Highpoint 7101A - PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP

[handheldgames]

can you detail?
I cant get over 3800Mb r/w with 4sm951 256

With 1 SM951 I could reach 2000 MB/sec read and 1200 MB/sec wtites in the 7101a.

I was limited to 3000 MB/s read/write with multiple SSDs because 7101a defaults to 2.5 gt/sec with 2-4 SSD’s in raid 0

Installing PCI Tools, I was able to use terminal to set speed of PCIe slot #2 to 5.0 gt/sec speed, enabling the PEX 8747 PLX to run at full speed until sleep or shutdown.

With 4 sm951s on the 7101a and the terminal fix, I was able to reach 6,000 MB/sec, matching the out of the box performance of the Amfeltec Squid I sold on eBay for $349.

Thank you very much for the information. I have a
Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 on the way. will make test and share!

As a boot disk for a 960 pro, you should get great performance for a single NVMe ssd without the need to use pci tools.

 

[nekton1]

I'm in two minds about spending $300+ for a 7101A on a MP3,1 but would like to test the dosdude1 NVMe boot-rom hack nevertheless. Is there a recommended cheaper non-RAID card (there seem to be many models) supporting one or two NVMe M.2 Samsung 960 blades that I could choose instead?

 

[handheldgames]

I'm in two minds about spending $300+ for a 7101A on a MP3,1 but would like to test the dosdude1 NVMe boot-rom hack nevertheless. Is there a recommended cheaper non-RAID card (there seem to be many models) supporting one or two NVMe M.2 Samsung 960 blades that I could choose instead?

Most adapters with PLX chips, with 2 - 4 slots, cost around $300-400. The SSD7101a is available on amazon for 275.00. You have to click on more offers starting at 275.00.

The Lycom DT-130 recently appeared on their website. It's a PCIe 3.0 card that should be cheaper than Amfeltec's offerings. The price is still unknown, along with Mac compatibility of the PLX chip. On it's best day, this adapter may hit 3000MB/Sec.

"Best & Easy Solution to install 2x Extremely High Performance Enterprise-Class PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe or PCIe-AHCI M.2 SSD on board for Enthusiast Gaming and Workstation User!"

FEATURES

• Dual PCIe-NVMe or PCIe-AHCI M.2 SSDs work in main board PCIe x8 bus slot
• PCI Express 3.0 x8 Lane Host adapter
• Supports PCIe Gen3 M.2 NGFF 80mm, 60mm, 42mm SSD

[doublepost=1531351957][/doublepost]On another note, I was wrong....
3000 MB/Sec is not the limit from a single SSD on the cMP.

 

[nekton1]

I don't live in the USA and that card is almost $500 here on Amazon. Even buying in the US and shipping here would put it at around $350.

HighPoint nvmessd Dedicated Raid Card Adapter RAID0/1 ssd7101 a – 1-5 1 Japanese authorized agent product

Price: ￥ 53,409 = US$490

Most adapters with PLX chips, with 2 - 4 slots, cost around $300-400. The SSD7101a is available on amazon for 275.00. You have to click on more offers starting at 275.00.

 

[bookemdano]

I'm really glad you mentioned the fan noise on the Highpoint. That's the only thing keeping me away (and I'm not skilled/ingenius enough to mod it). The Lycom should be silent.

 

[handheldgames]

I don't live in the USA and that card is almost $500 here on Amazon. Even buying in the US and shipping here would put it at around $350.

HighPoint nvmessd Dedicated Raid Card Adapter RAID0/1 ssd7101 a – 1-5 1 Japanese authorized agent product
Price: ￥ 53,409 = US$490

Sorry to hear card is cost prohibitive.

I'm really glad you mentioned the fan noise on the Highpoint. That's the only thing keeping me away (and I'm not skilled/ingenius enough to mod it). The Lycom should be silent.

My impressions on noise may be a bit overblown. With the 2009 Mac Pro placed like a desktop on the test bench, it's difficult to judge how 'loud' it will be in a normal position, under my desk. The noise is most evident with the side off, and when sitting with with the back of the Mac directly pointing directly at my head.

Ill initially sound meter & youtube a video of the ssd7101 noise a tomorrow to provide a better understanding of the audible impact to the silent office, without under the desk results as I had back surgery a month ago and the cMP is still too heave for me to move.

