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X570 Crossfire VIII Dark Hero and Hyper M.2 Build Questions

ctwilson77
Level 7
Working on my first computer build in a very long time and am trying to figure out if I can successfully build/configure it the way I want before the parts become available and I spend money. I would appreciate any insight on whether this is doable. I tried reaching out to ASUS tech support with no luck. I do not intend to use it for gaming or overclocking.

Parts List:

ASUS X570 Crossfire VIII Dark Hero Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 9 X5900 CPU
Noctua NH-D15 cooler
32 GB (2x16) DDR4-3200 Memory @ CL16
ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Gen 4 Card
2 x 0.5 TB Western Digital SN850 M.2 drives installed in the Hyper M.2 card
2 x 2 TB Western Digital SN850 M.2 drives installed in the Hyper M.2 card
GeForce GT 1030 PCIe 3.0 x16 video card
Antec HCG850 power supply

My questions/concerns:

1. Can I install the ASUS Hyper M.2 card, with the four Western Digital SN850’s, in PCIEX16_1 slot with 4 x4 bifurcation and get it to run on PCIe 4.0? The MB manual on page 1-9 implies yes but only at PCIe 3.0 for this CPU (maybe a typo?). I understand that I will have to leave slot PCIEX16_2 empty for PCIEX16_1 to get all 16 PCIe lanes.

2. I want to configure the drives as a 0.5 TB RAID 1 mirror and a 2 TB RAID 1 mirror. Is this configuration supported by the MB and the Hyper M.2 card? I understand that RAID 1 will come with a performance hit but I’d rather have redundancy to reduce potential downtime due to failure. Data will still be backed up externally.

3. Can I boot off of one of the RAID 1 mirrors?

4. In order to support the Hyper M.2 card in slot PCIEX16_1 with PCIEX16_2 empty, I will have to install my video card in chipset slot PCIEX16_3. I believe the video card only requires 4 PCIe lanes. I am not worried about GPU performance as I won’t be using it for games. I’d rather have my storage on the CPU lanes than my GPU. Will the video card work in PCIEX16_3?

The X570 Crosshair VIII Dark Hero isn’t listed in https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1037507/ and I haven’t been able to find any other useful info.

Any guidance / info / confirmation is much appreciated!
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jincuteguy
Level 7
But I see other AMD AM4 with 4 x NVME slots, like the B550 ProArt Creator board from Asus. HOw would that work?

jincuteguy wrote:
But I see other AMD AM4 with 4 x NVME slots, like the B550 ProArt Creator board from Asus. HOw would that work?


I am not familiar with that motherboard and chipset so you will need to research it yourself. However, I gave the specs a quick glance and it looks like it only has 2 NVMe slots. Also, it only has two PCIe 4 slots that are connected to the CPU. If you use both slots they are x8. The chipset slots are PCIe 3.

If you really want lots of PCIe 4 lanes for graphics and NVMe you may have to bump up to a Threadripper cpu and motherboard. You would need to do some research to make sure it can be configured the way you want.

ctwilson77 wrote:
I am not familiar with that motherboard and chipset so you will need to research it yourself. However, I gave the specs a quick glance and it looks like it only has 2 NVMe slots. Also, it only has two PCIe 4 slots that are connected to the CPU. If you use both slots they are x8. The chipset slots are PCIe 3.

If you really want lots of PCIe 4 lanes for graphics and NVMe you may have to bump up to a Threadripper cpu and motherboard. You would need to do some research to make sure it can be configured the way you want.


hmm you might want to look at graphic I supplied then becuase that is how the motherboard actually works.

jincuteguy
Level 7
Im still confused about how many PCIE lanes. All I know is the 5900X cpu has 24 PCIE lanes, and how many does the X570 chipset have?

jincuteguy wrote:
Im still confused about how many PCIE lanes. All I know is the 5900X cpu has 24 PCIE lanes, and how many does the X570 chipset have?


