Best m.2 Slot for ROG STRIX Z790-E GAMING WIFI II

[BillyBobSenna]

Simple question, is the M2.1 slot best for a boot drive on this board? Does it cause the GPU to run slower since it will fun x8?

[JohnAb]

For most motherboards, yes, but check in your motherboard manual and it should be explained there...

[achugh]

Hi @BillyBobSenna which NVMe drive are you trying to use with your build? Here's the information from this board's manual although you also made a post about Z790 Hero board so I am not sure if you have multiple systems or are you trying get information to buy and build a system.

In any case, there is no QVL for HDD. If you are trying to get the fastest speed from your drive and the drive is GEN 5 then your only option is to use that GEN 5 drive in M.2_1 slot and YES you will lose 8 PCIe lanes to your graphics card slot once this M.2_1 slot is occupied.

I personally have a Z790 DARK HERO board and I have loaded my Windows OS into the M.2_2 slot which still comes from CPU but at GEN 4 speed. I have also populated my GEN 5 NVMe in M.2_1 slot but I use this drive as my DATA drive. There are couple of posts here where using M.2_1 slot for boot OS caused stability issue depending upon the drive you use. In general Kingston KC3000 NVMe drives are known to cause compatibility issue across multiple vendors including ASUS so you want to find something else.

I hope this information help you move forward. Good luck!

[BillyBobSenna]

Thanks this helps. Sorry for the confusion. I am working on 2 systems. The Hero is my computer and the Strix is going to be a gift for my son at Christmas. I have a Gen5 Corsair 2 TB T705 I am planning to make the boot disk on the Strix. In the end, what is the performance hit if the GPU is running X8? Thanks.

[achugh · Accepted solution]

Got it. I have Z790 Dark Hero. I do not see any difference in terms of performance with RTX 4090 running at X8.

Do you means Crucial 2 TB T705? and NOT Corsair.

I am using two of Crucial 2 TB T500 GEN 4 drives in M.2_2 and M.2_3. My GEN 5 Corsair 2 TB MP700 is in M.2_1.

I am booting Windows from M.2_2 and the other two M.2 drives are for data.

I do not see any issues. My full build details are in https://rog-forum.asus.com/t5/gaming-motherboards/can-asus-support-fix-realtek-audio-drivers-with-bo... 

[BillyBobSenna]

Yes, I meant Crucial 2 TB T705 and NOT Corsair. Not sure Corsair even makes m.2 drives.