Question Which Lanes do I plug my nvme into?

[CJDriver]

I was told it is nice to keep software and OS on a 500gb nvme m.2, and have a 2tb nvme m.2 for my game storage. I am about to build my first pc and am looking at the diagram of my mobo. I have a 5.0 pci m.2 slot/lane with my gpu and 4.0 pci nvme m.2 slot. Should I put the 500gb os drive in the pci 5.0 slot or the pci 4.0? Does it make a difference? Or should I put my 2tb gaming storage in the pci 5.0 slot?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Make and model of your motherboard? Make and models of your storage drives?

 

[CJDriver]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Make and model of your motherboard? Make and models of your storage drives?

Gigabyte B650 Aurous Elite AX am5. WD_Black 500gb sn770. WD_Black 2Tb SN850X. both Nvme are gen4

 

[hotaru.hino]

It only makes a difference if you care about benchmark scores.

Otherwise it makes almost zero practical difference with loading times. I imagine if you actually timed it, maybe a second or two would be shaved off on the initial loading.

 

[bill001g]

You do need to be a bit careful. Looking at the manual the second slot...they call "b" shares the pcie lanes with the video card.

You are best off using the "a" and "c" m.2 connectors.

I have not read the details but I suspect if you use the second slot that is shared the video card will drop to x8 rather than x16. Even if you have a 4090 this likely would make no difference.

But since you have a option to not do it this way I would not use the second m.2 slot.

 

[CJDriver]

You do need to be a bit careful. Looking at the manual the second slot...they call "b" shares the pcie lanes with the video card.

You are best off using the "a" and "c" m.2 connectors.

I have not read the details but I suspect if you use the second slot that is shared the video card will drop to x8 rather than x16. Even if you have a 4090 this likely would make no difference.

But since you have a option to not do it this way I would not use the second m.2 slot.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/651599318318317574/1234577837743407247/IMG_5489.png?ex=66313db5&is=662fec35&hm=37c6801097199e21690b1044d9034600e55c8c2b8177cdabc8a445beb857a79b&

In this picture the last lane says m.2 wifi. I figured I should not put on here. I put my os on the pci 5.0 and the 2 tb games on pci 4.0 m2b_cpu. You think this will mess up my graphics performance?

 

[hotaru.hino]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/651599318318317574/1234577837743407247/IMG_5489.png?ex=66313db5&is=662fec35&hm=37c6801097199e21690b1044d9034600e55c8c2b8177cdabc8a445beb857a79b&

In this picture the last lane says m.2 wifi. I figured I should not put on here. I put my os on the pci 5.0 and the 2 tb games on pci 4.0 m2b_cpu. You think this will mess up my graphics performance?

Cards that normally use 16 lanes that get allocated 8 lanes tend to lose about <5% performance. Assuming it's the same PCIe version.

It's only really a problem if you run out of VRAM. But if you're in that situation, you've got bigger things to worry about.

 

[bill001g]

I really hate motherboard makers all these very similar part numbers with very different features.

Seems I was in error and looking at a manual for
b650-aorus-elite-x rather than b650"M"-aorus-elite-x

The motherboard I looked at has 3 total m.2 slots for SSD and a 4th for the wifi. The extra m.2 slot has it its own 4 lane connection to the chipset.

So if I now look at the correct manual you do not have much other choice if you want to put 2 m.2 drives on the motherboard.

In the end the only way you will be able to see it is with benchmarks. Maybe in the future if we get a video card that can actually use 16 lanes it might make a difference. Even if they come out it will be even longer before they sell cards that most people can actually afford. Then again if the new video cards support pcie5 maybe a pcie5 x8 will be more than enough.