https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-9-5900x-and-5950x-review,3.html
Ryzen 5000 series processors have 24 lanes of PCIe 4.0
4 are for the chipset interconnection
20 available for other uses
16 lanes are intended for graphics cards that are connected as x16 or 2 by x8
4 lanes are intended for fast storage such as NVMe SSDs

AMD X570 chipset provides an additional 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0
4 x4 lane PCIe 4 interfaces

ctwilson77 wrote:
https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-ryzen-9-5900x-and-5950x-review,3.html
Ryzen 5000 series processors have 24 lanes of PCIe 4.0
4 are for the chipset interconnection
20 available for other uses
16 lanes are intended for graphics cards that are connected as x16 or 2 by x8
4 lanes are intended for fast storage such as NVMe SSDs

AMD X570 chipset provides an additional 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0
4 x4 lane PCIe 4 interfaces


So the X570 chipset gives 16lanes of PCIE 4.0. Is that mean I can have 4 x PCIE 4.0 NVME ssds?
Or is the NVME PCIE 4.0 is only from the CPU?

jincuteguy wrote:
So the X570 chipset gives 16lanes of PCIE 4.0. Is that mean I can have 4 x PCIE 4.0 NVME ssds?
Or is the NVME PCIE 4.0 is only from the CPU?


If the motherboard has 4 NVME m.2 slots then yes, you can have 4. However do your research on the motherboard as sometimes using an m.2 slot will disable a SATA port, etc. It may not matter to you but at least you should be aware. I highly suggest you review the Users Manual for any motherboard you are considering buying to make sure that it can be configured and will perform the way you want. I also recommend searching through Youtube for relevant videos you are trying to learn about (a specific motherboard, NVME, m.2 slots, PCIe 4, etc). Lots of good information available if you look for it.

JarekN
Level 7

Hope someone can help me out with this one:

ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Samsung SSD 980 pro and Sabrent Rocket Q4 plugged into the motherboard
EVGA Geforce RTX 3080Ti in PCIEX16_2

In PCIEX16_1 HYPER M.2 X16 GEN 4 CARD with 4 Crucial P3 Plus PCIe 4.0 NVMe M2. SSD (4TB)
PCIEX16_1 is set to RAID Mode in Bios as per the manual, when set to Auto only one of the SSDs will be visible.

Problem is, I can only see 2 out of the 4 SSDs. Tried a bunch of bios changes with no luck. Initially had the card in the 2nd slot, but after looking at the FAQ https://www.asus.com/se/support/FAQ/1037507/ 
I decided to move it to the 1st slot as based on the FAQ it should support 4/2 M2 SSD Quantity. I assume that 4/2 means 4 or 2 SSDs support, not sure if the 4 and 2 depend on anything else.
Asus support had no clue, so they escalated the issue higher and now just gotta wait... Wonder if anyone here has any ideas?

I think the problem you are encountering is PCIEX16_1 is operating in x8 mode because you have a GPU in PCIEX16_2 (also operating in x8 mode).  As far as I can see, the Hyper M.2 cards don't have a PCIe multiplexing switch chip, they essentially just extend/bridge the motherboard lanes up to the M.2 slots on the card.  So, with only 8 lanes going into the card, only two of the x4 slots can be active.  The card supports 1 M.2 slot in a x4 slot, 2 in a x8 slot, and 4 in a x16 slot (the mode of the slot, not the physical size of it).

This is a limitation of the AM4 platform.  There are only 24 lanes total from the CPU.  16 go to the two x16 slots for x16/0 or x8/x8 operation.  4 go to the CPU M.2 slot.  4 go to the chipset (which does do PCIe multiplexing, having up to 16 lanes coming out of it, sharing 4 lanes of bandwidth back to the CPU).

JarekN
Level 7

Thanks, looking at the manual for the motherboard https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/ROG_CROSSHAIR_VIII_DARK_HERO/E19368_ROG_CROSSHAIR_VI... on page 1-9 I see: PCIe 3.0 x16_1 - x4+x4+x4+x4 unless I am reading it wrong.

So it there no way to get the 4 ssds to work in my configuration? Would changing the motherboard be the only solution and if so which MB would be recommended?