Question Will a gen 4 NVMe SSD work in a gen 2 slot ?

vinay2070

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Nov 27, 2011
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Hi Guys,
I have a B450 mobo and the second nvme slot is free. Second free slot is Gen2X4 - chipset controlled. I want to put another 2TB ssd there. Now that SSD prices are dropping, I was thinking of buying a gen 4 SSD as I can use it as a direct storage game drive in the future on a newer motherboard. But will it work? All the articles I read about and also the manufacuteres page only say its backward compatible to Gen3 and no word on Gen2.

Also this second slot sits under the heatsink of a undervolted 3080Ti hitting 69C while gaming. I dont game much, but how bad would it be for the SSD? I am assuming if core reaches 69C, the air coming out of the HS would be much lesser than that.

Thanks!
 

Lutfij

Titan
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Can you please pass on the make and model of your motherboard, processor and the PCIe devices in your build? Logically an NVMe drive will work with a slower slot, though most often people overlook that the slot might be sharing ports or is disabled when you're not working with the right processor. Might also want to parse the make and model of the SSD you're looking at.
 

vinay2070

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Nov 27, 2011
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Hi Lutfij,

Thanks for the response.
MSI B450M mortar max
3700X
512GB 970 Evo on NVME 1 (Connected to CPU)
EMPTY NVME 2 slot (Controlled by Chipset shared with PCIe slot 4 - which is empty)
Galaxy 3080Ti SG on PCIe Slot 1
Sound card on PCIe 2 slot (PCIe 3 slot wont work as they share lanes). Since GPU is fat, sound card is moved to the bottom of the case using X1 riser cable.
2TB MX500 SSD - almost full which is not good for its health.

I dont have a particular model in mind, but recently I saw Crucial P3 plus 2TB go as low as 197 AUD, so its quite tempting.
 
Hi Lutfij,

Thanks for the response.
MSI B450M mortar max
3700X
512GB 970 Evo on NVME 1 (Connected to CPU)
EMPTY NVME 2 slot (Controlled by Chipset shared with PCIe slot 4 - which is empty)
Galaxy 3080Ti SG on PCIe Slot 1
Sound card on PCIe 2 slot (PCIe 3 slot wont work as they share lanes). Since GPU is fat, sound card is moved to the bottom of the case using X1 riser cable.
2TB MX500 SSD - almost full which is not good for its health.

I dont have a particular model in mind, but recently I saw Crucial P3 plus 2TB go as low as 197 AUD, so its quite tempting.
As noted, buying a gen 4 NVME might be a bad buy for a gen 2 slot but it will work (PCIe is forward and backward compatible to the lowest standard both devices share). Even so, it may be hard to even find a gen 2 NVME...maybe even a gen 3 drive. I ran into that problem when adding my second NVME. So if the board upgrade isn't too far off it might not be a bad idea after all.

Incidentally, I bought the same gen 4 drive for my board to fill a gen 3 socket. I felt it was a good buy because it was on sale and priced out about the same as a gen 3 drive with DRAM and TLC flash which I'd have been forced to get. The P3 Plus is DRAM-less and uses QLC flash, hence the economy. I figured why not since the reviews for the drive were quite good.

And as far as the temp goes: put a heat sink on it and you'll probably be fine. BUT, being under the GPU means it will get hot when gaming even if not using the drive heavily. I can do some CPU based video rendering (lots of read/write operations) and the drive temp rises just a bit above idling temps with a heatsink. But get into a game with the GPU pumping out hot exhaust and it quickly rises to around 60C. Still in it's safe range, but it does get hot. The system drive, not under but above the GPU, also gets just as hot.

But last, do consider that the P3 Plus is a QLC drive. That makes it not such a good choice if it's useage involve a whole lot of writing out large files on a regular basis. That's because QLC flash has much lower TBW ratings than TLC, and that's true of this one. But as a games store, where the vast amount of it's work is reading game files, it should work out fine.
 
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vinay2070

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Nov 27, 2011
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I would say wait to buy this Gen 4 drive until you're ready to build up a system than can utilize it.
Drive prices almost always go down over time.

That 197AUD may be 150AUD by the time you can actually use it.
Good point, but because I am running out of space. The MX500 is losing its life fast.

As noted, buying a gen 4 NVME might be a bad buy for a gen 2 slot but it will work (PCIe is forward and backward compatible to the lowest standard both devices share). Even so, it may be hard to even find a gen 2 NVME...maybe even a gen 3 drive. I ran into that problem when adding my second NVME. So if the board upgrade isn't too far off it might not be a bad idea after all.

Incidentally, I bought the same gen 4 drive for my board to fill a gen 3 socket. I felt it was a good buy because it was on sale and priced out about the same as a gen 3 drive with DRAM and TLC flash which I'd have been forced to get. The P3 Plus is DRAM-less and uses QLC flash, hence the economy. I figured why not since the reviews for the drive were quite good.

And as far as the temp goes: put a heat sink on it and you'll probably be fine. BUT, being under the GPU means it will get hot when gaming even if not using the drive heavily. I can do some CPU based video rendering (lots of read/write operations) and the drive temp rises just a bit above idling temps with a heatsink. But get into a game with the GPU pumping out hot exhaust and it quickly rises to around 60C. Still in it's safe range, but it does get hot. The system drive, not under but above the GPU, also gets just as hot.

But last, do consider that the P3 Plus is a QLC drive. That makes it not such a good choice if it's useage involve a whole lot of writing out large files on a regular basis. That's because QLC flash has much lower TBW ratings than TLC, and that's true of this one. But as a games store, where the vast amount of it's work is reading game files, it should work out fine.
Cool, thanks mate. I have not yet finalised on the drive. QLD is fine as it will be a game drive and I have disabled auto game updates on steam and epic. Will see how the prices go this month. Regarding the heatsink on the drive, will it not clash/touch with the GPU heatsink? Will there be enough gap? Which heatsink did you use? Thanks.
 
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s.... Regarding the heatsink on the drive, will it not clash/touch with the GPU heatsink? Will there be enough gap? Which heatsink did you use? Thanks.

As long as it's one of the low-profile ones it fits just fine. I used one like this. It comes to just above the PCIe socket connector body which let's you know there is clearance to the GPU's heatsink/shroud.

What's important are the fins. Thermal output from the NVME isn't great so the fins can rapidly transfer it to the air and it works. The downside is as I said: the fins just as rapidly transfer heat from the GPU exhaust (when it's working hard and hot) into the NVME even though the drive's not really doing anything. But even so temps never get out of the safe range.
 
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