Asus x470 Prime pro NVME questions

[MajorFoley]

Hi guys so looking at the spec sheet. The Asus X470 prime pro supports 2 NVME drives but im a little confused about it. So currently i have one Samsung evo 500GB NVME in the spot under the M.2 heatsink (i think this one runs at x4 right?)

When i look at the spec sheet the 2nd run will only run at x2 or SATA right depending on the config of your pc? Does that mean both will run at x2 or one will run at x4 and one will run at x2? I'm not planning on getting another NVME anytime soon (i will be getting a Sata SSD for game storage soon, either waiting on a cheaper QVO or just going EVO) but it would be nice knowledge to have.

[Jurrunio]

21 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

(i think this one runs at x4 right?)

 

is it the one at the top, closest to the CPU? If it isn't, it maxes out at PCIe 3.0 x2. You could check this with Crystaldiskinfo

 

23 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

Does that mean both will run at x2 or one will run at x4 and one will run at x2?

the latter situation. 

[MajorFoley]

5 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

is it the one at the top, closest to the CPU? If it isn't, it maxes out at PCIe 3.0 x2. You could check this with Crystaldiskinfo

 

Definitely closer to the CPU. Where does crystaldiskinfo show this?

 

5 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

the latter situation. 

Good to know
So what would happen if i got a capture card like the Elgato HD60? I think they usually want that in a PCIe slot x1 right? So would that mean any future SSD in that other m.2 slot would have to be in SATA mode?

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

Where does crystaldiskinfo show this?

you'll see it, very obvious.

 

4 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

So what would happen if i got a capture card like the Elgato HD60? I think they usually want that in a PCIe slot x1 right? So would that mean any future SSD in that other m.2 slot would have to be in SATA mode?

Just keep the capture card or any other PCIe device away from the PCIe x1 slot right next to the top PCIe x16 slot and the second M.2 slot will accept PCIe SSDs no problem. What running that in SATA mode is it will disable some SATA ports (usually 2)

[MajorFoley]

30 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Just keep the capture card or any other PCIe device away from the PCIe x1 slot right next to the top PCIe x16 slot and the second M.2 slot will accept PCIe SSDs no problem. What running that in SATA mode is it will disable some SATA ports (usually 2)

https://hexus.net/tech/news/mainboard/116327-asus-x470-motherboard-manual-shared-forum/  (can't find my manual atm)
Right so judging by this pic (3rd pic) my GPU GTX 1070 is in PCIe 16_1 and i think is also covering the PCIEx 1_1 slot and possibly the 1_2 slot can't see it well without opening the case would that mean it should be good in the PCIEX 1_3 slot or even the 16_2 slot (although that really wouldn't be necessary)?

[Jurrunio]

Use PCIe1_3 slot if that's the case, PCIe16_2 slot could cut the GPU's bandwidth in half since this board supports SLI. Not that it really matters since PCIe 3.0 x8 is still sufficient for the 1070, but helps with my OCD.

 

[MajorFoley]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Use PCIe1_3 slot if that's the case, PCIe16_2 slot could cut the GPU's bandwidth in half since this board supports SLI. Not that it really matters since PCIe 3.0 x8 is still sufficient for the 1070, but helps with my OCD.

 

Guess that's all i really needed to know but i got 1 last question. If i went nuts on the capture for future proofing and went for the 4K Elgato model since that requires PCIe x4 i would have to use the PCIe 16_3 slot right?

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, MajorFoley said:

If i went nuts on the capture for future proofing and went for the 4K Elgato model since that requires PCIe x4 i would have to use the PCIe 16_3 slot right?

better use the 16_2 slot in that case. 16_3 might look like 16 but it only gets 4 lanes max. Also because it's connected to the chipset along with other drives and connected devices, it has to share this x4 bandwidth with everything else and I dont know whether that will limit its performance.

[MajorFoley]

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

better use the 16_2 slot in that case. 16_3 might look like 16 but it only gets 4 lanes max. Also because it's connected to the chipset along with other drives and connected devices, it has to share this x4 bandwidth with everything else and I dont know whether that will limit its performance.

