Hey everyone! I'm building a new PC with an ASUS X870-PLUS motherboard and I'm curious about how the M.2 slots might affect my GPU's performance. The manual mentions that if I install a drive in the M.2_2 slot (which is PCIe 5.0 x4), the primary PCIe x16 slot will downgrade from x16 to x8. I'm planning to use two PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs—one in M.2_1 and the other in M.2_2—for fast storage. My CPU is a 9800X3D and my GPU is a 5080. While I know that PCIe 5.0 might not make a dramatic difference for gaming, I thought that since I'm building a high-end setup, it could be worthwhile. But if this setup is going to slow down my GPU, then it seems counterproductive to spend so much. Any insights?
2 Answers
Yeah, putting a PCIe 5 SSD in a PCIe 4 slot won’t really show much of a performance boost. Dropping the 5080 from x16 to x8 will likely slow it down a bit, especially if you’re playing demanding games.
Honestly, if you're building primarily for gaming, there's no real need to go for a PCIe 5.0 drive. Even a good quality PCIe 4 drive would do just fine. You'd be better off not worrying about the extra cost for something that won't really impact gaming performance.

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