Basic NVMe PCI 4.0 SSD Questions

1Wolf

Limp Gawd
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I'm sure these are pretty basic questions, but I'm new to M.2 NVMe SSD's, PCI Gen 4, etc. I haven't built a system since around 2012 or so.

My motherboard (ASUS Dark Hero) allows for two M.2 SSD's. I had considered picking up one M.2 NVMe PCI Gen 4 SSD as my OS/Games drive - Probably 1 TB. I've got a 2nd M.2 Slot left on the motherboard so I wanted to pick up a second M.2 SSD but it doesn't need to be cutting edge speed. I was thinking of an M.2 PCI Gen 3 SSD of 4 TB.

1) Will combining PCI Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD's and PCI Gen 3 M.2 SSD's like that slow my system down or anything. The speed won't drop to the lowest common denominator will it?
2) Is there any performance downside with using both M.2 NVMe SSD's? It won't reduce the performance if you are using both slots will it?
3) This system is a 5950x with a 3090. When combined with PCI Gen 4 SSD's would this cause any sort of "Traffic Jam" that might slow me down?
4) What if I also add other older storage technlogies like SATA SSD's, or SATA Spindle Drives - Would any of that slow me down?

Thanks!
 
I'm sure these are pretty basic questions, but I'm new to M.2 NVMe SSD's, PCI Gen 4, etc. I haven't built a system since around 2012 or so.

My motherboard (ASUS Dark Hero) allows for two M.2 SSD's. I had considered picking up one M.2 NVMe PCI Gen 4 SSD as my OS/Games drive - Probably 1 TB. I've got a 2nd M.2 Slot left on the motherboard so I wanted to pick up a second M.2 SSD but it doesn't need to be cutting edge speed. I was thinking of an M.2 PCI Gen 3 SSD of 4 TB.

1) Will combining PCI Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD's and PCI Gen 3 M.2 SSD's like that slow my system down or anything. The speed won't drop to the lowest common denominator will it?
2) Is there any performance downside with using both M.2 NVMe SSD's? It won't reduce the performance if you are using both slots will it?
3) This system is a 5950x with a 3090. When combined with PCI Gen 4 SSD's would this cause any sort of "Traffic Jam" that might slow me down?
4) What if I also add other older storage technlogies like SATA SSD's, or SATA Spindle Drives - Would any of that slow me down?

Thanks!
1: no
2: no
3: no
4: no - but some motherboards will disable one or two sata connections if particular nvme slots are used. Read the manual for more info.
 
1: no
2: no
3: no
4: no - but some motherboards will disable one or two sata connections if particular nvme slots are used. Read the manual for more info.

Thank you Keljian. Greatly appreciated.
 
My friend has a AMD 5950x and 3090 with WD SN850 500GB and a WD SN750 1TB. The system is speedy. I notice the difference between PCIe 3 to 4. The SN850 is the main drive

The motherboard is a Asus Tuf x570 plus wifi.
 
My friend has a AMD 5950x and 3090 with WD SN850 500GB and a WD SN750 1TB. The system is speedy. I notice the difference between PCIe 3 to 4. The SN850 is the main drive

The motherboard is a Asus Tuf x570 plus wifi.
Where do you notice the difference? Moving data or just normal desktop stuff?
 
My friend has a AMD 5950x and 3090 with WD SN850 500GB and a WD SN750 1TB. The system is speedy. I notice the difference between PCIe 3 to 4. The SN850 is the main drive

The motherboard is a Asus Tuf x570 plus wifi.

Thats very interesting as that is the exact drive I'm interested in - except the 2 TB version instead of the 1 TB.

I believe on my mobo (ASUS Dark Hero) that the first M.2 is PCIE 4.0 and the 2nd one is only PCIE 3.0 so I'm looking to go with a bigger 4 TB PCIE 3.0 in the 2nd slot.
 
Where do you notice the difference? Moving data or just normal desktop stuff?
I notice loading speeds are faster. It feels snappier to me. My friend has a pretty high end system 5950x, 32GB DDR4 3600MHz CL16, RTX 3090 with the SN850 so maybe thats why it feels snappy I guess.
 
