M.2 Drive in MB

ZX-10R · 28 May 2022 at 10:57

I've been out of PC Building a while.

I see that Most MB have a M.2 PCI.4 slot and two others that have PCI.3 slots
if I was populating all 3 with a gen 4 and 2x gen 3.
where would it be best to install OS, games. Programs & data?
I may be getting it all wrong so Looking for advice.

Minstadave · 28 May 2022 at 11:10

I would out your OS and most used games on the PCIE gen 4 drive.

In all honesty there's no noticeable difference whatever you do.

What's your planned spec? Do you already have the drives?

ZX-10R · 28 May 2022 at 11:49

something along these Lines the 4t Drive is so back up, I'd be using My Current 1000W PSU

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i7-11700K 3.6GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - OEM (SKU: CP-691-IN) = £344.99
3 x Crucial P5P 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 3D NAND NVMe Solid State Drive (SKU: HD-074-CR) = £112.99
1 x Lian Li O11D EVO Mid-Tower Case - White (SKU: CA-7A5-LL) = £159.95
2 x Team Group Night Hawk RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - RGB White (TF2D4 (SKU: MY-08N-TG) = £89.99
2 x Lian-Li UNI AL120 Addressable RGB White 120mm Fan Triple Pack with Controller (SKU: FG-00V-LL) = £82.99
1 x Asus ROG Strix Z590-A Gaming WIFI (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6FZ-AS) = £289.99
1 x Asus & Gamesplanet - Game Promo (SKU: XX-03R-AS) = £0.00
1 x Asus GeForce RTX 3080 ROG Strix WHITE OC V2 LHR 10GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-46W-AS) = £929.99
1 x Lian Li O11D EVO Vertical GPU Kit – White (SKU: CA-7A8-LL) = £59.99
1 x WD 4TB Blue HDD 5400rpm 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (WD40EZAZ) (SKU: HD-57S-WD) = £77.98

Total: £2,562.53 (includes delivery: £14.70)

Minstadave · 28 May 2022 at 13:19

It's an odd spec, I wouldn't really choose 11th Gen Intel over Zen 3 or if you can stretch to 12th Gen Intel. Any reason for three 1TB drives? I'd be tempted to get atleast one if not two 2TB drives, the prices have come down nicely last few months - the WD SN770 2TB is only £170.

X570 can be had substantially cheaper than the Z590 board and that would let you choose 5700X (budget)/5800X3D (gaming)/or 5900X (productivity) to suit your needs and all your drives could run Gen 4 speeds.

If gaming is your main use the 5800X3D beats 12th Gen Intel, let alone 11th Gen.