I'm planning to set up a new build with a 2TB 990 Pro and a 2TB 980 Pro SSD. The 990 Pro will be placed in the M2 bay connected directly to the CPU for my OS and games, while the 980 Pro will go in a bay routed through the chipset for additional storage. I'm curious about the speed and latency differences between SSDs connected via the CPU compared to those connected through the chipset, particularly for gaming on a Windows 11 PC. Is it worth investing in a motherboard with two CPU-only SSD slots instead of just one?
3 Answers
For everyday gaming, SSD placement generally doesn’t affect performance much. Most games are limited more by load times than speed, so unless you're running very specific workloads—like multiple virtual machines needing quick data access—having more CPU-connected bays may not be necessary.
For gaming, there's really no significant difference between CPU or chipset SSD performance. Even if you have dual CPU SSD bays, splitting the lanes might limit your overall PCIe bandwidth. Plus, in practice, I don't know of many motherboards that even have multiple CPU-delegated SSD bays.
I appreciate the response!
The chipset does share some CPU lanes, and while it works fine for general use, you won't hit the advertised speeds of Gen 5 NVMe drives over a chipset connection. I opted for a motherboard with four native 5.0x4 M.2 NVMe slots because I frequently load large AI models and need maximum speed on all my drives. If you anticipate needing that level of performance, it’s worth prioritizing a motherboard with more direct CPU connections if you can swing it.
Thank you!
Thanks, appreciate the info!