Z490 with front USB-C and x2 M.2 support

[vhctdd]

Hello,

I’m planning my first ever build and the whole motherboard situation just confuses the hell out of me, with all the limited PCI lanes and m.2 slots switching them off if used and etc

i’m planning to get an i9-10850, already have gtx 3070, and I need a motherboard that will have front USB-C connection, support for full speed usage of two M.2 SSDs and 64GB of ram.

My research lead me to MSI MEG Z490I, but I’m still not sure if I can use two M.2 without the second one being slow and making some PCI slots that I need for something else unavailable (no idea how that works)

I would really appreciate if someone could just confirm that this motherboard can do all of the above or point me in the right direction. I can’t find that many descriptive intel boards discussions compared to amd ones .

thank you very much in advance and apologies for my dumbness

 

[bremen1874]

Is that not an ITX motherboard with only a single PCIe slot?

Assuming it is you almost certainly aren't going to be losing full use of the PCIe slot with both M.2 slots populated.

The manufacturer's spec page just says that you'll lose the use of one of the SATA ports if you install a SATA M.2 drive in the first M.2 slot.

Information about what'll get disabled when populating M.2 slots will always be on the spec pages or in the downloadable manual.

 

[SkyTerran]

Z490 has 24 downstream PCIe gen 3.0 lanes from the CPU, two PCIe SSDs will use 8 of those leaving plenty for all other ports, including Thunderbolt.

The PCIe slot is directly connected to the CPU and does not use these 24 lanes.

If you install a SATA SSD, rather than a PCIe SSD, into the 1st M.2 slot you'll loose one of the four SATA connectors (but that has nothing to do with PCIe lanes).