Understanding M.2

[fortuneseeker]

I am on the verge of ordering my new gaming PC but am confused about additional M.2 drives impacting performance.

I intend on getting a 7800X3D, 4090 and something like a ASRock 670E Steel Legend or MSI B650 Edge motherboard. From my understanding the graphics card and top M.2 slot (windows/work etc) will work fine but filling the bottom slots with M.2 drives (gaming drives) could limit performance - but the videos I've watched generally make reference to this then move on.

I am hoping to build a top tier gaming rig and play a lot of games, 3x M.2 drives (1 for windows, 2 for games) will be required. Is this good setup? I've currently have SSDs in my PC at the moment - 1 for windows, 1 for data files and 2 for game. Will there be any noticeable performance loss? And if so, what alternatives do you recommend?

Thanks.

 

[Tetras]

I'm not sure what the videos you watched are referring to, but there are generally 2 problems with motherboards and M.2 slots:

1. If there aren't enough lanes available for the number of M.2 slots, which means they steal them from the primary slot (GPU), bifurcate them (e.g. you can only get 2 lanes instead of 4 lanes for each M.2 slot), or share lanes with secondary PCI-E slots & SATA ports.
2. When using chipset lanes, there is a limit on how much can be exchanged between CPU/RAM and everything else that goes through the chipset, which can slow down multiple drives in-use, in some circumstances.

For your purpose, I wouldn't worry about it, providing there are no lane sharing issues mentioned in the tech specs or manual.

 

[FredFlint]

I am on the verge of ordering my new gaming PC but am confused about additional M.2 drives impacting performance.

I intend on getting a 7800X3D, 4090 and something like a ASRock 670E Steel Legend or MSI B650 Edge motherboard. From my understanding the graphics card and top M.2 slot (windows/work etc) will work fine but filling the bottom slots with M.2 drives (gaming drives) could limit performance - but the videos I've watched generally make reference to this then move on.

I am hoping to build a top tier gaming rig and play a lot of games, 3x M.2 drives (1 for windows, 2 for games) will be required. Is this good setup? I've currently have SSDs in my PC at the moment - 1 for windows, 1 for data files and 2 for game. Will there be any noticeable performance loss? And if so, what alternatives do you recommend?

Thanks.

Most boards will drop the GPU down to 8x if needed or drop SATA ports. The board I have has 2 M.2 port wired to the CPU and 1 to the chipset and a fourth shares lanes with the GPU. If the fourth is used, the GPU drops to 8x which is not that much of a big deal. The chipset gets 4 gen 5 lanes so has more than enough bandwidth.