 

[blinds122000]

Like the look of the highpoint. Is it plug and play into the Mac Pro? Not looking for it to be a boot drive and would only be used for media

 

[handheldgames]

Like the look of the highpoint. Is it plug and play into the Mac Pro? Not looking for it to be a boot drive and would only be used for media

Testiing with a 2009-2012, out of the box, the SSD7101a can deliver up to a maximum of 3264 MB/sec reads and 2876 MB/Sec writes from a single SSD or multiple SSD's in a RAID 0*. (*I've liquidated the SM951's from the test bench on ebay so more raid testing is on hold until I find replacements). The 2008 cMP should deliver similar performance, it still needs to be tested. While others have found the 2008 is limited to 4000 MB/Sec, it was not with this card.

Using PCI Tools, a script can be setup to enable 5.0 GT/s speeds and > 6000MB/sec from a RAID.

 

[nekton1]

Going to have to try to find a cheaper board with PLX chip or an Amazon deal in 7101A I suppose.

There's is probably a business chance buying them at $275 in US and selling them at $800 in Japan—here's another place selling them for outrageous prices here:

Highpoint NVMeSSD専用RAIDカードアダプタ RAID0/1対応 SSD7101A-1 日本正規代理店品
JANコード/ISBNコード：0643653710119

レビューを投稿する

• 通常販売価格（税込）
  
  76,908 円 + 8% Tax

 

[handheldgames]

Going to have to try to find a cheaper board with PLX chip or an Amazon deal in 7101A I suppose.

There's is probably a business chance buying them at $275 in US and selling them at $800 in Japan—here's another place selling them for outrageous prices here:

Highpoint NVMeSSD専用RAIDカードアダプタ RAID0/1対応 SSD7101A-1 日本正規代理店品
JANコード/ISBNコード：0643653710119

レビューを投稿する

• 通常販売価格（税込）
  
  76,908 円 + 8% Tax

Searching ebay.... Deals can be found. This one sold June 16, 2016 for $201.50. It's also shows as the only one that's been sold on e-bay.

 

[nekton1]

Thanks Handheld Games—I'll keep a lookout at the regular places.

Searching ebay.... Deals can be found. This one sold June 16, 2016 for $201.50. It's also shows as the only one that's been sold on e-bay.
View attachment 770373

 

[TTAX]

First of all, big thanks to HandheldGames for making the great tutorial which lands us in the NVME territory
I have successfully installed Mojave in an NVME boot drive on a Mac Pro 3,1 I have used the Handheld Games tutorial in order to achieve the NVME support. Everything seems to be working just fine.
I share you my founds in order to help other who wants to make this upgrade to their Mac Pro 3,1 4,1 or 5,1.

NVME working as a boot drive

New APFS Boot option in systems preferences

I'm currently using a SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME of 250GB (Price 94€ in Spain Amazon)

And a PCI adapter of the brand JZLL that is cost around 14 dollars. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01JAR5SAA/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all the adapter claims to achieve up to 3300M/s in a PCI-E 4X

The card includes a heatsink (not installed yet) and what I think is a small fan connector on it (need to be tested)

What works after applying the NVMe boot support how-to guide for the Mac Pro 3,1 / 4,1 / 5,1

-You are able to boot from an NVME flash drive without a problem
-You are able to Format a drive in AFPS
-Able to install HIGH SIERRA in an AFPS flash drive
-Able to install Mojave on the NVME only in Mac OS Extended formatted drive


What is not working:

-I’m stuck in speeds of 740mb/ Write and 775mb/ Read (Yes it's a nice speed for a 10 years old Mac Pro, but I would like to know if it can go faster)

according to the website ssd.userbenchmark.com

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/200373/Samsung-SSD-960-EVO-250GB

The average read and write for the 960 Evo is Read 1,776 Mb/s and write 1,311mb/s

- it's not possible to install Mojave in an AFPS formatted NVME (HIGH SIERRA IS POSSIBLE, BUT IN MOJAVE GIVES ME THIS ERROR)

Hope that someone finds the info useful, also that I can get some help in the problems I'm having. Thanks in advance!

 

[tsialex]

- it's not possible to install Mojave in an AFPS formatted NVME (HIGH SIERRA IS POSSIBLE, BUT IN MOJAVE GIVES ME THIS ERROR)

Hope that someone finds the info useful, also that I can get some help in the problems I'm having. Thanks in advance!

