Hey everyone! I just built a new PC and I'm using an MSI x870e edge motherboard with a 9800x3d processor and an RTX 5080 graphics card. I've transferred my old M.2 drives and now I have all three slots filled. I heard this might impact GPU performance and that it could drop from 16x to 8x. Is that true? The manual mentions potential lane issues, so any advice or insights would be super helpful. Thanks!
2 Answers
Are you sure you’ve got the x870e edge Ti model with four M.2 slots? Where are you seeing the lane limitations for your specific model? Just curious!
From what I've discovered, filling those M.2 slots shouldn't drop your GPU performance to 8x. You've got 16x for your GPU, and the only potential sharing issues happen between M2_2 and the USB 40Gbps Type-C ports since they share a PCIe 5.0 x4 link. Even if it did drop to 8x, you’d be looking at a negligible difference—often around 0-2%—so you're good! 🙂

I only saw three slots available when I was installing the M.2s, so that might be it.