M.2 SSD Performance

To measure M.2 performance we used the Plextor M6e M.2 2280 512GB SSD, an 80mm long M.2 card supported by all tested Z97 motherboards except EVGA's Z97 FTW.

The Plextor M6e M.2 2280 512GB provided similar performance of just over 300MB/s in our single large file copy test when using any one of the six supporting motherboards.

The program copy test saw the Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK and Asrock Z97 Extreme9 both max the Plextor M6e M.2 2280 512GB out at 260MB/s, while the MSI Z97 MPower Max AC hit 259MB/s. The Asus Z97-Pro WiFi/AC slipped to 255MB/s, while the Asus Z97-Pro WiFi/AC delivered just 241MB/s.

This time the Asrock Z97 Extreme9 and Extreme6 provided the weakest results using our game data while the Asus Z97-Pro WiFi/AC provided the strongest performance.

The PCMark 7 importing pictures results show all six Z97 motherboards delivering virtually the same performance.

Just 1MB/s seperated the slowest from the fastest motherboard in the PCMark 7 video editing test.

The Asrock Z97 Extreme9 enjoyed a slight performance edge in the PCMark 7 starting applications test, while all other tested Z97 motherboards delivered 145 to 146MB/s.

The Asrock Z97 Extreme9 also performed well in the PCMark 7 gaming test with 152MB/s with the rest delivering 145 to 148MB/s.

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