Did you added the APFS patch to the BootROM? Dosdude1 did one app to do this: APFS ROM Patcher.zip

 

[w1z]

Rejoice MP3,1 owners!!

I am excitedly confirming the subject HighPoint card is able to negotiate an 8GT/s link speed on the Mac Pro 2008/3,1 with the card installed in slot 2 and with read speeds reaching max. 2305MB/s and write speeds reaching max. 1518MB/s on a Samsung 960 Evo 250GB NVMe SSD. I have the 970 Pro 1TB on order and it should be arriving next week - I am pretty sure this mac pro will easily surpass the 3000MB/s barrier.

I am also currently installing Mojave on the NVMe SSD and will share my findings on the NVMe/APFS ROM patch boot capabilities.

This is a great day!! More updates soon

 

[edgerider]

Rejoice MP3,1 owners!!

I am excitedly confirming the subject HighPoint card is able to negotiate an 8GT/s link speed on the Mac Pro 2008/3,1 with the card installed in slot 2 and with read speeds reaching max. 2305MB/s and write speeds reaching max. 1518MB/s on a Samsung 960 Evo 250GB NVMe SSD. I have the 970 Pro 1TB on order and it should be arriving next week - I am pretty sure this mac pro will easily surpass the 3000MB/s barrier.

I am also currently installing Mojave on the NVMe SSD and will share my findings on the NVMe/APFS ROM patch boot capabilities.

This is a great day!! More updates soon

so yes the high point is able to translate 4xgen3 in 16xgen1

this is sick!

 

[handheldgames]

First of all, big thanks to HandheldGames for making the great tutorial which lands us in the NVME territory
I have successfully installed Mojave in an NVME boot drive on a Mac Pro 3,1 I have used the Handheld Games tutorial in order to achieve the NVME support. Everything seems to be working just fine.
I share you my founds in order to help other who wants to make this upgrade to their Mac Pro 3,1 4,1 or 5,1.

NVME working as a boot drive

New APFS Boot option in systems preferences

I'm currently using a SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME of 250GB (Price 94€ in Spain Amazon)

And a PCI adapter of the brand JZLL that is cost around 14 dollars. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01JAR5SAA/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all the adapter claims to achieve up to 3300M/s in a PCI-E 4X

The card includes a heatsink (not installed yet) and what I think is a small fan connector on it (need to be tested)

What works after applying the NVMe boot support how-to guide for the Mac Pro 3,1 / 4,1 / 5,1

-You are able to boot from an NVME flash drive without a problem
-You are able to Format a drive in AFPS
-Able to install HIGH SIERRA in an AFPS flash drive
-Able to install Mojave on the NVME only in Mac OS Extended formatted drive


What is not working:

-I’m stuck in speeds of 740mb/ Write and 775mb/ Read (Yes it's a nice speed for a 10 years old Mac Pro, but I would like to know if it can go faster)

according to the website ssd.userbenchmark.com

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/200373/Samsung-SSD-960-EVO-250GB

The average read and write for the 960 Evo is Read 1,776 Mb/s and write 1,311mb/s

- it's not possible to install Mojave in an AFPS formatted NVME (HIGH SIERRA IS POSSIBLE, BUT IN MOJAVE GIVES ME THIS ERROR)

Hope that someone finds the info useful, also that I can get some help in the problems I'm having. Thanks in advance!

Attached is an archive PCI Tools with DirectHW.kext and Kext Drop for macOS that I compiled and use to enable 5.0 GT/sec performance on the Mac Pro.

Before PCI Tools can be used, DirectHW.kext must be installed using Kext Drop, with System Integrity Protection disabled.

After the 3,1 is booted, you can use PCI tools to increase PCIe 2.0 X16 slot#2 speed to 5.0 GT/sec.

The following terminal commands can be used to run setpci from their containing folder.
sudo ./setpci -s 00:7 CAP_EXP+30.w=2:F
sudo ./setpci -s 00:7 CAP_EXP+10.w=20:20

I'll be adding on to the step-by-step document.
[doublepost=1531507188][/doublepost]

Rejoice MP3,1 owners!!

