Optiplex 3060 NVMe SSD Only Works in PCIe 2.0 Mode?

Also, here is an image of what it states on the Intel RST desktop program:

I have tried everything possible to get this Optiplex 3060 working properly but no solution so far.

I have switched back and forth between RAID and AHCI, installed and updated drivers, disabled resources in the BIOS like SATA ports, wireless, USB, etc. to see if anything could free up some PCIe 3.0 lanes, but it's still the same terrible performance and unless Dell issues a fix the 3060 it's essentially a useless system for high-end PCIe 3 x4 SSDs.

And this is an 8th gen Intel system with a six-core, twelve-thread i7-8700... and it's running the SSD on a PCIe 2.0 bus??

What's really depressing is that had Dell properly noted the NVMe specifications as using the lower PCIe 2.0 speed I could have saved a LOT of wasted money, as I would have still upgraded the SSD, but I would have purchased a bargain-basement clearance model that only supports ancient PCI Express 2.0 instead of an expensive top-of-the line PCIe 3.0 x4 speedster, as my bandwidth is capped anyway.

The price gap is significant, like $60-$70 for a 512GB PCIe 2.0 vs $200 for a high-end 512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 with 3K read/write specs. At 1TB and higher, the price gap just gets bigger. Thanks Dell!

I have tried everything possible to get this Optiplex 3060 working properly but nothing so far.

I have switched back and forth between RAID and AHCI, installed and updated drivers, disabled resources in the BIOS like SATA ports, wireless, USB, etc. to see if anything could free up some PCIe 3.0 lanes, but it's still the same terrible performance and unless Dell issues a fix the 3060 it's essentially a useless system for high-end PCIe 3 x4 SSDs.

And this is an 8th gen Intel system with a six-core, twelve-thread i7-8700... and it's running the SSD on a PCIe 2.0 bus??

What's depressing is that had Dell properly noted the specifications at the lower PICe 2.0 I could have saved a LOT of wasted money, as I would have still upgrade the SSD, but I would have bought a bargain-basement clearance model that only supports ancient PCI Express 2.0 instead of an expensive top-of-the line PCIe 3.0 x4 speedster, as my bandwidth is capped anyway.

The gap is significant, like $60-$70 for a 512GB PCIe 2.0 vs $200 for a high-end 512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 with 3K read/write specs. At 1TB a higher, the price gap just gets bigger. Thanks Dell!

Whenever I buy anything from Dell, there is always a "tomato surprise" waiting for me, while I have never had this type of "never get the specs you pay for" issue with other brands. Sad.

I just got a call from a very nice gentleman at Dell outlining that this is a physical issue with a scaled-down chipset implementation and cannot be corrected by a BIOS update.

The PCIe storage data as presented in the 3060 user manual is incorrect and there is only a slow PCIe 2.0 bus available for the NVMe port.

Not good news, but at least now I can stop trying to get this to work, and get back to doing my job. Eventually I will sell this below-spec runt off and buy a real PCI 3.0 system, but for now at least we all have an answer to the problem, albeit a very disappointing one.

And in case anyone is wondering, yes, I did rip open a 3060 and yes, there seems to be a version of the H370 chipset inside, as identified by the proper SR405 s-spec on the chip itself.

So we did get an H370 chipset, we just didn't get a full implementation. Too bad, otherwise these 3060's would be killer systems with some upgrade potential - which is why this type of "product segmentation" is done - to keep buyers in their "price box".

The 3060 has fast CPU and DDR4 PCIe 3.0 bus speeds (benchmarks confirm this) combined with slow and ancient PCIe 2.0 bus speeds for system devices and hard drives. It's a good trick, as with the hardware available at the time the 3060 was released it would have been difficult to tell using SATA, and PCIe 2.0 x4 and 3.0 x2 drives.

And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for us meddling kids.

Same here man I could not get the full speed of my Nvme SSD M.2 card. 

