This should answer your questions > http://www.velocitymicro.com/blog/nvme-vs-m-2-vs-sata-whats-the-difference/
 

evgaftw
The manual makes it sound like the M.2 slots are pulling from the SATA bus, in which case I would only get 500mb/s vs advertise 3200mb/s per M.2. I cant imagine why anyone would spend 100% more on a M.2 when it would only match the performance of a reg SSD attached to SATA.
 
What do these pull from? The CPU? The PCH? and if from the PCH, is it PCE v3.0?
 
If what I have been told is correct, and the M.2's are victim to the SATA bus, what EVGA board out there will allow me to get maximum performance out of these?
 
Thanks for the assistance.
 
S

even though it pulls two sata ports a nvme drive will work at full speed, it also grabs two pcie x1 slots. my samsung 960 evo  is in slot 2 (bottom one ) and it hits 3100MB writes and 2100MB reads,  if you use a sata based m.2 ( two notches in the gold finger ) then you still lose the two sata ports but not the two pcie x1 slots and it will run at normal sata 3 speed. you can not RAID them. 

owwillis
I have just 1 Samsung 950 EVO NVME in the bottom slot and it runs at full top speed.  Can I move it to top slot and achieve the same speed while getting my 2 intel SATA ports back?  I don't like using the Marvell SATA ports? I will never use the U.2 port.

Yes. All the sata ports on the z270 classified k are Intel. There are no Marvell sata ports on the z270 classified k.

gotta an older nvme some pny one It's like 2000mb read and a 1000mb writes...not the fastest one but respectable, the Samsung stuff is a little faster. Highly doubt it's bottlenecking anything though...that's still pretty fasttt.

I understand all that. But I’m asking will the top m.2 slot give me the same speed I’m getting from the bottom slot with my single NVME Samsung EVO. For some reason when I first installed it a year ago, I chose the bottom slot because I thought that’s the only spot for a NVME speed capable drive. I thought the top slot was for a SATA based M.2 drive. Fast forward a year later and I’ve had to add a couple more hard drives to Sata ports because of my Steam Library growing. Had to put these in the Marvell ports because I can’t use 2 of the Intel ports. I want to move my Nvme drive to top slot and regain all 4 intel sata ports but not at the cost of slowing down my Nvme drive. This way I can disable Marvell in Bios and speed up boot time. I hope I’ve explained this well enough this time. Yes I have a manual and have read it but it only says M.2 drives. Not all M.2 drives are NVME speed.

owwillis
I understand all that. But I’m asking will the top m.2 slot give me the same speed I’m getting from the bottom slot with my single NVME Samsung EVO. For some reason when I first installed it a year ago, I chose the bottom slot because I thought that’s the only spot for a NVME speed capable drive. I thought the top slot was for a SATA based M.2 drive. Fast forward a year later and I’ve had to add a couple more hard drives to Sata ports because of my Steam Library growing. Had to put these in the Marvell ports because I can’t use 2 of the Intel ports. I want to move my Nvme drive to top slot and regain all 4 intel sata ports but not at the cost of slowing down my Nvme drive. This way I can disable Marvell in Bios and speed up boot time. I hope I’ve explained this well enough this time. Yes I have a manual and have read it but it only says M.2 drives. Not all M.2 drives are NVME speed.

yes you will get the same speed, the 4 pcie lanes come from the z270 chip just like the lower slot. here is mine in the upper slot and it runs the exact same I/O and speed as when in the lower. notice how much faster it is compared to a intel 600p nvme, when i flip them in the m.2 slots i get the same speeds

Thanks for the help. I will move it to the top slot and get my 2 Intel ports back. I have real bad Arthritis in my hands, so I wanted to make sure before trying it. I think I put it the bottom slot because of temp concerns. But temps on everything haven’t been worth worrying about at all so it should be fine in the top slot. Thanks again!

depending on case cooling and video card type you may see no temperature problems putting the M.2 in the top slot with no extra cooling action.
 
on both EVGA  Z270 and Z370 builds I was ok ( used AIDA64 and Samsung Magician SMART data to check)
 
Just a short insert from Tom's hardware.
 
NVMe:  is a new communications protocol that allows for faster data transfers than before, especially with high end SSDs. It is actually a replacement to AHCI protocol which had been a replacement to the IDE protocol.
 
M.2: A new form factor slot on the motherboard for smaller SSDs. It can have SATA and/or PCIe lanes going to the slot.

batboy88

Cordorb
depending on case cooling and video card type you may see no temperature problems putting the M.2 in the top slot with no extra cooling action.
 
on both EVGA  Z270 and Z370 builds I was ok ( used AIDA64 and Samsung Magician SMART data to check)
 
Just a short insert from Tom's hardware.
 
NVMe:  is a new communications protocol that allows for faster data transfers than before, especially with high end SSDs. It is actually a replacement to AHCI protocol which had been a replacement to the IDE protocol.
 
M.2: A new form factor slot on the motherboard for smaller SSDs. It can have SATA and/or PCIe lanes going to the slot.

Yeah one of the drive temps said it was 102c...I think that's error though or wrong...think the first one is right 40-60c...

60 is still pretty high, they start to throttle around 70

quadlatte

batboy88

Cordorb
depending on case cooling and video card type you may see no temperature problems putting the M.2 in the top slot with no extra cooling action.
 
on both EVGA  Z270 and Z370 builds I was ok ( used AIDA64 and Samsung Magician SMART data to check)
 
Just a short insert from Tom's hardware.
 
NVMe:  is a new communications protocol that allows for faster data transfers than before, especially with high end SSDs. It is actually a replacement to AHCI protocol which had been a replacement to the IDE protocol.
 
M.2: A new form factor slot on the motherboard for smaller SSDs. It can have SATA and/or PCIe lanes going to the slot.

Yeah one of the drive temps said it was 102c...I think that's error though or wrong...think the first one is right 40-60c...

60 is still pretty high, they start to throttle around 70

Why I put the PNY in the Bottom slot hoping it would run cooler...the Top slot is literally right underneath the GPU and probably less air flow...but yeah that first Temp Sensor says it gets into the 60c's.