Greetings, as I do not know if it is appropriate for me to post here or start a new one relating to this topic subjectively.
Attached are two PNG’s CrystalMark Disk tests for Seagate FireCuda SSD M.2 and Samsung 980 SSD M.2 respectively. Samsung is the first one and Seagate is the second one.
I am searching for the best known drivers for NVMe specifically.
I currently have three differenct NVMe Storage units as follows:
1 Seagate FireCuda 530 SSD M.2 1TB for the CPU
2 Samsung 980 SSD M.2 1TB (Not Pro) in the secondary slot
3 Western Digitial WD SN570 Blue 500GB in the third slot.
OS: Windows 11 Pro and Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview
Since having different manufacturers of NVMe is terrible to begin with, I had to resort to using, either Intel NVMe Controller driver or the Standard NVMe Controller Express of which for the Seagate FireCuda performs better.
I installed the Community NVMe for Samsung and it works well for Samsung and WD but not for FireCuda.
I was reading through this post here and found that another person here has the Micron NVMe Controller driver, which I looked for here and other places on the web but my search fell short of obtaining one. I don’t know what it’s called originally and where to obtain it. Searched Micron site but no luck.
The second choice was the Phison, had no luck obtaining.
One of the tests I noticed a great difference in was between Intel Chipset and AMD Chipset. Where the Same NVMe Samsung 980 Pro had better performance on the AMD chipset as far as the CrystalMark test. Convinced me that AMD X590 or X580 Chipset is way better in performance for NVMe drives.
I would greatly appreciate any assistance in obtaining very good drivers.
The Seagate (peak of 7300) is a PCIe4.0 NVMe and its connect to the CPU, so has way more speed than the PCIe3.0 Samsung and WD (Blue PCIe M.2 SATA/NVMe?!?..) connected to the PCH…i see no surprise here, the readings for the Samsung as PCIe 3.0 (3500/3000) are in the numbers.
I dont think you’ll get much more of the PCIe3.0 drives…
EDIT: Weren’t you looking for Micron drivers? Now you want to mix even more on your system…
Sorry…i must be really bad on my eyes…where is the JMicron NVMe on pointed link? I see some JMicron RAID…im not aware of any JMicron NVMe drivers for GEN4…
Apologies, I did but, I have all this browser security running and may have blocked it.
Edit 1:
Apologies about that, not interested in spreading someone’s snooping software, goes both ways.
Edit 2:
Thank you again. I was looking for this specifically and had lost it. Thank you MeatWar!
Edit 3:
MeatWar, question, what driver would you recommend?
Are the outdated JMicron NVMe drivers able to deliver for newer PCIe 4?
Edit by Fernando:
The 4 separate posts were merged by me (to save space and for better readability)
This the portion for it just below where the Raid ones are (>source<):
The Seagate FireCuda incorporates if I understand this correctly the Phison E18 Controller, Micron and and some other, it’s like a smorgasbord of on this stick.
Of which Seagate formatted somehow. There was quite a bit of jig jagging in the write up to which one is left a bit confused.
I would say to use for now the Standard NVMe Controller Express on Windows 11, as it should handle Gen 4 if Windows is updated. I haven’t found a Gen 4 driver of which I know of. I was hoping the JMicron v2.1.19.0 is, but not sure since there is no info saying it is.
I would like to find a Phison NVMe driver for the new E18 controller that is on the Seagate FIreCuda 530. I’m not sure why drivers for this M.2 are not up on the Seagate site or even Phison for that matter to go with the new controller. Kind of defeats the purpose.
Edit by Fernando: Quoted text marked as being quoted
@stumanchu
You obviously confused JMicron with Micron.
JMicron and Micron are completely different manufacturers of different Storage Controllers. Only Micron is offering NVMe Controllers and NVMe drivers.]
Here is my late answer (unfortunately I missed your question):
In January 2022 I tested the Intel RST NVMe driver v17.11.0.1000 dated 09/30/2021, because it was the latest Intel RST driver at that time.
The NVMe performance of the v19 platform Intel RST drivers cannot be tested, because none of them supports NVMe.
Today I have done some new NVMe benchmark comparison tests with my X570 chipset PC running Win11 v22H2 and this time I have included the latest v17 and v18 platform Intel RST drivers v17.11.3.1007 and v18.37.4.1007. The results are below.
@all
As an update of the start post I have done today some new benchmark comparison tests with my AMD X570 PC by using a rather similar configuration.
Test system: AMD X570 chipset PC (with Ryzen 5 5600X CPU + PCIe 4.0 support) running Win11 x64 Pro v22H2 Build 22621.900, freshly installed onto a 1 TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD.