I am glad there is 0 difference pretty much in sata ssds vs nvme ssds other than benchmarks and raw file copying.

Games and windows pretty much notice no difference other than placebo.

SATA ssds still hanging strong for game storage and even windows installs.
 
I believe on my mobo (ASUS Dark Hero) that the first M.2 is PCIE 4.0 and the 2nd one is only PCIE 3.0 so I'm looking to go with a bigger 4 TB PCIE 3.0 in the 2nd slot.
Incorrect. If you are using a Ryzen 3000 or 5000 series CPU, all of your PCIe slots are Gen 4.0 compliant, regardless of configuration. This is taken directly from ASUS' product page. I've highlighted the relevant information.

1613237809579.png
 
Incorrect. If you are using a Ryzen 3000 or 5000 series CPU, all of your PCIe slots are Gen 4.0 compliant, regardless of configuration. This is taken directly from ASUS' product page. I've highlighted the relevant information.

View attachment 329042

Thanks Dan_D. I'll probably still use a PCIE 3.0 in that 2nd slot though as if its not going to hurt my performance, its cheaper and its just for storage. I'm sure I don't need a PCIE 4.0 for my first slot either and probably won't notice the difference but seeing as how this will be my first AMD based system (all previously have been Intel) and my CPU and the mobo offer PCIE Gen 4 support...I'd like to get at least 1 PCIE Gen 4 simply because I can ;)
 
then look at the Rocket 4 Plus drives they are the newer version of the same drive but have much higher read/write im looking at 1tb main 2 2tb in other then like keljian suggested primocache will be in use on my 18tb spinner, with a nice fast ssd as a L2 Cache and since the system has 128gb of ram at 3600mhz ill dedicate a nice chunk to it as well for reading.
 
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There is no noticable difference in normal day to day use. It is a placebo effect to most people to justify the cost.
Incorrect.
Load times are absolutely faster with a PCI-E Gen 4 SSD vs Gen 3 SSD > > > > > > SATA SSD > > > > (x1000) spinning disk HDD.

You just aren't in a situation where your "day to day use" requires the amount of data moving around that mine does. There's a reason that I try to make sure that most of my data is loaded from RAMcache, because that's also noticeably faster than Gen 4. I'm super annoyed that Xbox gamepass titles don't work with cache solutions due to their really messed up installation method.

Anyway, back on topic.
The only pci-e gen4 SSD I have in my system at the moment is the Corsair Force MP600, but I suspect i'll be picking up one of the 7Gb/s models in the next few months so I can compare the two. It's adequate. Price was right when I got it though.

If you *aren't* in a situation where you'll be moving around hundreds of gigs of data a day, you'll probably be fine with either.
 
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Incorrect.
Load times are absolutely faster with a PCI-E Gen 4 SSD vs Gen 3 SSD > > > > > > SATA SSD > > > > (x1000) spinning disk HDD.

You just aren't in a situation where your "day to day use" requires the amount of data moving around that mine does. There's a reason that I try to make sure that most of my data is loaded from RAMcache, because that's also noticeably faster than Gen 4. I'm super annoyed that Xbox gamepass titles don't work with cache solutions due to their really messed up installation method.

Anyway, back on topic.
The only pci-e gen4 SSD I have in my system at the moment is the Corsair Force MP600, but I suspect i'll be picking up one of the 7Gb/s models in the next few months so I can compare the two. It's adequate. Price was right when I got it though.

If you *aren't* in a situation where you'll be moving around hundreds of gigs of data a day, you'll probably be fine with either.
No shit there is a difference between spinning rust and even a SATA SSD. Between gen 3 and 4 nope.
 
Incorrect.
Load times are absolutely faster with a PCI-E Gen 4 SSD vs Gen 3 SSD > > > > > > SATA SSD > > > > (x1000) spinning disk HDD.

You just aren't in a situation where your "day to day use" requires the amount of data moving around that mine does. There's a reason that I try to make sure that most of my data is loaded from RAMcache, because that's also noticeably faster than Gen 4. I'm super annoyed that Xbox gamepass titles don't work with cache solutions due to their really messed up installation method.