Shame on DELL its writen in the spics sheet that it supprts Pcie x4

and were are off to the races! Just got in a Optiplex 3070. Exact same issue and of course support knows nothing about the problem! Dell is such a waste of a company! For the record I have opened up case # 996111981 with Dell for the same issue on the Optiplex 3070

I also own a fine z270 prime here, Asus.

and has 2 M.2 SDD slots and both full and fast.\

but this  also has limits if you use SATA ports that are shared,

even WIKI states this.

"Computer bus interfaces provided through the M.2 connector are PCI Express 3.0 (up to four lanes), Serial ATA 3.0, and USB 3.0 (a single logical port for each of the latter two)."

here is my page 1, Asus z270 prime page quote.

*1. The M.2_1 socket shares SATA_1 port when use M.2 SATA mode device. Adjust BIOS settings to use a SATA device.
*2. The M.2_2 socket shares SATA_56 ports when use M.2 PCIE mode device in X4 mode. Adjust BIOS settings to use M.2 PCIE devices in X4 mode.

a modern z270 ! has limits to, all mobo on earth do and not one maker on earth has 100% documentation on any mobo.

but some have better manuals, sure, like z270p has, (prime it is both in name and docs)

if you read all posts on this topic  you did not, i bet\

you'd see there are PCI slot , to M2. sharing, going on 

and to be fair dell does not document this well (but could be wrong there me) but we have told this story here endless. Im not going to your support page and 100 manuals to find this, ok> but it is here on the form over and over again.

you will get an answer MR Speedstep soon telling you those limits or do advanced search here.

M.2  and PCI limits.

the trick is simple IIRC  move SATA device to other ports. or try removing non GPU PCI cards

i think the fix is easy, IDK for sure, , but is a very common topic on dell upgrades, 

try to be patient all mobo on earth have limits, learn that and we can play.

ok>?

no PC stated at all just 3060 no size and no motherboard D/PN told. of it. 

0T0MHW?

mobo's matter ok? 

Optiplex 3070 is using the same intel h370 mainboard as its predecessor,3060, so it's suffering from the same issue. It's a botched hardware implementation by dell resulting in this limitation.

I had the same confusion because I bought Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250GB for my Optiplex 3060 SFF. (My configuration is i5 8500 with 16GB RAM). On checking the official documentation here https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/optiplex-3060-desktop_owners-manual4_en-us.pdf I can confirm that yes the PCI version for NVMe SSD is 2.0 x4 not 3.0 x4 as we all were expecting. That's the reason my SSD is bottlenecking at 1.7GBPS where as it can go upto 3.5GBPS easily.

Are you saying herein;

*2. The M.2_2 socket shares SATA_56 ports when use M.2 PCIE mode device in X4 mode. Adjust BIOS settings to use M.2 PCIE devices in X4 mode.

That there is a BIOS setting as above for X4 mode that will in turn support the higher performance of the high speed SSD's, such as the Samsung?

Thanks,

Gary

There is no such thing as BIOS MODE that adjusts PCI-E from X2 to X4 mode.

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln301626/how-to-distinguish-the-differences-between-m-2-cards?lang=en

M2 is a socket not a PCI-E mode.

B keyed M2 is SATA not PCI-E

M key only is pci-e.

Max thruput depends on whether or not its PCI-E 2.1 or 3.0 mode.

M.2 cards may include:

• A combination of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards
• A B & M keyed SSD that uses the SATA bus
• An M key only SSD that uses the PCIe bus
• A  SSD with four PCIe lanes (x4) in 2.1 mode or 3.0 mode.

PCI-E 2.0 is not compatible with NVME because it uses the older LINE CODE 8b/10b instead of the newer line code 128b/130b

These issues with PCI-E 3.0 line code and power and voltages and timing were being discussed as early as 2009.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/guide/pci-express3-phy-implementation-considerations-idf2009-presentation.pdf