I am excitedly confirming the subject HighPoint card is able to negotiate an 8GT/s link speed on the Mac Pro 2008/3,1 with the card installed in slot 2 and with read speeds reaching max. 2305MB/s and write speeds reaching max. 1518MB/s on a Samsung 960 Evo 250GB NVMe SSD. I have the 970 Pro 1TB on order and it should be arriving next week - I am pretty sure this mac pro will easily surpass the 3000MB/s barrier.

I am also currently installing Mojave on the NVMe SSD and will share my findings on the NVMe/APFS ROM patch boot capabilities.

This is a great day!! More updates soon

NICE!! The 970 PRO is a FAST SSD. I look forward to hearing how it works out. The 1TB 970 pro should deliver a decent boost in performance compared to your 960 Pro 256.

 

[w1z]

Managed to successfully install Mojave on the NVMe SSD with the system volume formatted to APFS and it booted right up!!

I am seriously in awe here ... dosdude1, gilles_polysoft, handheldgames, ASentientBot, jackluke, Badruzeus, parrotgeek1 and all those that contributed to making this possible, I really can't thank you enough and tip my hat to you all!! I can, however, show you my appreciation by making another round of donations

@dosdude1, I know you wanted this card but found it to be pricey so I'm knocking off and donating just over 25% of its listed price with BIMBOX ($275) on Amazon You've got mail!

@gilles_polysoft, @handheldgames, @ASentientBot, @jackluke, @Badruzeus and @parrotgeek1 - please share with me your paypal ids via pm or if you prefer sharing them through email, I can share with you my email address.

Edit: forgot to attach the screenshot

 

[nekton1]

Congratulations—I'm going down this route too when I can find a 7101A for less than a second mortgage.
Question for handheld games, does the PCIe speed increase stick between reboots, or does it require resetting after each boot. Just going to read the step-by-step document now.

 

[handheldgames]

Congratulations—I'm going down this route too when I can find a 7101A for less than a second mortgage.
Question for handheld games, does the PCIe speed increase stick between reboots, or does it require resetting after each boot. Just going to read the step-by-step document now.

YES, for performance > 3250 MB/sec, the 2 setpci commands need to be applied at startup and resume from sleep.

A .sh containing the 2 pcitools commands needs to be run at startup and resume from sleep. Using Automator, one can create an app that executes the .sh file, that can be set as a Login Item under user preferences.

A method to execute the script at resume from sleep needs to be researched.

Managed to successfully install Mojave on the NVMe SSD with the system volume formatted to APFS and it booted right up!!

I am seriously in awe here ... dosdude1, gilles_polysoft, handheldgames, ASentientBot, jackluke, Badruzeus, parrotgeek1 and all those that contributed to making this possible, I really can't thank you enough and tip my hat to you all!! I can, however, show you my appreciation by making another round of donations

@dosdude1, I know you wanted this card but found it to be pricey so I'm knocking off and donating just over 25% of its listed price with BIMBOX ($275) on Amazon You've got mail!

@gilles_polysoft, @handheldgames, @ASentientBot, @jackluke, @Badruzeus and @parrotgeek1 - please share with me your paypal ids via pm or if you prefer sharing them through email, I can share with you my email address.

Edit: forgot to attach the screenshot

Congrats on the success and THANK YOU!!

 

[nekton1]

Has anyone found the Lycom DT-130 for sale anywhere or know the price? I emailed the makers in Taiwan (just down the road from Japan) but nothing has come back after 3 days!
[doublepost=1531522654][/doublepost]Can I ask a stupid question?
The specs for the Mac Pro 3,1 show that slot #1 and slot #2 are PCIe Gen2 and this standard is already rated at 5 GT/s, so why run PCI tools to increase the speed to a speed that is already supported?
What am I not understanding here?
Thanks.

After the 3,1 is booted, you can use PCI tools to increase PCIe 2.0 X16 slot#2 speed to 5.0 GT/sec.

The following terminal commands can be used to run setpci from their containing folder.
sudo ./setpci -s 00:7 CAP_EXP+30.w=2:F
sudo ./setpci -s 00:7 CAP_EXP+10.w=20:20

 

[handheldgames]

Has anyone found the Lycom DT-130 for sale anywhere or know the price? I emailed the makers in Taiwan (just down the road from Japan) but nothing has come back after 3 days!

I’ve had the same response. Silence.

Considering there is a tech support email address available, we could report their sales team is non-responsive. Lol

--------------------

Highpoint released drivers for MacOS. Compatibility with the 2008-2012 mac pro was not considered in development. Fixes for our platform may come in a later release. Consider them experimental for our platform.

