Windows 10: What does the X4 mean in an M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 NVME drive?

I need to buy an adapter card to make use of an M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 NVME drive. The question I have is what does the X4 mean? The adapter card I am looking at can be used in a X4, X8 or X16 PCIe slot and they say I will get up to 32Gbps when it is plugged into a PCIe X16 slot. Is the X4 in the description of the NVME drive a minimum requirement and it will work better plugged into an X8 or X16 slot? *Confused

Ak

:)

 

PCIe Gen3 x4 m.2

I just need some quick help with storage terminology.

The title above: "PCIe Gen3 x4 m.2" - is that just a fancy way of saying NVMe?
I'm a bit confused.

And does it mean that the M.2 port uses 4 PCI lanes?

Thanks *Smile

 

Z170 era boards and M.2 2280 PCI-E 3.0 x4 NVME SSD; fully compatible??


Well, it does have:
- 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket, supports M Key type 2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)
That's actually NVMe so that and other fast drives like that will work at full speed. It would be a pity if not used as system drive.

 

does Samsung 960 EVO support Asus Z87 Deluxe Moth. with i7-4770k ?

Sorry, no. There are NVMe drives intended for regular PCI-E slots. The ones for servers may not be available at all in M.2.

Here's an example:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us...-aic-20nm.html

(First Intel consumer grade NVMe SSD. Interface is PCI-E X4, gen 3.)

The chipset and BIOS must support NVMe in order for that mode to function, even though you can insert such a card in older X4, X8, or X16 slots. I'm not sure, but I believe that an NVME SSD can operate on a non-NVMe board. I wouldn't be surprised if the performance loss was trivial (for non-server applications).

I'm not sure why you say that an M.2 Gen 3 X4 interface is faster than a regular PCI-E slot. They are the same (if Gen 3 X4). Same specs.

If you have the slots, a PCI-E NVMe card (not M.2) would be preferable if you intend to make heavy use of it. The cooling on the M.2 cards isn't the best, so thermal throttling may occur to keep the card from overheating.