Gen 3.0 SSD compatible with Gen 2.0 M.2 port
Gen 3.0 SSD compatible with Gen 2.0 M.2 port
Hi everyone, I checked online but didn’t find a clear match. For your MAXIMUS VI GENe board, the manual mentions an M.2 slot with a specific type: 1 x m.2 (NGFF) Socket 2 on mPCIe Combo II card. It supports PCIe 2.0 x1 and SATA 6Gb/s. You’re looking for an SSD that uses PCIe Gen 3.0 ×4 and NVMe 1.3 interfaces. Based on what you described, it seems compatible with a Gen 3 SSD, but the speed will be limited by the M.2 slot’s capabilities rather than the SSD itself. Make sure the SSD matches the physical dimensions (22mm x 42mm) and that your system supports the required interface. Let me know if you need help finding the right model! Thanks!!
PCIE 2.0 can operate at around 500MB per second, matching SATA's performance. You might try a PCIE/NVME SSD, though it could cap its speed. It doesn’t seem very useful in my view (and I’m not sure about Z87 booting from NVMe).
I connect my X58 board through USB using DUET, and sometimes there are pre-built UEFI firmware versions that include NVMe support. I also use a PCI-E port for an M.2 adapter. If you don’t have other cards installed, at most it splits the 16 lanes into two 8-port configurations, similar to SLI, giving you full performance on the drive. In the worst scenario, you might not be able to boot or use it as a storage device. This makes entry-level QLC drives more appealing. I achieve around 1700/1700 R/W with my 1TB XPG SX8200 Pro, benefiting from full random speeds and noticeable speed improvements over my previous 128GB SM951. High-end SATA drives aren’t worth it when NVMe is similarly priced.
You can utilize one of the PCIE 3.0x16 ports and will need to adjust the BIOS settings. I possess the identical board, and I've updated the BIOS—now it works perfectly with the 970 EVO Plus 1TB, 32GB Kingston HyperX Fury Blue I7 4770K, and the old GPU xfx radeon 7850 Ghost 2GB still functions well!
NVMe still provides multithreaded access, while SATA operates as a single-threaded queue. It’s improbable your board can boot from such a device, so proceed with caution.
Here it is and the M6G.zip file is what I used after flashing the BIOS. You need to adjust some BIOS settings, which I had to check at home before it worked. Once done, it booted straight into Windows 10 from a USB drive and recognized the NVMe 1TB card perfectly. I ran a crystal disk test and everything was correct.