Asus ROG Maximus VII Impact

Azaran said:
I wonder if this would fit in an M1, and whether it would interfere with a radiator, given how far those daughterboards project out from the mainboard.
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The height of the daughterboards shouldn't ever be a problem. From Anandtech, regarding the Impact VI (though this would apply to the VII as well):

AnandTech said:
The power delivery daughterboard is designed to be at a height in direct correlation with the RearIO, thus any case with that profile should accommodate the Impact.
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I'm not sure if the power delivery daughterboard causes incompatibility with some of the bulkier air coolers out there, but you'll be hitting the I/O with a radiator at about the same time that it would become an issue. Ditto for the audio daughterboard, which is actually a bit lower in height.

(Can't wait to get this for a build later in the year. Fingers crossed that there are more M.2 SSD's in the market by then :))
 
Since this Impact has only the single PCIe 16x slot and the mini-PCIe / M.2 combo slot, will I be able to fill all slots (GTX780 Ti, mini-PCIe wifi card and a PCIe 4x M.2 SSD) without any of them sharing / taking bandwidth from each other?
 
EDIT: confirmed by Anandtech the M.2 socket uses four PCIe 3.0 lanes from the PCIe 3.0 x16 slot.
 
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Hmmm... Poked around the Intel forums and it looks like the CPU has 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes while the chipset provides up to 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes.

Not sure how that translates overall though since all the onboard stuff (Ethernet, audio, onboard video, SATA controller) probably run off of those 8 lanes from the chipset.
 
16 PCIe Gen.3 lanes coming from CPU are dedicated to only PCIe slot (GPU). wifi, glan, sound, M.2 are all connected to PCH via 8 PCIe gen.2 lanes available there.
 
danij3l said:
16 PCIe Gen.3 lanes coming from CPU are dedicated to only PCIe slot (GPU). wifi, glan, sound, M.2 are all connected to PCH via 8 PCIe gen.2 lanes available there.
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If the specs are accurate, the M.2 is indeed using PCIe 2.0 lanes, not the 3.0 lanes. A mistake on my end, I assumed the info was still unknown like before.
EDIT: it is apparently wrong info, the M.2 does use the PCIe 3.0 lanes.
 
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Phuncz said:
If the specs are accurate, the M.2 is indeed using PCIe 2.0 lanes, not the 3.0 lanes. A mistake on my end, I assumed the info was still unknown like before.
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This is actually a great way for ASUS to do this, though. You don't compromise the PCIe slot, and you supply any M.2 SSD with 2GB/s of throughput - which is a performance ceiling that has yet to be breached (that I know of).

For those that don't need much local storage, but want it to be fast (*raises hand*), this is perfect. Plus you have the added bonus of eschewing SATA cables entirely, if you forgo an ODD. In fact, all of your components would be slotted or socketed into the motherboard! You'd literally only have to use cables for power and I/O.
 
I am moving my hackintosh build to a ROG board but thinking I might just stick with the VI as it's been around for about a year and hackintosh has been shown to work on it. Is there any compelling reason to wait for the VII outside of this? I'll be running a 4770 coupld SSDs and a big ass AMD graphics card.
 
If you are keeping your hackintosh, you can use the PCIe4 on the Impact VII to connect the two, for a storage server with 2GB/s connectivity.
Or, you can use the M.2 as a boot drive and get the same speed, while using the SATA ports for storage with RAID 0.1.5.10
 
PlayfulPhoenix said:
This is actually a great way for ASUS to do this, though. You don't compromise the PCIe slot, and you supply any M.2 SSD with 2GB/s of throughput - which is a performance ceiling that has yet to be breached (that I know of).

For those that don't need much local storage, but want it to be fast (*raises hand*), this is perfect. Plus you have the added bonus of eschewing SATA cables entirely, if you forgo an ODD. In fact, all of your components would be slotted or socketed into the motherboard! You'd literally only have to use cables for power and I/O.
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Do all M2 SSDs support PCIe x4?
 
No. Most use the SATA protocol, some use PCIe. And with the latter, some are connected with 2 lanes, some use 4 lanes. At the moment, the only PCIe 4x M.2 SSD available (actually it's OEM) is the Samsung XP941 and it's compatibility (detection and boot) is fuzzy.

