[SOLVED] Cant understand the M.2 slots motherboard feature

[dfox79]

Can I get some help here please with adding a new storage drive to my system, it will be for storing and running games from it so my MB is Gigabyte B450 AORUS ELITE and I already installed one M.2 in the first slot (Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD 500GB) and in my MB description is quite confusing to me so I don't know what to add?!! will an SSD drive be enough or could I add another M.2 drive and if I did will I get its full potential and performance. here are my MB specs and I will put a link to it from Gigabyte official site:

Expansion Slots:
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)(Note)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.
(The PCIEX16 slot conforms to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
* The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1_2 slot. The PCIEX4 slot operates at up to x2 mode when the PCIEX1_2 slot is populated. The PCIEX4 slot operates at up to x4 mode when the PCIEX1_2 is empty.
2 x PCI Express x1 slots
(The PCIEX4 and PCIEX1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B450-AORUS-ELITE-rev-10/sp#sp

Storage Interface:
1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4/x2 SSD support) (M2A_SOCKET)
1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 PCIe 3.0 x2 SSD support)(M2B_SOCKET)
6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10
* Refer to "1-7 Internal Connectors," for the installation notices for the M.2 and SATA connectors.

I got 2 options here to add as storage in my system:

1. Crucial P1 M.2 NVMe 1.0TB (CT1000P1SSD8 )
2. SAMSUNG 860 EVO 1TB SATA III V-NAND (MZ-76E1T0B/AM )

 

[Nemesia]

Option 2 is a SATA SSD. It does not plug in your second m.2 port.

Option 1 will only run at half the speed because of your second m.2 port running at x2 instead of x4.

Go for a normal SATA SSD since your games will load in like a 1-2 seconds difference between a NVMe drive and a SATA SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

For a game drive, on that motherboard, either of your listed drives will work.
You'll not see any real performance difference either way.

 

[FoxVoxDK]

Option 1 will only run at half the speed because of your second m.2 port running at x2 instead of x4.

Which is still 1 gigabyte read and write or 2 gigabyte read OR writes.
That said, I'd buy the SSD as for gaming you'd feel no difference between the two.

 

[Nemesia]

Which is still 1 gigabyte read and write or 2 gigabyte read OR writes.
That said, I'd buy the SSD as for gaming you'd feel no difference between the two.

I know. I was just saying.

 

[FoxVoxDK]

I know. I was just saying.

No worries, it was mostly as added info for @dfox79!

 

[dfox79]

Option 2 is a SATA SSD. It does not plug in your second m.2 port.

Option 1 will only run at half the speed because of your second m.2 port running at x2 instead of x4.

Go for a normal SATA SSD since your games will load in like a 1-2 seconds difference between a NVMe drive and a SATA SSD.

I figured option 2 will not occupy an m.2 slot but if makes no difference and I will not benefit from the speed of adding another m.2 in second slot so why not go for the SATA SSD

 

[Nemesia]

I figured option 2 will not occupy an m.2 slot but if makes no difference and I will not benefit from the speed of adding another m.2 in second slot so why not go for the SATA SSD

The big difference when using an NVMe is when you move files from and to the same NVMe or when you move files to another NVMe. In this case the speed would be a lot higher than just transferring files from a normal SATA SSD to another SATA SSD.

In games and OS loading speed it's totally the same. Like a big 1 second difference that you can't even see if you don't do the testing with both of them side by side.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3AMz-xZ2VM

 

[dfox79]

The big difference when using an NVMe is when you move files from and to the same NVMe or when you move files to another NVMe. In this case the speed would be a lot higher than just transferring files from a normal SATA SSD to another SATA SSD.

In games and OS loading speed it's totally the same. Like a big 1 second difference that you can't even see if you don't do the testing with both of them side by side.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3AMz-xZ2VM

Sure and there is a difference in some areas but I did want to add storage just for loading and storing games my OS will still be on my NVME M.2 so I added the SATA one as option so I can know what you guys think and it really helped thanks for that, also I was not sure about how the PCIE slots on my MB will manage the second slot but now am sure that I will not get the full potential of another M.2 in my system.