SSD PCIe compatible with my board?

[copelander]

I am running low on SSD space because I'm an idiot and didn't initially raid when I built this and I'm almost out of space. Wondering whether to just pick up a standard larger SSD or I'd spend a little extra on a SSD pcie if it's compatible on my board, then transfer it to my next build. I did a little searching but nothing turned up. I flashed bios for upgrade from GTX 480 to GTX 1070, but that bios is still 2 years old and could find nothing that says it supports SSD PCIe.



CASE: Raidmax Smilodon Extreme ATX-621WEB
MOBO: Gigabyte z-77x-UD3H
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1600 x 16GB (4x4)
VID: EVGA GTX 1070 FTW
CPU: i5 3570k 3.4 (4.2oc)
PSU: Antec TPQ 850w.
HD: OCZ Vertex 120GB SATA III x 2 (no RAID)
HD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
MON: HANS-G HG-281DPG 28" 3ms HDMI LCD
OS: Windows 7 Ultra 64bit

 

[don256us]

I looked up your MB and my opinion would be that the SSD PCIe card would work just fine for you. If you plug your new card into a PCIe x1 slot then you will not see any change on your graphics performance. If you plug it in to one of your PCIe x16 slots, then you will slow the other PCIe x16 so that both will be at x8. You still may not see a difference in graphics. This is according to page 8 of the manual.
http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-z77x-ud3h_e.pdf

The PCIe lanes for the graphics cards comes from the CPU and the PCIe lanes for the PCI2 x1 slots comes from the chipset.

 

[copelander]

Yeah, I know the top slot is the x 16, so I keep the VC there, but just wasn't sure whether the board was new enough or had proper updates to actually support the SSD pcie. But if it will support one, I think I'll go that route and then transfer it over for my next build.

 

[don256us]

The MB supports UEFI and that is what it takes to use a PCIe drive. For Windows 7, you will probably need to install a hotfix to make it work.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2990941#bookmark-prerequisite

This, of course depends on what type of PCIe drive you select. NVMe is apparently the general standard.

 

[habbajabba]

From what I read, as long as your bios is a version >3.x it should work fine. When I built my rig nvme's were too expensive. 850 evo msata's weren't even out yet and now they have the 960. Now they're cheap. I'll get one next year hopefully.

 

[Robert17]

I just installed an NVMe drive. In order for it to be used for a boot drive I had to upgrade from the Z87 chipset to Z97, otherwise I would have only been able to use it as a storage drive.