ROG MAXIMUS Z690 HERO pcie/M.2 sharing question, advice

[JBBlack]

Hello all, I am preparing for a build using a ROG MAXIMUS Z690 HERO ; i9 12900k ; 32 gig ram yada yada.

And I am looking through the manual and I cannot seem to find what the exact sharing is for the PCIe slots, M.2 slots, etc.

What I am wondering is, if I use M.2 slot 1 and 2, and all three PCIe slots what will be the result? Will anything be disabled? Will the main PCIe_1 default to 8X?

I will be using a 3080 RTX, a SoundBlaster AE-7 and a SATA/eSATA 6gbs Controller.

And for the M.2's I would like to use 2 - 1TB - Samsung 980 Pro Gen 4's

And I will be using 6 HDD's, a DVD rom, and a SATA hot-swap drive cage.

thanks,
Rob

[SmokeyKilla]

Asus ships a PCIe add-on card with the board, the ROG Hyper M.2 Card. If you use this add-on card in one of the PCIe 5.0-capable x16 slots on the motherboard, it will drop the primary M.2 Key M slot down to PCIe 4.0 x4. It will not enable you to have two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots; with or without the card, you can have only one in operation. The top m2 can hold a card 110mm in length the other 2 can only hold 80mm cards. Personally I would steer clear from the samsung 980 pros and buy sabrent rocket 4 as these cards outperform the samsung in pretty much every way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t301lVee29g&t=78s The board only supports 6 sata 3.0 ports not eight like competing boards.

[JBBlack]

SmokeyKilla wrote:
Asus ships a PCIe add-on card with the board, the ROG Hyper M.2 Card. If you use this add-on card in one of the PCIe 5.0-capable x16 slots on the motherboard, it will drop the primary M.2 Key M slot down to PCIe 4.0 x4. It will not enable you to have two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots; with or without the card, you can have only one in operation. The top m2 can hold a card 110mm in length the other 2 can only hold 80mm cards. Personally I would steer clear from the samsung 980 pros and buy sabrent rocket 4 as these cards outperform the samsung in pretty much every way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t301lVee29g&t=78s The board only supports 6 sata 3.0 ports not eight like competing boards.

Humm interesting video, not a bad price either. I'll have to read through some reviews on those Sabrent drives.

I don't think I'll be using the PCIe 5.0 for a while though, and if I use that ROG Hyper M.2 Card in one of my PCIe x16's won't it drop my other PCIe x16 down to 8x from 16x? I thought I read that in the manual. BUT I can still run 2 PCIe 4.0 M.2 "on the board" correct? I'm not fully familiar with the ROG Hyper M.2 Card at the moment other than it will allow me to use 4 M.2 4.0 in one PCIe x16 slot correct?

I'm really interested in using my PCIe SATA/eSATA to let me run 2 more SATA drives, tell me, will putting ANY 4X PCIe card in one of the PCIe x16 slots drop the other one to 8x?

and thanks for the help and suggestions!!

[SmokeyKilla]

Yes using the Hyper card will drop the other down to 8x, yes you can run 3 x 4.0 M.2 or 1 x 5.0 M.2 and 2 x 4.0 M.2 and yes you can run 4 x M.2 in the hyper card giving you a total of 7 x 4.0 M.2 and yes using a card in one slot will drop the other to 8x but you can also run 4 x 5.0 M.2 in the hyper card if its run it the 2nd PCle slot, which will drop the others to x 8.....lol its a bit confusing this may explain it better https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9993/asus-rog-maximus-z690-hero-motherboard/index.html
Basically The PCIe slots offer 16 lanes of Gen5 support; this can be set up as a single x16 at the top or 8x8 if using both. The bottom PCIe x4 slot comes from the chipset at PCIe 4.0 speeds.

[JBBlack]

Hey, thanks for helping me out Smokey, appreciate it man.

I was just reading about my board, and I think the ROG Hyper card that comes with this particular kit only holds 2 M.2's, I won't know for certain until I receive it later today, the wife got it for me for Christmas...

But yeah, it is a little confusing, it's not like the good old days where ya just plugged everything in and started overclocking! hehe BUT, this is going to be a bad-ass system...I can feel it.

So, if I understand, if I plug ANY card into that second x16 pcie slot the first one goes to x8....well that sucks.

I'll figure it out somehow, but first I have to find me some DDR5 ram!!

[JBBlack]

PS: Just got the new motherboard, and it's AWESOME!!

Need a good recommendation on ram, I have my eye on this kit: https://www.newegg.com/corsair-32gb-288-pin-ddr5-sdram/p/N82E16820236826?Item=N82E16820236826

but it's out of stock.

I was starting to warm up to that ROG Hyper card, until I read this:

This PCIe card has two M.2 sockets, both of which can provide Gen4 4x to each M.2 socket. However, it isn't that simple. Dual mode must be enabled in the BIOS, and the setting is hidden away down the rabbit hole of sub-menus. It also has to be seated in the third PCIe slot, which is exclusively Gen 4.0. For official M.2 Gen5 x4 support, the card must be inserted into the second PCIe slot. This will also disable the additional M.2 socket on the Hyper M.2 card, only leaving one functional. I am a bit perplexed by this design considering the second PCIe slot is 8x Gen5, which means it should in theory be able to be split into x4/x4. While I appreciate the additional M.2 sockets and future M.2 Gen5 support,

THIS is a huge limitation, although I can use it in the 3rd slot and use 2 gen 4 M.2's, this would eliminate any need for the PCIe SATA/eSATA card I have for my DVD rom and my hot-swap cage. BUT then I would have to put my excellent sound card in slot 2, and either way, I lose the power of x16 for my 3080....

lol, BUT,m I have read that a 3080 at x8 gen 4 is every bit as good as a 3080 x16 and gen 3, so who knows.

all in all though, I am FIRED UP about this build, this board is freakin cool!!

[SmokeyKilla]

I believe atm G.skill is leading in the DDR5 race however polaris do have some good products to https://www.windowscentral.com/geil-polaris-ddr5-ram-review. In reference to your sound card I think you may be surprised by the 690's ALC4080, many people have been complaining using soundblaster cards on the 690 that they have to turn the gain way down to stop background noise and lots of popping and clicking

[JBBlack]

Unfortunately, I had to send my Z690 Hero back for store credit, it was one of the boards that had the upside-down capacitor.

I'm still super bummed about it, and NewEgg pulled all of them out of stock.

I have a Strix Z690-E in my cart right now, it will allow me to apply whatever is leftover (just over $150 I think) toward some ram, but I am debating on whether or not to wait for ASUS to re-release the affected Hero boards.

From what I can see other than the onboard reset buttons, and 20+1 power stages difference, and some of the heat sink stuff, they look pretty close in comparison.

They do have the Maximus Z690 Apex board, but it's another $150 more.


PS: I don't know if I can live without my sound card, I hope the problems some seem to be having is just a driver/BIOS update issue.