SSD on PCIe bus on Asus Z370-A with graphics card

[matiascicilia]

Hello,

I'm about to finish my new build and just need to decide on the SSD, and after reading about using SSD on PCIe instead of sata interface, I wanted to ask a couple of questions

My build so far:
Mobo: Asus z370-A
Cpu: Intel i5 8600k
Ram: 16gb Corsair vengance 3000mhz
Gpu: Evga gtx 1060 ssc
Psu: Evga G3 650w (Couldn't resist the sale on prime day)
HDD: Wd blue 2tb 5400rpm

I'd need the SSD to install the OS, some programs I'd like to launch quickly like Photoshop and IntelliJ, and maybe some games, but they'll primarily be on the HDD

Question being: Can my motherboard handle both the gtx 1060 and an NVMe on the PCIe lanes? From what I've read, two sata ports would be disabled, though I only need one for the WD blue. I haven't found any other drawback

Correct me if I'm wrong, I believe I can connect the gtx 1060 at 16x and then have the SSD on one of the other two PCIe 3.0 lanes at 4x (on which of the two lanes?), But I wanted to ask to be 100% sure

PS: should all this be possible, I'm considering this Kingston NVMe SSD:

Kingston Digital SA1000M8/240G A1000 240GB PCIe NVMe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BMXS6SH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_NsNABb73822C4

I know there are better options, but at $110 for the 970 Evo I could just double the storage and go for a regular sata SSD, so any opinions on that would be greatly appreciated as well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this

 

[velocityg4]

An M.2 NVMe SSD does not share lanes with your GPU when installed in the M.2 slot.

Typically on Z370 boards there are 16 CPU direct PCIe lanes. These are shared between two or three PCIe x16 slots. If only one slot is occupied it gets all 16 lanes. If two slots are occupied it is typically split to 8 lanes each. If three then 1x8 and 2x4.

The M.2 slot does not get access to those CPU direct lanes. Instead it shares lanes with everything else via DMI (Direct Media Interface) to the PCH. Current DMI has a bandwidth of 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes. With Z370 those 4 lanes are shared as 30 HSIO lanes from the PCH, 24 of which can be utilized as PCIe lanes. Those shared lanes are what connects M.2 slots, SATA, USB, Audio, some of the extra PCIe slots, WiFi, &c. For most users this is fine they aren't using all those connections concurrently in a heavy enough manner to oversaturate the DMI. If one were to try and max everything out then performance would be limited.

If you wanted the M.2 drive to have full bandwidth always available. You would need to place it in a PCIe adapter and place it in one of the slots shared by the GPU. The those PCIe slots would be split to 2x8. x8 is plenty for a GTX 1060.