I'm in the process of building a new gaming PC and noticed an important note on PCPartPicker: it states that when using the M.2 slot M2_2 (M), the PCIe expansion slot PCIE_1 (x16) will operate at x8 mode. I'm going with the GIGABYTE X870E AORUS Elite motherboard and plan on getting two 2TB SSDs of the 5th generation. However, I'm a bit worried about losing around 50% performance based on what I've read online (though I think it's more like a 5% drop). To ensure optimal performance, I'm considering whether installing a 4th generation SSD in the other slot would solve this issue, or if I'm misinterpreting the situation. Any advice would be appreciated!
3 Answers
The simplest solution would be to use one NVMe SSD for your OS and essential software, and then go for a SATA 3 SSD for extra storage if you really need it. This way, you won't have to deal with sharing bandwidth or reduced performance.
If you're looking at the MSI MAG B850 Tomahawk Max WiFi instead, it has two Gen 5 M.2 slots that won’t share bandwidth with your GPU. Just keep in mind that unless you’re doing heavy video editing, Gen 3 SSDs can pretty much keep up with gaming performance. A single large SSD can handle all your gaming needs well enough too!
You're correct about the GIGABYTE X870E AORUS Elite having four M.2 slots, with two of them sharing bandwidth with your PCIe_1 (x16) slot. You should definitely install your SSDs in the proper slots to avoid slowdown. Using one of your SSDs in PCIe 4.0 should work just fine!
Got it! So I should stick the first SSD in M.2_1, leave M.2_2 and M.2_3 empty, and then use the slots further down for my second SSD? Do the latter ones limit to Gen 4 speed?
Yes, that sounds about right! Slots 4 and 5 will limit to Gen 4 speeds, but should still work well for gaming.
True, but these days, SATA SSDs are priced similarly to NVMe drives, so it might be worth it just to stick with NVMe for everything!