1TB SM961 performance

[schwett]

i just did a refresh on my system to a 6950, asus x99-deluxe-ii, 64gb of ddr3200, and (the main reason i wanted to ugprade heh) an m.2 nvme SSD.

i ended up temporarily with an intel 600p - just because the SM961 didn't arrive on time and i only really had the weekend to build the system - so i ran CDMark on that under a bone stock install of win 10, and then on another completely fresh install after the 961 arrived. here are the results:

these numbers, particularly the sequential read for the SM961, seem much lower than other testers/users are seeing. (e.g. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18737235). any ideas?

it's plugged into the onboard m.2 x4 slot of the motherboard, and i don't have anything plugged into the pciex slots which shares with the m.2. (at least, not according to the asus manual.)

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

That speed looks like your M.2 slot is running with only two lanes or at PCI-e 2.0 speeds.

I had my 950 pro stuck around that speed because I had some bclk settings wrong and it was automatically reverting to PCI-e 2.0.

 

[schwett]

hmmmmm not sure what could be leading to that. i checked the BIOS and there don't seem to be any settings pushing it to X2. i manually set it to X4 and made sure again that nothing is in an overlapping card slot. just about the exact same results. also updated bios.

strange.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

If you want to fully rule out the possibility, you can download AIDA64 and view your drive under Storage -> Windows Storage and see how many lanes and what protocol it's running at.

To be honest, I'm not sure what else the problem would be.

 

[schwett]

thanks. i didn't see the pcie config there but it does show up a x4 elsewhere:

grrr!

 

[Redstorm]

If you have samsung magician installed it shows you the PCIe bus width and speed also.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

If you have samsung magician installed it shows you the PCIe bus width and speed also.

It doesn't work on the OEM versions of the drives like the PM/SM series. They are not recognized by the program.

 

[Redstorm]

It doesn't work on the OEM versions of the drives like the PM/SM series. They are not recognized by the program.

Forgot that we were talking about the SM961.

 

[schwett]

kind of annoying.

i installed samsung's NVMe driver and the results are exactly the same!

any other ideas?