I'd make sure to not just buy an M.2 like you would an mSATA or regular SATA SSD (expecting it to work I mean), because in many cases the compatibility and expectations will come up short. Be very very sure it is compatible (not only hardware, also your OS), check the connector key, check the type and check if it's SATA or PCIe. I've written more about it in the ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac topic but it's not complete. In the end there are many variables to check to make sure you aren't going to buy an incompatible product because it's so complex, that you better look for users who can confirm it works or the motherboard's QVL (Qualified Vendor List).
 
Most motherboards' UEFI / BIOS can't boot from the M.2 slot. Most manufacturers should be releasing UEFI / BIOS updates though that will let them boot from the slot.
 
While I hope they will, some might never release the UEFI updates for certain boards. As long as they haven't, it's basically a useless option. You'd choose M.2 because it is almost non-existant in size (it doesn't take any space in the case itself) and it ditches two cables. Also for the PCIe interface advantages ofcourse.

So it's a big deal for SFF users. But how it stands, this can only be used as a secondary drive, which just means you'd need another SSD to boot from.
 
Can you have the boot loader on a USB drive that boots the OS from an M.2 drive?
 
vipz said:
Can you have the boot loader on a USB drive that boots the OS from an M.2 drive?
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Possible, but Windows installer may not like that. It'd be easy in Linux, you could even install and run the OS from USB flash drive.
 
As far as I know, the booting problem is much less with MacOS X and Linux, where they only require the motherboard to allow the M.2 to boot, whereas Windows 7 and earlier don't seem to be able to boot from PCIe unless some specific boot ROM (correct ?) is implemented in the SSD.
 
Phuncz said:
While I hope they will, some might never release the UEFI updates for certain boards. As long as they haven't, it's basically a useless option. You'd choose M.2 because it is almost non-existant in size (it doesn't take any space in the case itself) and it ditches two cables. Also for the PCIe interface advantages ofcourse.

So it's a big deal for SFF users. But how it stands, this can only be used as a secondary drive, which just means you'd need another SSD to boot from.
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I can see ASUS, ASRock and probably GIGABYTE releasing updates for this. MSI is a maybe.
 
Waste of money the only real upgrade is the M.2 slot over IV it not worth upgrading to.
 
Phuncz said:
No. Most use the SATA protocol, some use PCIe. And with the latter, some are connected with 2 lanes, some use 4 lanes. At the moment, the only PCIe 4x M.2 SSD available (actually it's OEM) is the Samsung XP941 and it's compatibility (detection and boot) is fuzzy.

I'd make sure to not just buy an M.2 like you would an mSATA or regular SATA SSD (expecting it to work I mean), because in many cases the compatibility and expectations will come up short. Be very very sure it is compatible (not only hardware, also your OS), check the connector key, check the type and check if it's SATA or PCIe. I've written more about it in the ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac topic but it's not complete. In the end there are many variables to check to make sure you aren't going to buy an incompatible product because it's so complex, that you better look for users who can confirm it works or the motherboard's QVL (Qualified Vendor List).
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The CPU doesn't care what bus data is coming from, that's why we can boot from almost any peripheral component we want (floppy, lan, hdd, usb, etc).
PCIe is a bus, so if it is in the M.2 slot, it uses PCIe. All motherboards should recognize and boot from the drive in AHCI mode with the correct driver. Same idea as booting from a RAID0 array.
 
OverRated said:
Waste of money the only real upgrade is the M.2 slot over IV it not worth upgrading to.
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I assume you meant VI and not IV? If so, the VII gains the ability to use Broadwell once it comes out. Though they've released a firmware update to enable Devil's Canyon on the VI, I don't think it will ever be able to use Broadwell. It also adds M.2 as you said. I wouldn't discount M.2 so quickly, since it has the ability to be faster than a SATA SSD due to having additional bandwidth. To be fair, no released M.2 SSDs can use that extra bandwidth AFAIK. If you're buying new, the VII is the obvious choice. If you have the VI, there's no real point, I concur.
signalpuke said:
The CPU doesn't care what bus data is coming from, that's why we can boot from almost any peripheral component we want (floppy, lan, hdd, usb, etc).
PCIe is a bus, so if it is in the M.2 slot, it uses PCIe. All motherboards should recognize and boot from the drive in AHCI mode with the correct driver. Same idea as booting from a RAID0 array.
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I'd be careful saying the CPU doesn't care what bus data comes from. Different busses have different speeds and weirdness when it comes to drivers, particularly when you're talking about an on-die bus versus a chipset bus. Also, I'm not clear on the function of M.2 SSDs right now. They all seem to say "SATA" in their titles, which makes me think they're using SATA for the time being, not full PCIe. Could you help clarify?
 
