Is a PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD worth using for both the OS and games?

Don’t assume every X870 board has the same layout. Some boards use lanes for USB 4, some split the graphics slot into x8 when multiple Gen 5 M.2 slots are populated, and others offer a second M.2 slot at reduced bandwidth. If you really want two full-speed Gen 5 drives, compare the board specifications carefully; otherwise, one fast drive plus a cheaper Gen 4 drive will work just as well for most people.

For gaming, Gen 4 is usually the sweet spot. PCIe 5.0 drives only reach their headline speeds in workloads such as transferring very large files between two equally fast drives. Game loading and everyday tasks rarely benefit much, and fast Gen 5 models may also run hotter and need a substantial heatsink. A good TLC-based Gen 4 SSD with plenty of capacity is often the sensible choice.

There’s no problem installing the operating system and games on the same SSD. The main reason not to buy a PCIe 5.0 drive is cost. Most games and normal desktop use won’t feel noticeably faster than on a good PCIe 4.0 drive, and even PCIe 3.0 can be perfectly adequate. If a Gen 4 model is considerably cheaper, it’s usually the better value.

The lane situation depends on the exact motherboard. AM5 boards can support a graphics card and multiple NVMe drives, but adding a second PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot may cause the main graphics slot to run at x8, share lanes with USB 4, or disable certain ports. Check the motherboard’s storage and PCIe lane diagram rather than relying only on the chipset name. In practice, an RTX 5080 running at PCIe 5.0 x8 generally performs about the same as at x16.