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SSD position on motherboard PRIME Z790M-PLUS

P3User
Level 7

Hi all,

I bought a motherboard from asus: PRIME Z790M-PLUS
I also bought PCIe 4.0 Nvme M.2 SSD 4TB twice.

I will use RAID 1.

I have two questions:
- there are 3 Nvme positions on the motherboard, but which two should i use to have the maximum speed?
- to start with, I was planning not to use a graphics card and to use the graphics chip in the i9 processor. However, if later on I buy and install a graphics card, will this influence the speed of my hard disks?

Kind regards
Igor

566 Views
3 REPLIES 3

Nate152
Moderator

Hello P3User

I'm not sure how practical using raid with M.2 ssd's is, I don't see many people running raid these days because M.2 ssd's are already fast.

Another reason is how it's laid out. 

 

12th/13th Gen cpu's have 20 pcie 4.0 lanes.

You'd put your primary ssd with the OS in the M.2_1 slot, this slot uses x4 lanes from the cpu and will be the fastest, this still lets x16 for your gpu. You'd install the second ssd in any of the other M.2 slots, this one will run off the chipset lanes.

 

 

OK, thanks for the information.

If i understand correctly, a separate GPU would be able to use 16 - 4 = 12 lanes in my configuration.

The reason I use two SSD's in raid 1 is not because of speed, but reliability. If one fails, I want my system to continue working.

In configurations which take GPU lanes for something else, it's always a x8/x8 split, never a x12/x4 split.  The PRIME Z790M-PLUS doesn't have any of the features that would steal GPU lanes, so it's also a moot point.  The top PCIe x16 slot is always x16.

Use M.2_1 for your first NVMe, M.2_2 for the second.