[SOLVED] Hi I'm intending to purchase the ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero motherboard with the Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 SSD

[joefischer]

The problem I'm having is when I selected these parts on pcpartpicker I get this "The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with a SATA 6.0 Gb/s port. When the M.2 slot is populated, one SATA 6.0 Gb/s port is disabled." and was wondering if they will be compatible and if not should I get a different motherboard or find another ssd. If So could you guys recommend an alternative.

 

[alexoiu]

Hi,
It's ok. They are compatible. Disabling a SATA port it's nothing to be worried about. And, if using the other M.2 slot, then not even that.

 

[Rataan]

You have two M.2 slots M.2_1 and M.2_2. Both potentially share resources with the SATA ports, depending on how they are used. If M.2_1 has an M.2 SATA SSD installed in it, then SATA port 1 will be disabled, since the M.2 SATA is taking its place. The 970 EVO is an NVMe drive, not SATA, so if you install it into M.2_1 then the SATA ports will be unaffected.

M.2_2 has two modes, PCIe x4 and PCIe x2, which is selectable in the BIOS. By the way, you can't install an M.2 SATA drive in M.2_2. PCIe x4 is faster, but if selected disables SATA ports 5 and 6. For most people that won't be a problem, because that still leaves 4 SATA ports.

Your choice will be:

1) Install the 970 EVO in M.2_1, which will preclude the use of an M.2 SATA drive in the future, which is probably no great loss since you can still use the standard 2.5 inch SATA drives connected to the normal SATA ports.

2) Install it into M.2_2 and select PCIe x4 in the BIOS and disable SATA ports 5 and 6

3) Install it into M.2_2 and select PCIe x2 in the BIOS and have all 6 SATA ports available, but the 970 EVO would work at a slower speed. Most people wouldn't be interested in this since the point of NVMe is getting the fastest speeds possible. How much slower PCIe x2 is in the real world I don't know, but I'm sure you could find out if you Google it.