[SOLVED] Can i use a nvme drive on an athlon 3000g and a320m-k motherboard from asus?

Apr 28, 2025
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im planning on getting a ssd and im not sure if i can use a nvme drive cause the spec sheet says

3rd/2nd/1st Gen AMD Ryzen™/ 2nd and 1st Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics : ,AMD Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics/ 7th Generation A-Series/ Athlon™ X4 Processors : ,AMD A320 chipset : ,4 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray,,1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA mode),1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode),Support Raid 0, 1, 10 and i've seen some posts saying the motherboard didnt detect their nvme drive. and if i cant use a nvme drive can you guys recommend any sata drives 2.5" or m.2 form?
 
Solution
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Due to you having an Athlon processor on the socket, you can only work with SATA based M.2 drives. If you do want to get NVMe supported on your existing motherboard, you will need to drop in at least an APU.

To add, if you have a SATA port unpopulated on your motherboard and an available mounting location for a 2.5" drive in your chassis, might as well get a 2.5" SSD.
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Due to you having an Athlon processor on the socket, you can only work with SATA based M.2 drives. If you do want to get NVMe supported on your existing motherboard, you will need to drop in at least an APU.

To add, if you have a SATA port unpopulated on your motherboard and an available mounting location for a 2.5" drive in your chassis, might as well get a 2.5" SSD.
 
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Solution
Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Due to you having an Athlon processor on the socket, you can only work with SATA based M.2 drives. If you do want to get NVMe supported on your existing motherboard, you will need to drop in at least an APU.

To add, if you have a SATA port unpopulated on your motherboard and an available mounting location for a 2.5" drive in your chassis, might as well get a 2.5" SSD.
Thank you for the answer! but what would be a good drive to buy? i saw in the specs that it says m key and idk if it works with m.2 sata drives that are B+M.
 
The tech spec description is bad, even looking directly on the ASUS website.

3rd/2nd/1st Gen AMD Ryzen™/ 2nd and 1st Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics : ,AMD Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics/ 7th Generation A-Series/ Athlon™ X4 Processors : ,1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA mode),1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode)

Reading that makes it sound like it has two M.2 slots, one of which only supports SATA, regardless of the type of processor installed. But of course it only has one M.2 slot, and NVMe support does depend on the processor, but there is nothing in any of the available materials that points this out. Of course it's an issue with the CPU not having the lanes, but a person buying a motherboard that says it supports NVMe/PCIe assumes it just does, because CPU lane support and how it works with the motherboard is not obvious.

The other specs are equally as bad. The description of the expansion slots indicates that with an Athlon it has a PCIe x16 slot that runs at x4 AND a PCIe x16 slot that runs at x8, but ONLY if you're viewing the /us version of their site, which also doesn't indicate what slots are provided by the A320 chipset. The global site only indicates one slot from the CPU at x4 and separates out the A320 slots.

Incidentally, a PCIe adapter card could probably be used to install an NVMe drive. It would have to go in the x16 slot, so no graphics card could be used at the same time. They're inexpensive, but as you'll find in searching, an NVMe drive is pretty much overkill for this CPU.

Wasting M.2 slot on SATA M.2 drive seems pointless.
How exactly is it being "wasted" when it's being used for its sole intended purpose? It's just going to be an empty space on the board otherwise, while the user will have to run power and data cables to a 2.5 inch drive. Prices between an M.2 SATA and a 2.5 inch SATA are pretty much the same. The only benefit to using a 2.5 inch drive would be avoiding the little bit of fiddling it takes to mount an M.2 drive with that tiny screw (and on this mainboard, the slot isn't even hidden under a GPU). Performance will usually be identical between M.2 and 2.5 inch versions of the same model.

The only reason I can think of to get a 2.5 inch drive now is so that when you upgrade to a new board and use an NVMe drive, you won't need to use one of the M.2 slots on that motherboard to plug in the old drive if you want to just use it as spare storage or to copy data to the new OS. (Though there are also M.2 SATA to 2.5 inch adapters if you ran into that issue.)
 
I may be overlooking it staring right in my face, but is this a prebuilt system from Asus, or a custom build with an Asus motherboard in it?

If this is a prebuilt you may need to make sure there is a place to put the 2.5" drive.

If this is a custom system you should really consider looking for something like an R5 2600. The only reason I could consider sticking with that Athlon is for it being on the shelf to update BIOS of compatible aged systems, or if this is some manner of kiosk use case running from battery or limited power structure.
 
I may be overlooking it staring right in my face, but is this a prebuilt system from Asus, or a custom build with an Asus motherboard in it?

If this is a prebuilt you may need to make sure there is a place to put the 2.5" drive.

If this is a custom system you should really consider looking for something like an R5 2600. The only reason I could consider sticking with that Athlon is for it being on the shelf to update BIOS of compatible aged systems, or if this is some manner of kiosk use case running from battery or limited power structure.
its a prebuilt i bought from a local shop, i didnt really do any research at that time so i thought it was a good purchase. if were to buy an r5 2600 i would also need to buy a gpu and psu which is kinda a big purchase rn the prebuilt did come with an ssd but after some time of use it's kinda starting to slow down
 
Can you post the model number of this PC?

If I did my homework correctly you should be able to use a 2600 as a drop in solution. Being a prebuilt throws a bit of a whammy at that. It could be worthwhile to check the manufacturer support page to see if it was offered with a 2600 and whether there is an associated BIOS update.

Also, if you have that joke of a cooler that comes with the Athlon at least get a cheap cooler alongside the 2600.
 
Can you post the model number of this PC?