Bobalias_LeShay said:
Also, I'm not clear on the function of M.2 SSDs right now. They all seem to say "SATA" in their titles, which makes me think they're using SATA for the time being, not full PCIe. Could you help clarify?
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M.2 can be used for SATA or native PCIe drives.

In case of SATA you get a 6Gb/s bandwidth and use of AHCI. This is pretty much just a way to save some space and reduce a cable clutter in SFF systems. Everything else remains the same.

In case of native PCIe drive you get a full PCIe bandwidth (2/4x Gen2/3) and use of NVMe. NVMe is new data storage spec designed for use with SSD connected directly to PCIe bus.

NVMe has a much less overhead and is much less CPU intensive and that is the real advantage over AHCI which was developed long time ago with HDD usage in mind.

Only advantage of M.2 SATA SSD is form factor.
 
signalpuke said:
The CPU doesn't care what bus data is coming from, that's why we can boot from almost any peripheral component we want (floppy, lan, hdd, usb, etc).
PCIe is a bus, so if it is in the M.2 slot, it uses PCIe. All motherboards should recognize and boot from the drive in AHCI mode with the correct driver. Same idea as booting from a RAID0 array.
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- I've had a motherboard that was not able to boot from SATA when it first launched, a revision later it was able to do that, same CPU and same motherboard.
- I've had atleast one motherboard that wasn't bootable from RAID0 because the controller lacked the Option ROM.
- I've had multiple of motherboards that weren't able to boot from USB even years after USB 2.0 was mainstream.
- without PXE support from your BIOS/UEFI, you can't boot from LAN, no matter how many features the CPU has.
- the CPU can deny booting from a device, but a motherboard's BIOS or UEFI is crucial in being able to boot from a device.
 
I believe that the first consumer PCIe drives will be AHCI based, not NVMe which should target enterprise.

At least that is how I interpret the Anandtech review of the XP941, and other information I have read about the topic.
 
Bobalias_LeShay said:
I assume you meant VI and not IV? If so, the VII gains the ability to use Broadwell once it comes out. Though they've released a firmware update to enable Devil's Canyon on the VI, I don't think it will ever be able to use Broadwell. It also adds M.2 as you said. I wouldn't discount M.2 so quickly, since it has the ability to be faster than a SATA SSD due to having additional bandwidth. To be fair, no released M.2 SSDs can use that extra bandwidth AFAIK. If you're buying new, the VII is the obvious choice. If you have the VI, there's no real point, I concur.
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It doesn't add a M.2 slot its just a higher spec, the VI had a M.2 slot which I'm using now and i wouldn't bother with broadwell on z97 because the next chipset after it will probably be DDR4. Ill be leaving my Impact and going DDR4 once X99 is out any ways, But yep its no upgrade for people that already have a Impact.


danij3l said:
M.2 can be used for SATA or native PCIe drives.

In case of SATA you get a 6Gb/s bandwidth and use of AHCI. This is pretty much just a way to save some space and reduce a cable clutter in SFF systems. Everything else remains the same.

In case of native PCIe drive you get a full PCIe bandwidth (2/4x Gen2/3) and use of NVMe. NVMe is new data storage spec designed for use with SSD connected directly to PCIe bus.

NVMe has a much less overhead and is much less CPU intensive and that is the real advantage over AHCI which was developed long time ago with HDD usage in mind.

Only advantage of M.2 SATA SSD is form factor.
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At the end of the day a M.2 SATA drive will out perform a normal SATA SSD and really M.2 has a long way to come seeing the fastest M.2 PCI-e 4x drive is not much better than 2 SSD's in RAID.
 
OverRated said:
At the end of the day a M.2 SATA drive will out perform a normal SATA SSD
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Can you link any benchmarks to back this up? An M.2 drive is hobbled by not being able to use the same number of channels as a full 2.5" SSD can - because there are only so many chips you can cram onto even a 2280 board - reducing the possible write speed due to the reduced parallelism.
 
EdZ said:
Can you link any benchmarks to back this up? An M.2 drive is hobbled by not being able to use the same number of channels as a full 2.5" SSD can - because there are only so many chips you can cram onto even a 2280 board - reducing the possible write speed due to the reduced parallelism.
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The Samsung XP941 takes advantage of the extra bandwidth.

