Maximus).

adrichardson81 · 9 Jun 2019 at 13:29

(duplicate)

End Creditz · 9 Jun 2019 at 15:52

Drives up and running and yes, not noticing any hit to performance. I've yet to set it up as a boot drive just stuck all my games and some video files I was editing onto it. Cheers for replies.