Anyway, back on topic.
The only pci-e gen4 SSD I have in my system at the moment is the Corsair Force MP600, but I suspect i'll be picking up one of the 7Gb/s models in the next few months so I can compare the two. It's adequate. Price was right when I got it though.

If you *aren't* in a situation where you'll be moving around hundreds of gigs of data a day, you'll probably be fine with either.
he meant between a NVME (gen3 or 4) and SATA SSD

installing the games or copy between NVME disks will be the only improvement, running them no as your CPU limited when its loading the data (well there is a diferance but tends to be under 2 seconds but that's more due efficiently providing the data at lower cpu usage)
 
I do have a quick question on PCI e 4.0, from this link,

https://rog.asus.com/ca-en/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-xiii-extreme-model/spec

it says under Storage: to get PCIE 4.0 x 4 speed, you need "Intel® 11th Core™ processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode"

so if your PC has a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, you do need to have the 11th Generation CPU to get to that 7GB / 7 GB R/W speed?

and if you don't, you only get PCIe 3.0 speed then?
 
I do have a quick question on PCI e 4.0, from this link,

https://rog.asus.com/ca-en/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-xiii-extreme-model/spec

it says under Storage: to get PCIE 4.0 x 4 speed, you need "Intel® 11th Core™ processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode"

so if your PC has a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, you do need to have the 11th Generation CPU to get to that 7GB / 7 GB R/W speed?

and if you don't, you only get PCIe 3.0 speed then?
For intel, yes. As well as a motherboard that supports pcie-4.0

For AMD you need a 3000 or 5000 series processor and a B550 or X570 board.
(Major simplification, a few x470 boards also support it.)

It'll still function fine and you'll likely get the faster seek times if on PCI-E 3, but it'll max out around 3500 MBPS speed wise due to bandwidth limitations.
 
but when we jump from SATA SSD to NVMe SSD, such as the Intel 760p, we don't need a certain generation CPU to support it. Practically any CPU w/ any motherboard will do. If your motherboard doesn't have m.2 slot, you can buy a NVMe adopter card x1.

who on earth is going to pay that much money, to get only twice the speed? I mean, even 10th generation core CPU won't work.

The Crucial P5 that I'm using, is 3400 / 3000 Mb/s R/W.

These fancy PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, is twice that. But to get that 2X speed, you literally have to get a new motherboard, new CPU, etc. Like, 3400 / 3000 Mb/s R/W is fast enough for me.
 
I do have a quick question on PCI e 4.0, from this link,

https://rog.asus.com/ca-en/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-xiii-extreme-model/spec

it says under Storage: to get PCIE 4.0 x 4 speed, you need "Intel® 11th Core™ processors support PCIe 4.0 x4 mode"

so if your PC has a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, you do need to have the 11th Generation CPU to get to that 7GB / 7 GB R/W speed?

and if you don't, you only get PCIe 3.0 speed then?
It is my understanding that with the Z590 boards you are required to have an 11th gen Core CPU to even use the PCI-e 4.0 NVME slot. That NVME slot runs off of the lanes from the CPU only and only the 11th gen have any lanes for it. If you have a 10th gen CPU in a Z590 board that PCI-e 4.0 NVME slot is inoperable and useless. Any other NVME slots should still run at 3.0, though.
 
I am glad there is 0 difference pretty much in sata ssds vs nvme ssds other than benchmarks and raw file copying.

Games and windows pretty much notice no difference other than placebo.

SATA ssds still hanging strong for game storage and even windows installs.
I went from a standard SSD to a new NVME 4 and my machine boots up a lot faster and loads games a lot faster. So you can tell a difference, depending on what the jump is.
 
Jordan, but some of us in the IT industry has been thru the pain of "jumping on that bandwagon" too soon. These PCI e 4 NVMe drive are from a bunch of non traditional SSD manufacturer. meaning they are not cut for this. The big guys, such as Cruical, etc. hasn't jump in. I have no faith in these john doe SSD manufacturer, take a look at that mess that Corsair makes a no. of yr. back, when all of their SSD can't be recognize by the owner's PC, and their soln. to deal w/ that customer mess is NOT to ask their phone and their emails.

I know, because I own 2 of them
 
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