Slow M.2?

G

Glayn

Member
Hi, so I've recently bought a PC from PC Specialist, which works perfectly by the way, but I've installed a Samsung 980 Pro and it seems incredibly slow, in that it's running read speeds of 6500mb/s compared to the 7200mb/s of an 870 QVO I also installed.

I was wondering if there was something in the BIOS I need to enable for the full PCIE 4.0.

The specs as I bought the PC are;

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE 7 BLACK QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i9 Eight-Core Processor i9-11900KF (3.5GHz) 16MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z590-E GAMING WIFI (LGA1200, USB 3.2, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 16GB)
Graphics Card
12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 Ti - HDMI, DP, LHR
1st Storage Drive
4TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Glayn said:
but I've installed a Samsung 980 Pro and it seems incredibly slow, in that it's running read speeds of 6500mb/s compared to the 7200mb/s of an 870 QVO I also installed.
Click to expand...
Firstly, the QVO is a SATA SSD, so it's only capable of maximum of 600mbs.

The Samsung 980 Pro is a gen 4 NVME card, which is an entirely different bus lane on the motherboard. That's capable of up to 7500mbs.

I'm guessing you're using something like CPUBenchmark or something to get those figures? If so, bin it, it's garbage and does no kind of systemic benchmarking, it's literally a garbage comparison tool.

So something is very wrong with whatever you're using to benchmark as the QVO can by no means reach anywhere near the speeds of the 980 Pro. What program are you using to benchmark? You really want to be using CrystalDiskMark Standard Edition:

CrystalDiskMark

About CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a simple disk benchmark software. Download Standard Edition Aoi Edition Shizuku Edition System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64 Key Features Important Notice -> FAQ Unit M...
crystalmark.info

Or Atto Disk Benchmark:

www.atto.com

Disk Benchmark for Windows Software | ATTO

Use the ATTO Disk Benchmark for Windows Software to test HBAs, hard drives, solid state drives, and hybrid drives. Free Windows download.
www.atto.com

Glayn said:
I was wondering if there was something in the BIOS I need to enable for the full PCIE 4.0.
Click to expand...
It's already enabled as PCIe 3 would be maxxed at 3500mbs, you're already seeing gen 4 speeds.

NVME drives vary in speeds depending on their sizes, what size do you have? The smaller the drive the slower it will be.

You can usually optimise Samsung drives by installing Samsung Magician which has a "boost" feature.
 
NoddyPirate

NoddyPirate

Grand Master
I was wondering if it was a typo in the OP's post when I saw the speeds for the 870 QVO!!

When it comes to the 980 PRO 6,500 is not that far off it's rated speed of 7k - and there a multitude of reasons why it might not perform exactly as advertised. A installed performance 5-10% less than it says on the box would be nothing to worry about at all and I'd consider it perfectly normal.

But as @SpyderTracks says, you need to figure out what's happening with your speed tests first and use something reliable before you start worrying about what you're seeing.....
 
NoddyPirate

NoddyPirate

Grand Master
Even the IOPS are reading mutliples of what Samsung say themselves for the 870.

I know it's a silly question, but are you sure you actually have an 870 QVO installed? Either Magician is misreading the model, or the speed, or both. But it's certainly not correct either way.

Try something recommended by ST above and report back!
 
NoddyPirate

NoddyPirate

Grand Master
What's the capacity of your 870 QVO? It shows as 3.3 GB there?

I think it might be testing multiple drives at the same time possibly.....
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
NoddyPirate said:
Yes but CrystalDiskMark is even further off the mark on the last image there.....
Click to expand...
Oh, really, sorry, completely missed that, let me read proper like ;)

Edit: OK, that's just plain odd.

I don't think there's anything wrong with your system, it's very possible it's actually Samsung Magician that's causing this, IIRC correctly, I've seen this before and it was due to that.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Ah, that was it.

Turn off Rapid Mode if you have it enabled on either of the drives in Samsung Magician.

What that does is actually acts as a RAM Disk, so caches to RAM and then out to the drive, it really confuses benchmark tools.

If you just temporarily disable it, do some benchmarks, then you should see the actual speeds.
 
NoddyPirate

NoddyPirate

Grand Master
SpyderTracks said:
Ah, that was it.

Turn off Rapid Mode if you have it enabled on either of the drives in Samsung Magician.

What that does is actually acts as a RAM Disk, so caches to RAM and then out to the drive, it really confuses benchmark tools.

If you just temporarily disable it, do some benchmarks, then you should see the actual speeds.
Click to expand...
Ah brillo - so it's taken an element of RAM speed in the mix then? That would explain a lot! (y)
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
NoddyPirate said:
Ah brillo - so it's taken an element of RAM speed in the mix then? That would explain a lot! (y)
Click to expand...
Exactly, I think it's reading the data transfer to RAM rather than the eventual write to the drive.

It's worth reenabling it once you've done your benchmarking as it can give some pretty sweet benefits.
 
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