Question Best setup for MSI MPG X870E CARBON

Feb 15, 2025
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There's two options for the setup I have and wondering what would be the best one. Here's what I have.
MSI MPG X870E CARBON
AMD 9800X3D Processor
Two- 4TB Samsung 990 EVO PLUS M.2 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080
I understand about the lane sharing but I was told I would get better performance with the setup below because I have Gen 5 M.2s and GPU also gen 5.
-Using the first two M.2 slots as they are gen 5, the GPU would then run at x8 instead of x16.
I'm thinking the better setup would be.
-Using the first and third M.2 slots which would allow my GPU to run at x16 but the one M.2 would be running gen 4. I would be taking a hit on the M.2 instead of the GPU.
Which one would be more desirable?
 
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

I understand about the lane sharing but I was told I would get better performance with the setup below because I have Gen 5 M.2s and GPU also gen 5.
I would return one of the SSD's to get something that's PCIe4.0. To add, if one of the two SSD's is meant for your OS, app's and launchers(and the other is meant to be your game library, assuming) then you might want to understand that you can't tell the difference in the speeds in real use case scenarios.

Which one would be more desirable?
A side note, I'd have gotten a smaller capacity PCIe3.0/PCIe4.0 SSD for the OS, app's and launchers. Speaking of which, you haven't' stated the purpose of your built, in order for us to understand why you're pursuing a 2x PCIe 5.0 SSD setup.
 
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I bought it from ibuypower and the options at the time were limited. I did want my primary drive to be smaller for my os but run at gen 5. The second one I wanted larger and at the time a larger gen 4 one wasn't a option. So I just got both, shouldn't have the need for any more storage. I was hoping to game, get the best performance and maybe overclock to see what it can do. I'm not really doing anything serious, something I can play around with.
 
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

I understand about the lane sharing but I was told I would get better performance with the setup below because I have Gen 5 M.2s and GPU also gen 5.
I would return one of the SSD's to get something that's PCIe4.0. To add, if one of the two SSD's is meant for your OS, app's and launchers(and the other is meant to be your game library, assuming) then you might want to understand that you can't tell the difference in the speeds in real use case scenarios.

Which one would be more desirable?
A side note, I'd have gotten a smaller capacity PCIe3.0/PCIe4.0 SSD for the OS, app's and launchers. Speaking of which, you haven't' stated the purpose of your built, in order for us to understand why you're pursuing a 2x PCIe 5.0 SSD setup.
I took a closer look at the Samsung SSD and it is v4, (PCIe 4.0 x4 and PCIe 5.0 x2). I thought it was v5 altogether, kind of misleading when I got it.
Samsung 990 EVO Plus