Question Motherboard with two PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 slots connected directly to the CPU

klavs

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Feb 27, 2023
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All of the motherboards with more than 1 slot that I have checked out appears to only have 1 slot connected directly to the CPU, the rest are connected via the chipset - and often I can't even determine from the motherboard spec, if any of them are connected directly to the CPU at all.

Do any of you know of (or how to find) motherboards with two PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 slots connected directly to the CPU?

Do you know of a site that keeps a more detailed list of motherboards in a table format that includes this information?

Or do you have any other hints regarding this question, what to look for in the spec, or the like?

PS. Please keep the thread clean and on topic. This is not about why I want two slots connected directly to the CPU, if it matters at all, nor the price of motherboards, what the best SSD is, what you owned in the past, which brands you like, etc.
 
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All of the motherboards with more than 1 slot that I have checked out appears to only have 1 slot connected directly to the CPU, the rest are connected via the chipset - and often I can't even determine from the motherboard spec, if any of them are connected directly to the CPU at all.

Do any of you know of (or how to find) motherboards with two PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 slots connected directly to the CPU?

Do you know of a site that keeps a more detailed list of motherboards in a table format that includes this information?

Or do you have any other hints regarding this question, what to look for in the spec, or the like?

PS. Please keep the thread clean and on topic. This is not about why I want two slots connected directly to the CPU, if it matters at all, nor the price of motherboards, what the best SSD is, what you owned in the past, which brands you like, etc.
Bear in mind there are only 20 lanes available that come directly from the CPU. 16 are normally dedicated to the discrete GPU, 4 are normally dedicated to an NVME. There are 4 more (24 total) but they service the chipset.

I believe the Asus STRIX B550 E Gaming motherboard has a bank of PCIe switches that allow redirecting 8 of the GPU's 16 lanes to one or more NVME M.2 sockets. Of course once you do that it will leave 8 lanes servicing the GPU. If it's a PCIe gen 4 GPU it won't matter for gaming since it will still be the same bandwidth as 16 lanes of PCIe gen 3 which suffers not for performance.
 
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All of the motherboards with more than 1 slot that I have checked out appears to only have 1 slot connected directly to the CPU, the rest are connected via the chipset - and often I can't even determine from the motherboard spec, if any of them are connected directly to the CPU at all.

Do any of you know of (or how to find) motherboards with two PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 slots connected directly to the CPU?

Do you know of a site that keeps a more detailed list of motherboards in a table format that includes this information?

Or do you have any other hints regarding this question, what to look for in the spec, or the like?

PS. Please keep the thread clean and on topic. This is not about why I want two slots connected directly to the CPU, if it matters at all, nor the price of motherboards, what the best SSD is, what you owned in the past, which brands you like, etc.
Can't speak for every motherboard company, but if you look on the ASUS website for the Strix Z790-E motherboard, which is the one I'm currently using, the specs are clearly presented to indicate:

Intel® 13th & 12th Gen Processors*
M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 5.0 x4 mode)
M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)

followed by further specs that indicate:

Intel® Z790 Chipset**
M.2_3 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)
M.2_4 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)
M.2_5 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode & SATA modes)
4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports

thus indicating that there are indeed 2 m.2 slots connected to the cpu and 3 connected to the Z790 chipset. Unfortunately you will have to do some extensive searching to try and find what other motherboards give similar specs.
 
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klavs

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Feb 27, 2023
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Can't speak for every motherboard company, but if you look on the ASUS website for the Strix Z790-E motherboard, which is the one I'm currently using, the specs are clearly presented to indicate:

Intel® 13th & 12th Gen Processors*
M.2_1 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (supports PCIe 5.0 x4 mode)
M.2_2 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)

followed by further specs that indicate:

Intel® Z790 Chipset**
M.2_3 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)
M.2_4 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode)
M.2_5 slot (Key M), type 2242/2260/2280 (supports PCIe 4.0 x4 mode & SATA modes)
4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports

thus indicating that there are indeed 2 m.2 slots connected to the cpu and 3 connected to the Z790 chipset. Unfortunately you will have to do some extensive searching to try and find what other motherboards give similar specs.

EDIT
I deleted what I wrote, because it was irrelevant, and wrote this.

Thank you for the information.

I had to click a small ambiguous icon to show a list of additional links, which included a link to a more detailed specification - why can't they just show a direct link, sigh.
The way it is written in the specification (which you showed), I find the fact that they are connected directly to the CPU ambiguous. I read it as 2 slots with unspecified connectivity and 3 connected via the Intel Z790 Chipset.

So it seems that I must learn the conventions of how the motherboard specifications are written, for each brand of board.
 
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