Ok so from what i understand if its a x1 card i should use the 3rd slot but if its a x4 im better off using the 2nd PCIe slot which would make slot 1 and 2 run at x8 each right?

[Jurrunio]

25 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

Ok so from what i understand if its a x1 card i should use the 3rd slot but if its a x4 im better off using the 2nd PCIe slot which would make slot 1 and 2 run at x8 each right?

yup

[MajorFoley]

On 10/17/2019 at 3:34 PM, Jurrunio said:

yup

Aren't there 2 sorts of lanes? CPU Lanes and then chipset lanes? By default the CPU has 16 which the GPU tends to use all of it so shouldn't the NVME also use chipset lanes as well as capture card or am i missing something?

[Jurrunio]

7 hours ago, MajorFoley said:

the CPU has 16

Intel 115x CPUs have 20, Ryzen has 24. 16 to GPU. 4 to chipset, Ryzen has extra 4 dedicated to the first M.2 (marked as M2_1 in most board user manuals).

[MajorFoley]

35 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Intel 115x CPUs have 20, Ryzen has 24. 16 to GPU. 4 to chipset, Ryzen has extra 4 dedicated to the first M.2 (marked as M2_1 in most board user manuals).

This is making sense yet also confusing at the same time. So those chipset ones they are already mostly being used by the slots of your motherboard like USB's ethernet etc? Thats why there's limited available for spare?

[Jurrunio]

8 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

So those chipset ones they are already mostly being used by the slots of your motherboard like USB's ethernet etc?

There are two limits for speed of devices linked to the chipset, the lanes it gets from the chipset and the bandwidth the chipset itself gets. Problem with having a bandwidth bungry device on the chipset is that all's good when other devices are near idle, but all hell breaks loose when they all start pulling data and hit the chipset's own bandwidth cap.

 

In other words, chipset is like a multisocket adapter. Connect 3 lamps to it is fine, 3 A/C units at full spin blows it up.

[MajorFoley]

18 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

There are two limits for speed of devices linked to the chipset, the lanes it gets from the chipset and the bandwidth the chipset itself gets. Problem with having a bandwidth bungry device on the chipset is that all's good when other devices are near idle, but all hell breaks loose when they all start pulling data and hit the chipset's own bandwidth cap.

 

In other words, chipset is like a multisocket adapter. Connect 3 lamps to it is fine, 3 A/C units at full spin blows it up.

Right i think i got it. So does the motherboard automatically assume if your putting any kind of card in a x16 slot that your going to run at a 2 by x8 config and thats why we still have pcie 1 lanes so it doesn't usually interfere as much?

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, MajorFoley said:

So does the motherboard automatically assume if your putting any kind of card in a x16 slot that your going to run at a 2 by x8 config

Might be configurable in the bios, not sure

 

2 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

thats why we still have pcie 1 lanes so it doesn't usually interfere as much?

it's meant for stuff like Wifi adapters, TV signal receivers, anything weird with a PCIe connector

[MajorFoley]

8 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

it's meant for stuff like Wifi adapters, TV signal receivers, anything weird with a PCIe connector

And like we talked about before any non 4K capture cards. I think thats everything then. I'm probably gonna pick up a Elgato HD 60 pro some point in the future and will just plug it into a 1x PCIe slot.

[Jurrunio]

16 minutes ago, MajorFoley said:

And like we talked about before any non 4K capture cards. I think thats everything then. I'm probably gonna pick up a Elgato HD 60 pro some point in the future and will just plug it into a 1x PCIe slot.

btw you know that capture cards are used for capturing external output like consoles right?

[MajorFoley]

18 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

btw you know that capture cards are used for capturing external output like consoles right?

Yup i want it for my Nintendo Switch and whatever future console i may get on the cheap. Want to get some gameplay recorded or stream at some point with it. Just trying to decide between 2 brands at the moment.