What works
- boots and restarts into mojave
- no longer uses Apple NVMe driver
- identifies as a HPT SSD7101-a PCI Device

What doesn't
- with startup disk for high sierra, only boots Mojave
- disk utility can't lock drive. No first aid
- 4k read performance is slower
- Web GUI tool cannot connect to driver. Interruption error

In the end I removed the HPT driver to revert back to Apple's NVMe drivers.

 

[w1z]

What doesn't
- with startup disk for high sierra, only boots Mojave
- disk utility can't lock drive. No first aid
- 4k read performance is slower
- Web GUI tool cannot connect to driver. Interruption error

In the end I removed the HPT driver to revert back to Apple's NVMe drivers.

I'll email HPT technical support and make a case for supporting 2008-2012 models and I recommend you do too. The more requests they get, the better the chances.

 

[handheldgames]

I'll email HPT technical support and make a case for supporting 2008-2012 models and I recommend you do too. The more requests they get, the better the chances.

I’ve been in back and forth communication with Highpoint Tech support for several weeks with countless emails. Unfortunately the drivers were ready for their first release at that time and fixes would have to happen in a later release.

The devs have a lot of info, as well as the link to this thread.

 

[TTAX]

Hello everyone, just to share a little bit more of the things I've found on the NVME land.
I was having the Error could not find APFS systems volume handle when installing Mojave OS on an APFS formatted Nvme.

After the suggestion of tsialex about the APFS patch to the BootROM. So I installed APFS patch BootROM in top of the already modified ROM for Nvme support.

Then, whenever I booted I only was getting the forbidden sing.

So I dumped the modified ROM, installed back the original ROM, and then apply the first the APFS patch BootROM and them the Nvme boot support ROM. Only then I was able to install and boot Mojave from an APFS formatted Nvme.
So if anyone here has encountered the same issue I suggest you try the same. (but remember to be careful when dealing with ROMS, your system could be bricked, whatever you do, is at your how risk)

The thing is that in the installation two volumes were created.

One where you install the OS, and another one called EFI. The problem is that the systems only boots when you chose the EFI Volume, and this Volume does not exist on the "Startup disk" utility. I try to choose it with the "bless" command, and nothing.

So, in the end, I had to press the alt key, every time to boot on Mojave AFPS Nvme. (Yes very annoying).

I decided to forget about the Nvme APFS boot drive for now and try something new.
So, I decided to make a FusionDrive with the Nvme and a mechanical drive connected in one of the 4 HDD bays. Install Mojave in a "Mac OS Extended" Volume and use it as my main system for a while to try to find bugs.

For my surprise, the speed still consistent. 720Mb/s Write and 750Mb/s Read. It's like if the mechanical drive doesn't exist at all, sometimes there are some speed drops in the writing speed but never under 630Mb/s. Reading never drops less than 730Mb/s.

Of course, as you can imagine the system is really fast like a new brand Mac.

Opposite to this, when I had done a FusionDrive with a Crucial SSD mounted in a PCI adapter 6Gb/s with a mechanical drive mounted in the same 6Gb/s card or in one of the 4 bays, the drop of speed was massive, sometimes to 160Mb/s it was always changing from 400Mb/s to 160Mb/s.
It was never consistent.

So I'm very happy with the discovery, will try to make a bigger FusionDrive like 2TB + the Nvme 250GB. Now I have a 750gb FusionDrive 500 HDD 250Nvme (This essentially means big fast storage for cheap, makes me kinda think on the optane modules of Intel )

I will be sharing my next test.
[doublepost=1531586430][/doublepost]

Did you added the APFS patch to the BootROM? Dosdude1 did one app to do this: APFS ROM Patcher.zip

Thanks for the help, just installed!
[doublepost=1531587158][/doublepost]

Attached is an archive PCI Tools with DirectHW.kext and Kext Drop for macOS that I compiled and use to enable 5.0 GT/sec performance on the Mac Pro.

Before PCI Tools can be used, DirectHW.kext must be installed using Kext Drop, with System Integrity Protection disabled.

After the 3,1 is booted, you can use PCI tools to increase PCIe 2.0 X16 slot#2 speed to 5.0 GT/sec.