If I did my homework correctly you should be able to use a 2600 as a drop in solution. Being a prebuilt throws a bit of a whammy at that. It could be worthwhile to check the manufacturer support page to see if it was offered with a 2600 and whether there is an associated BIOS update.

Also, if you have that joke of a cooler that comes with the Athlon at least get a cheap cooler alongside the 2600.
i dont know hte model number but yes i can use a 2600 the gpu is just my problem since i dont have one rn i do have a very old hd6570 from my old pc but i doubt thats gonna run any games. my bios version already supports the 2600 i think since my bios is 5603 while support for the 2600 is 3803
 
True. I did not consider the graphics aspect. There are some "2xxx" series G skew but they are actually on the earlier gen architecture and cannot update to W11. Something like Ryzen 5 2400G?

Gaming off the above would be sketchy at best. Off that Athlon it won't be too good an experience either unless very simple low res games.
 
Pre-built is not the same as OEM, so make sure the terminology being used is right. If you bought a machine that was shipped and built by ASUS or Dell or Lenovo, then it's OEM and will have all their own branded parts, as much as possible other than the CPU of course. If it was just normal retail parts that were assembled by a PC shop and sold as a standard assembly that they made many of, then it's just pre-built, but there won't be a "model number" that does you any good. You'd still have to be looking at the manufacturers of the individual parts for BIOS/firmware, drivers, etc. Machines like PowerSpec and many custom-build units you can get online are still just pre-built machines, not "OEM" because they don't actually make the components. They're just buying retail parts in bulk and adding margin to them, and charging you to put them together. Some of them do have custom case designs but that's about it.

If you're only changing drives because your current one is getting slower than it used to be, the problem may be that the drive is too full, or that it's having problems. If you get a new drive that is at least twice the capacity and clone the old one to it, you'll probably restore performance to where you were originally. SSDs lose significant performance, like 75% transfer speed reduction, if they don't maintain at least 10% free space, preferably 20%. Run Crystal DiskInfo and see what the drive health is reported as. Also make sure that TRIM is enabled in Windows. (Open the defragment application and make sure that all the drives are being "optimized" on schedule.)

Looking through the supported CPU list, I would say a Ryzen 5 5600G or 5600GT (newer, slightly faster version) is a better option if you're going to upgrade the CPU. It's a Zen3 processor (4600G is only Zen2), so you're getting the highest generation model your board can support. Zen3 is also still fully supported and AMD is even still making new CPUs with it. The 5000 chips also seem to be a bit cheaper since there is still wide availability. (The 4000 series with graphics was also OEM-only, so you'd also have to by a cooler. The one you have MIGHT work okay but might not.)

Do you have RAM that will be able to support the new processor? The Athlon 3000G uses DDR4-2667 while the 4000 and 5000 series use DDR4-3200. If your RAM isn't rated for 3200 you might be able to overclock it a little but getting it up to 3200 will be too much. It will still work for the new CPU but it will be at a lower speed than is desirable, taking away a lot of the performance that you paid for. Buying a new CPU and new RAM starts to reduce the value of trying to maintain this old system, but it depends on how long you expect to need to stretch it out.

Do you think you'd be able to do a full upgrade in like a year most, which would cost at least $600 for low-end stuff? If so, then I'd say save the money and stick with what you have for now, and only upgrade the SSD to a larger SATA drive. That's assuming the performance has been "good enough" up to this point. How much are you hurting due to the low performance of the CPU and graphics? Are you actually wanting to do more but can't because of that?

If you're pretty sure you're going to be unable to spend more on it for several more years, then $200 to $225 for a CPU and RAM (32GB) plus the cost of an NVMe drive would carry you through until then (assuming none of the aging components fail). You'll end up with what feels like a new system compared to the original build, even if it's relatively outdated and slow compared to the newest setups and will be very old by the time you have to replace it.

For the record, I'm on a 5600X myself right now, which was an upgrade from the 3600XT I originally had, on a 5 year old X570 board. It's still plenty fast, with an RX 6600 GPU and good NVMe drive, though I have to fight the constant urge to replace it just because there's newer, faster stuff available so I might see a second or three faster loads of applications or games. I think this system could work just fine for me for a few more years in terms of my actual needs.
 
How exactly is it being "wasted" ?

The only reason I can think of to get a 2.5 inch drive now is so that
when you upgrade to a new board and use an NVMe drive, you won't need to use one of the M.2 slots on that motherboard to plug in the old drive if you want to just use it
as spare storage or to copy data to the new OS.
(Though there are also M.2 SATA to 2.5 inch adapters if you ran into that issue.)
Exactly this. You answered it yourself.
SATA ports on boards are usually plenty. M.2 slots - very limited.
On next system with a perfectly good M.2 slot - to reuse the drive, you'd have to waste M.2 slot on it.

And using M.2 sata adapter completely negates all benefits of M.2. Then just get 2.5" drive instead (and save on adapter).
 
I feel like you only had that answer because I gave it first. It's still a valid decision to use the M.2 slot NOW on THIS board during whatever amount of time it will continue to be used. And needing to use an adapter LATER doesn't mean there's no reason not to get the benefits of M.2 NOW on this board. An adapter that takes TWO M.2 SATA drives (and has a switch to toggle between them) is a whopping $10 on Amazon, $9 for a single drive adapter that acts as a full enclosure, and might not be needed for anywhere from one year to 4 years or more depending on what OP decides on, at which point the SATA drive might be completely useless anyway.

Don't let "possibly maybe at some point in the far future" make the decision about what is most effective NOW and in the near future.