Hey everyone! I'm building a new PC and I'm feeling a bit out of touch with the latest tech. I need some advice on the M.2 slots and PCIe 5.0 support on motherboards. From what I gather, most modern motherboards have 3-4 M.2 slots, but typically only one of those supports PCIe 5.0 while the rest are PCIe 4.0 or lower. Is that correct? I want to use the PCIe 5.0 slot for my main Windows boot drive and my most-played games to take advantage of the super fast read/write speeds. I'm considering using a second M.2 drive in a PCIe 4.0 slot for additional games and storage. For the 5.0 boot drive, I'm looking at the Samsung 9100 PRO Heatsink 1 TB. For the second drive, I'm torn between the Samsung 990 PRO 2 TB or the 990 EVO 2 TB. Are there any motherboards out there that can support multiple PCIe 5.0 slots? If so, I'd be interested in those, too. My budget for a motherboard is around $300. Thanks for your insights!
3 Answers
If you're looking for boards with multiple PCIe 5.0 slots, you might want to check out options like the X870E boards. For example, the X870E AORUS MASTER has several M.2 slots, but keep in mind that using those fast M.2 drives can lead to overheating issues. It's also good to note that a larger capacity SSD might perform better in real-world applications, so if you opt for the Samsung 990 series, pick the one that fits your capacity needs!
Honestly, tech has become so efficient recently that the performance differences between NVMe generations aren't that noticeable for most users. Unless you've come from a SATA drive, you probably don't need to splurge on PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Just get what's best for your wallet!
You're likely not even going to need the PCIe 5.0 speeds for regular gaming. Unless you're running a super high-performance application like a database server, PCIe 4.0 will be fast enough, and you won’t really notice the difference in day-to-day use. Load times might only differ by a few milliseconds!
Yeah, the heat sinks on some of these drives can be huge! Just make sure they won't block your GPU or CPU cooler.