I recently picked up a cheap M.2 Gen 4 SSD (ADATA Premium SSD for PS5, 2TB) for about 93 CAD (or 68 USD). I checked the health of the drive using CrystalDiskInfo and HD Tune, and it's showing 99% health with no errors. While some games like Street Fighter 6 load significantly faster, I'm concerned that the SSD's speed is only about 25% of what was advertised. My motherboard is an AORUS X470 Ultra Gaming, and I'm unsure if I'm using the right M.2 socket. The specs indicate that there are two M.2 connectors: one supports PCIe 3.0 and the other supports PCIe 2.0. I think I'm using the PCIe 2.0 slot, but I can't find clear information on this. Could this be affecting my SSD's speed?
2 Answers
It looks like you're right about the slot. An M.2 Gen 4 SSD typically uses PCIe 4.0 x4, but your specs show that the second socket only supports PCIe 2.0 x4. That's a lot slower! PCIe 2.0 is like 25% of the PCIe 4.0 speed, so moving it to a Gen 3 slot would definitely help, but it won't be at full capacity. In short, the bottleneck is definitely due to using the slower PCIe 2.0 slot.
Yeah, you've got it. Using a PCIe 4 drive in a PCIe 2 slot is a major speed killer—it’s like trying to use a sports car on a bicycle path! If you're planning to switch it to a PCIe 3 slot, you'll still see improvement, but it won't reach max speeds as the SSD can do. Definitely a good call to check your socket configuration!
Related Questions
Lenovo Thinkpad Stuck In Update Loop Install FilterDriverU2_Reload