In our most demanding storage test, the XP941 is just amazing. It's about 40% faster than any SATA 6Gbps drive we have tested, which is huge.
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http://www.anandtech.com/show/8006/samsung-ssd-xp941-review-the-pcie-era-is-here

AnandTech is down right now for maintenance but you can pull up the cached pages if you want to read the text (the graphs don't show up though).
 
EdZ said:
That's a PCI-E M.2 drive, not a SATA M.2 drive.
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You're correct, I hadn't read the whole thread and missed the debate on SATA M.2 vs PCIe M.2 but I don't think SATA vs PCIe matters for the parallelism issue.

If Samsung can get that much performance off the NAND chips they can fit on the XP941 I don't see why a SATA M.2 drive couldn't perform just as well as a 2.5" SSD.
 
EdZ said:
Can you link any benchmarks to back this up? An M.2 drive is hobbled by not being able to use the same number of channels as a full 2.5" SSD can - because there are only so many chips you can cram onto even a 2280 board - reducing the possible write speed due to the reduced parallelism.
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Well I'm only going of my own hardware and my M.2 i can't post any Single SSD scores because I'm not running any I'm only running a RAID, It all depends on the drive in the 1st place.

Crucial M500 480GB M.2 NGFF SATA SSD
Crucial_CT480_M500_SSD4_480_GB_1_GB_20140624_1717.png


2x Samsung 840 pro 256 SSD in RAID 0
Intel_Raid_0_Volume_512_GB_1_GB_20140613_2018.png
 
Bobalias_LeShay said:
I'd be careful saying the CPU doesn't care what bus data comes from. Different busses have different speeds and weirdness when it comes to drivers, particularly when you're talking about an on-die bus versus a chipset bus. Also, I'm not clear on the function of M.2 SSDs right now. They all seem to say "SATA" in their titles, which makes me think they're using SATA for the time being, not full PCIe. Could you help clarify?
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Wireless cards, SATA, USB, T-bolt, DP, ethernet, floppy, etc is all connected to the chipset via PCIe bus through controller chips. If the MoBo vendor supports the medium with drivers the bios can see, you can basically boot from it. Anyone boot from tape?

There are two different 'keys' on the TE connector for M.2 regarding SSDs. Key 'B' and key 'M'

Key 'B' supports SSDs, but only offers 2 lanes of PCIe 2.0 (500 MB/s per lane) while Key 'M' supports 4 lanes of PCIe 2.0 or up to almost 2GB/s, which is awesome.
Notice on the table in the TE ref guide, page 3, it states both of these keys are 'SATA'. That is because PCI-SIG, the group that defines the PCI standards, layed it out that way.



Phuncz said:
- I've had a motherboard that was not able to boot from SATA when it first launched, a revision later it was able to do that, same CPU and same motherboard.
- I've had atleast one motherboard that wasn't bootable from RAID0 because the controller lacked the Option ROM.
- I've had multiple of motherboards that weren't able to boot from USB even years after USB 2.0 was mainstream.
- without PXE support from your BIOS/UEFI, you can't boot from LAN, no matter how many features the CPU has.
- the CPU can deny booting from a device, but a motherboard's BIOS or UEFI is crucial in being able to boot from a device.
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What does any of that have to do with what I said?
I am sure this board will boot in all of the modes you had trouble with in the past, because the vendor (who provides the bios) states it will.

OverRated said:
It doesn't add a M.2 slot its just a higher spec, the VI had a M.2 slot which I'm using now and i wouldn't bother with broadwell on z97 because the next chipset after it will probably be DDR4. Ill be leaving my Impact and going DDR4 once X99 is out any ways, But yep its no upgrade for people that already have a Impact.

At the end of the day a M.2 SATA drive will out perform a normal SATA SSD and really M.2 has a long way to come seeing the fastest M.2 PCI-e 4x drive is not much better than 2 SSD's in RAID.
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A 'B' keyed SSD should perform about the same as two SATA3 SSDs in RAID0 so long as it is using both of the PCIe lanes. A combo card in that PCIe port may also cut the lanes available to the SSD down, just as adding a sound card on a motherboard might kill your SLI setup. There is a finite number of lanes, so depending on the board config from the vendor, and the use of expansion/combo cards, you may only have 1 PCIe 2.0 lane available.

Note: The SSD must be 'M' keyed only for the x4 lanes, if it is dual, or only 'B' keyed, it will only perform at x2 speed (1 GB/s).

Looking at the Impact, there are 6 USB 3.0, 4 SATA 3.0, and that leaves 8 lanes for the Combo card. It says 'x4 M.2' right on the picture, so we can assume the WiFi, Sound, LAN, and something else. All speculation unless we can see an actual diagram of the Impact chipset I/O.