The following terminal commands can be used to run setpci from their containing folder.
sudo ./setpci -s 00:7 CAP_EXP+30.w=2:F
sudo ./setpci -s 00:7 CAP_EXP+10.w=20:20

I'll be adding on to the step-by-step document.
[doublepost=1531507188][/doublepost]

NICE!! The 970 PRO is a FAST SSD. I look forward to hearing how it works out. The 1TB 970 pro should deliver a decent boost in performance compared to your 960 Pro 256.

Thank you very much! I tried yesterday to achieve the 5.0GT/sec. but for being honest after installing the kext I was lost. If it weren't for your guide I wouldn't even think about the Nvme support for the mac pro. So thanks again. If you could tell me what to do after the kext are installed would be great. This as far I can go

 

[handheldgames]

Hello everyone, just to share a little bit more of the things I've found on the NVME land.
I was having the Error could not find APFS systems volume handle when installing Mojave OS on an APFS formatted Nvme.

After the suggestion of tsialex about the APFS patch to the BootROM. So I installed APFS patch BootROM in top of the already modified ROM for Nvme support.

Then, whenever I booted I only was getting the forbidden sing.

So I dumped the modified ROM, installed back the original ROM, and then apply the first the APFS patch BootROM and them the Nvme boot support ROM. Only then I was able to install and boot Mojave from an APFS formatted Nvme.
So if anyone here has encountered the same issue I suggest you try the same. (but remember to be careful when dealing with ROMS, your system could be bricked, whatever you do, is at your how risk)

The thing is that in the installation two volumes were created.

One where you install the OS, and another one called EFI. The problem is that the systems only boots when you chose the EFI Volume, and this Volume does not exist on the "Startup disk" utility. I try to choose it with the "bless" command, and nothing.

So, in the end, I had to press the alt key, every time to boot on Mojave AFPS Nvme. (Yes very annoying).

I decided to forget about the Nvme APFS boot drive for now and try something new.
So, I decided to make a FusionDrive with the Nvme and a mechanical drive connected in one of the 4 HDD bays. Install Mojave in a "Mac OS Extended" Volume and use it as my main system for a while to try to find bugs.

For my surprise, the speed still consistent. 720Mb/s Write and 750Mb/s Read. It's like if the mechanical drive doesn't exist at all, sometimes there are some speed drops in the writing speed but never under 630Mb/s. Reading never drops less than 730Mb/s.

Of course, as you can imagine the system is really fast like a new brand Mac.

Opposite to this, when I had done a FusionDrive with a Crucial SSD mounted in a PCI adapter 6Gb/s with a mechanical drive mounted in the same 6Gb/s card or in one of the 4 bays, the drop of speed was massive, sometimes to 160Mb/s it was always changing from 400Mb/s to 160Mb/s.
It was never consistent.

So I'm very happy with the discovery, will try to make a bigger FusionDrive like 2TB + the Nvme 250GB. Now I have a 750gb FusionDrive 500 HDD 250Nvme (This essentially means big fast storage for cheap, makes me kinda think on the optane modules of Intel )

I will be sharing my next test.
[doublepost=1531586430][/doublepost]
Thanks for the help, just installed!
[doublepost=1531587158][/doublepost]
Thank you very much! I tried yesterday to achieve the 5.0GT/sec. but for being honest after installing the kext I was lost. If it weren't for your guide I wouldn't even think about the Nvme support for the mac pro. So thanks again. If you could tell me what to do after the kext are installed would be great. This as far I can go

The set of PCI tools initially posted is incomplete, attached is an updated copy I'm using in Mojave, that was compiled under High Sierra. This is still a work in progress

...picking up where DirectHW.kext was just installed

Unzip the attached zip, extracting a folder named opt.
open a terminal window within opt-> pciutils -> sbin

within terminal - 1st (setup the tools)
sudo nvram boot-args="debug=0x144"
sudo ./update-pciids

within terminal - 2nd (setup the slot speed)
sudo ./fast.sh 00:7

A successful speed change displays:
# Initial PCIe 1.0 x16
# Final PCIe 2.0 x16

Hopefully slot #2 should now be running at PCIe 2.0 - 5.0 GT/s. Note the PCI address of 00:7 is for slot #2 on a 2009 cMP. If you have the wrong address for the 2008, it can be looked up using the command below.

This can be used to provide a very verbose list of PCIe devices and their current speed.
sudo ./lspci -vv