cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

NGFF M.2 SSD in the Mpcie combo2 slot

cacnoff
Level 7
Regarding the NGFF combo connector on the Gene, Formula, and Extreme boards. Given the size of the NGFF drives that are being marketed toward fast storage speed are we going to see clearance issues with the motherboard heatsinks.

"http://rog.asus.com/238712013/country/rog-hq/this-is-why-ngff-is-the-best-choice-for-maximus-vi-moth..."

Even in that link it shows the ADATA 22x80mm drive but in the manuals for the mpcie combo ii connector it specifically mentions 22x42mm as the drive spec. Is this an oversight as all the performance m.2 ssd's will likely be 80mm long and will there be a driver provided/required for running a native pcie m.2 drive in the connector as I am looking at either dropping one of these ADATA drives or the samsung XP941 (both of which are native NVME/pcie) into my Maximus Vi gene.
43,905 Views
17 REPLIES 17

Praz
Level 13
cacnoff wrote:
Is this an oversight as all the performance m.2 ssd's will likely be 80mm long and will there be a driver provided/required for running a native pcie m.2 drive in the connector as I am looking at either dropping one of these ADATA drives or the samsung XP941 (both of which are native NVME/pcie) into my Maximus Vi gene.

When taking performance you are thinking SATA 6 Gb/s? If so the the Combo slot is connected by a single PCIe 2.0 lane. The performance will be similar as what is seen when using a SATA 6 Gb/s SSD on the onboard Marvell or ASMedia SATA 6 Gb/s controllers. Also when installing one of these drives one of the Intel onboard SATA 6 Gb/s ports will be disabled.

Praz wrote:
The performance will be similar as what is seen when using a SATA 6 Gb/s SSD on the onboard Marvell or ASMedia SATA 6 Gb/s controllers.
This new standard can pass the limitations of SATA III, i thought the idea was to have a faster ssd, but what you are implying is that it will be like running an ssd on a subpar port like Asmedia/Marvel. If this is true, then why even create it, i though it was innovation from ASUS given their ROG users first dibs on new faster tech than anyone else, but if its design to be a subpar interface that wont deliver what others M.2 ssd platforms will ofer.... then i think was a waste of resources. Personally i was keeping my eyes for the new intel 530s and samsung 941, and others that will release this new format to add it to my gene VI, but now idk if I should.

Abula wrote:
This new standard can pass the limitations of SATA III

Yes if used with PCIe 3.0. The board specs state the expansion slot is PCIe 2.0 x1 which will limit bandwidth to less than 6Gb/s.

Praz wrote:
Yes if used with PCIe 3.0. The board specs state the expansion slot is PCIe 2.0 x1 which will limit bandwidth to less than 6Gb/s.
Thank you for the info, really appriciate the confirmation. Personally dissapointed on this, as i was looking foward to having a faster ssd without committing to raid. I guess ill have to wait for Skylake GENE VIII and sata express 😃

Abula wrote:
Thank you for the info, really appriciate the confirmation.

You're welcome. 🙂

JimmyH
Level 10
I don't think it's an oversight at all. The card specs have to be 22mmX42mm. I don't think it was made for a performance SSD, the ADATA drives for those specs only go to 64 GB, besides, ASUS just released their http://www.asus.com/Storage/RAIDR_Express_PCIe_SSD/

JimmyH wrote:
I don't think it's an oversight at all. The card specs have to be 22mmX42mm. I don't think it was made for a performance SSD, the ADATA drives for those specs only go to 64 GB, besides, ASUS just released their http://www.asus.com/Storage/RAIDR_Express_PCIe_SSD/


Yeah they have, and it's disappointing. You can get 2 120GB's here in Aus for half the price and get better read/writes in RAID0...hell with the right brand, you can get FOUR 120GB SSD's for less than the price of the RAIDR and have insane numbers.

Kibidongo
Level 7
Don't forget, the RAIDR Express is only PCIe 2.0 x2 also 🙂

Kibidongo wrote:
Don't forget, the RAIDR Express is only PCIe 2.0 x2 also 🙂

2 PCIe 2.0 lanes provides plenty of bandwidth for the advertized performance numbers of the RAIDR Express.