FlexIO.png
 
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signalpuke said:
What does any of that have to do with what I said?
I am sure this board will boot in all of the modes you had trouble with in the past, because the vendor (who provides the bios) states it will.
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My point was that you were generalising. I've experienced it first-hand multiple times how a new type of connection or bus on a motherboard often doesn't allow you to boot from it.

You should read here why booting from PCIe SSD's via M.2 isn't as clear cut as you think it is: http://www.thessdreview.com/Forums/forum39/
 
Generalizing what the mobo vendor states their product can do? Isn't that what a spec sheet is?

Show me what you want me to see in that forum, because it doesn't look like people are having issues once they install everything correctly. Like I said before, treat the drive like you would a RAID0 config when installing the OS, and it shouldn't be a problem.

Picture perfect. Use the Intel RST driver and you are good to go ;)

index.php
 
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signalpuke said:
Generalizing what the mobo vendor states their product can do? Isn't that what a spec sheet is?
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Where on the spec sheet does it say it can boot from any PCIe M.2 device ?

signalpuke said:
Show me what you want me to see in that forum, because it doesn't look like people are having issues once they install everything correctly. Like I said before, treat the drive like you would a RAID0 config when installing the OS, and it shouldn't be a problem.
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The first few topics already mention the issue:

Unable to boot to Samsung XP941 with Asrock Z97 Extreme6
XP941 in an Asus Z97 Pro - Installed OS, but Not Bootable
XP941 + ASUS Z97I-PLUS = No boot

It's not just the RST drivers missing.

The problem is not that the drive is not recognized during install, the Samsung XP941 just doesn't have any code to boot by itself. Without specific motherboard firmware (updates) to address this, it can't boot. This isn't an issue isolated to the Samsung XP941.
 
I'm wondering if/when samsung/intel will release the NVME activation string, or better yet for intel to have it built into the chipset as a junction point.
 
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Phuncz said:
Where on the spec sheet does it say it can boot from any PCIe M.2 device ?

The first few topics already mention the issue:

Unable to boot to Samsung XP941 with Asrock Z97 Extreme6
Solution in post 7 http://www.thessdreview.com/Forums/...tra-2-windows-7-install.html?highlight=asrock
XP941 in an Asus Z97 Pro - Installed OS, but Not Bootable
First post http://www.thessdreview.com/Forums/samsung/3990-xp941-asus-z97-pro-installed-os-bootable.html
XP941 + ASUS Z97I-PLUS = No boot
Third post http://www.thessdreview.com/Forums/samsung/4035-xp941-asus-z97i-plus-boot.html

It's not just the RST drivers missing.

The problem is not that the drive is not recognized during install, the Samsung XP941 just doesn't have any code to boot by itself. Without specific motherboard firmware (updates) to address this, it can't boot. This isn't an issue isolated to the Samsung XP941.
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Does a HDD have a special code that allows you to boot from IDE/SATA?
 
I don't see anything regarding special code lol.
Ok, I'll try one more time.
-M.2 is the name of the interface.
-NGFF is the standard for the card, developed by the PCI-SIG, same group that wrote PCI/PCIe.
-All add-on cards use PCIe lanes (and sometimes connect to PCIe slots).
-In order to boot from a device, the BIOS needs to recognize it, the CPU doesn't care.
-The BIOS serves limited devices depending on chipset, board size, and vendor use of PCIe lanes.
-Some boards have integrated devices, such as SATA ports, USB ports, or LAN/WIFI. These integrated devices are either connected to the CPU directly or to the chipset, through PCIe lanes. The vendor either provides drivers for these, or they are part of the chipset (Intel drivers!).

Want RAID configured on your PC? You either need native support (intel) or an integrated solution from the vendor (Asrock) or you use an add-on card in a PCIe slot (LSI). Regardless of what route you go, you still need to create the array in such a way that the bios can see it. Luckily for us, Intel supports BOTH RAID and PCIe storage natively on the 9-series chipsets. Just go to their site and download the RST driver.
 
Was going to see if Intel had the instructions on their site, but I didn't even see the 9-series drivers. Regardless, first bullet point on the RST page:
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/rapid-storage-technology.html
PCIe.

Install is probably similar to this for migration of OS from old drive to new:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-029980.htm

Fresh installation is probably similar to this:
http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-021701.htm
 
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