These were the drivers I have tested now:
Microsoft’s generic Win11 in-box NVMe driver v10.0.22621.755 named STORNVME.SYS dated 11/10/2022 (the shown date is wrong)
Samsung’s NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003 WHQL dated 01/21/2020 (installation had to be forced)
Micron’s NVMe driver v2.1.18.0 WHQL dated 03/02/2021 (installation had to be forced)
Intel’s RST NVMe driver v17.11.3.1007 WHQL dated 09/30/2022 (installation had to be forced, matching are the iaStorAC.inf file and the device “Intel(R) NVMe Controller”)
Intel’s RST NVMe driver v18.37.4.1007 WHQL dated 06/08/2022 (installation had to be forced, matching are the iaStorAC.inf file and the device “Intel(R) NVMe Controller”)
Here are the benchmark results I got:
(left/upper Pic: generic MS in-box NVMe driver, right/lower Pic: Samsung’s specific NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003)
All 6 tested drivers could be installed and used without any problems. They gave my AMD X570 PC the expected very good benchmark numbers.
The overall performance of all tested drivers seems to be rather similar, but there are noticeable differences between the upper 2 “Sequential” (SEC) and the lower 2 “Random” (RND) Read/Write results, if you compare them between the respectively in-use NVMe driver.
Among my test candidates the MS and Samsung NVMe drivers gave my AMD system the worst Sequential Read/Write numbers, whereas the Intel ones were the worst regarding the Random Read/Write numbers.
So the choice of the best performing NVMe driver depends on what the user needs/prefers for his/her PC work.
If there should be interest in similar tests with an Intel Z170 PC, please let me know it.
@Dekal
All NVMe drivers, which are listed within the first post of this thread, are compatible with the NVMe Controller of the Samsung 990 Pro SSD, but the big majority of them can only be used after having forced the installation.
Here are the benchmark results I got with my AMD X570 chipset mainboard after having installed the Micron NVMe driver v2.1.19.0:
You have everything in place for PCIe 4.0 support (as I wrote in the other thread). Is your BIOS (Gen3 - Gen4) set correctly? Could there be a PCIe lane conflict?
It was removed on later updates by new AMD AGESA implementation, what do you want mod if you cant touch the AGESA firmware.
I see no reports on latest bios versions that even with a Ryzen 5000, that the B450 will support Gen4 PCIe or M.2 PCIe Gen4.
So your stuck with a Gen4 NVMe in @ Gen3 bandwidth, the CrystalDiskMark bench numbers are correct in performance.
@westlake The publication in TOM’s is back from 2019 and no timestamp on the EDITs on that post… so for all that matters all that info on the subject suggests that was only high speculation during that period, my opinion only.
Sorry, but I still don’t understand why PCIe 4.0 shouldn’t work with your configuration. The linked article doesn’t describe anything like that, in fact it says it works.
That’s all I can add to the topic. Nowhere have I seen any comments that PCIe 4.0 is generally disabled in new BIOSes for cheaper PCHs. It is odd, though, that within a given line (e.g. B450) it works with some motherboards and not with others. Anyway, this topic is not relevant here, there is another topic for it.
In addition to my knowledge that PCIe 4.0 does not work with this mainboard when using the latest BIOS version, further statements from users of the mainboards with B450 and x470 can be found on the net, which suggest that PCIe 4.0 with the newer BIOS versions versions was really switched off again. This can also be read from the text.
Quote1:
Users today may find a PCIe 4.0 option available in their pre-X570 motherboards. However, users should expect this option to be disabled when final retail BIOSes are released to implement full performance and stability for new 3rd Gen Ryzen processors.As pre-X570 motherboards were not designed with PCIe 4.0 in mind, their designs may be incapable of running PCIe 4.0 signaling with the requisite stability and performance. To ensure a reliable and consistent experience in the field, PCIe 4.0 will not be an option ultimately available to pre-X570 motherboards. Users may continue with a beta BIOS if they desire, but performance and stability cannot be guaranteed.
I haven’t seen this said beta BIOS until today. Even a request from Asus for such a BIOS has not been successful so far.
Quote2:
Edit: These BIOS revisions will likely be used widely to unlock PCIe 4.0 on these motherboards, but to retain that functionality, you will not be able to update to newer firmwares in the future that lock out support. That means you’ll eventually lose out on the performance-boosting BIOS updates that AMD is known for.
These statements are very speculative. But there is also a direct answer from AMD on the net, which clearly proves that PCIe 4.0 has been deactivated again for these chipsets.
@Dekal
Thank you very much for your quick reply. Your information was very important for me, because I hadn’t yet realized this specific CDM “Settings” option for tests with an NVMe SSD.
As a result of your useful post I have instantly done some new CDM tests with my Samsung 990 Pro and got nearly unbelievable results:
Maybe I should do some new performance comparison tests with the optimized CDM settings.
