Which NVMe slot is fastes?

[Rstolpe]

Hi,
I have three NVMe slots on my mobo (MSI meg z490 Ace) and I'm wondering which one is fastest? Is slot 3 the slowest one as it share the band with PCIe Express 3 slot?

Reason why I'm wondering is because I want to have my OS and if possible the Game disk at the fastest slot and the storage one in the slower slot.

 

[minibois]

3 minutes ago, Rstolpe said:

I have three NVMe slots on my mobo (MSI meg z490 Ace) and I'm wondering which one is fastest? Is slot 3 the slowest one as it share the band with PCIe Express 3 slot?

Reason why I'm wondering is because I want to have my OS and if possible the Game disk at the fastest slot and the storage one in the slower slot.

Technically they will all be able to run at the same speed:

Quote

M2_1 supports up to PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s, 2242/ 2260/ 2280/ 22110 storage devices [1]
M2_2 supports up to PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s, 2242/ 2260/ 2280 storage devices [2]
M2_3 supports up to PCIe 3.0 x4, 2242/ 2260/ 2280 storage devices

SATA slots 1 and 2 with their caveats though:

Quote

[1] SATA2 will be unavailable when installing M.2 SATA SSD in the M2_1 slot.

[2]SATA5 & SATA6 will be unavailable when installing M.2 SATA/PCIe SSD in the M2_2 slot.

In practice they will all feel like the same speed. In theory though, one of those (probably M2_1) might be connected to the CPU directly, instead of the chipset; which could have better latency (but I doubt that makes a difference).

[badreg]

They're all the same speed (i.e. all wired through the chipset with a link speed of PCIe 3.0 x4). However, the first one should be used first as that one does not disable any of the SATA ports when an NVMe drive is installed.

[SupaKomputa]

Probably the M.2_3 since its getting the lanes straight from the CPU.

The other slots goes to the chipset, and probably sharing some lanes with the sata port.

[Rstolpe]

28 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

Probably the M.2_3 since its getting the lanes straight from the CPU.

The other slots goes to the chipset, and probably sharing some lanes with the sata port.

I'm confused one tells me Slot 1 the other slot 3

[SupaKomputa]

1 minute ago, Rstolpe said:

I'm confused one tells me Slot 1 the other slot 3

I'm confused to, usually slot 1 is better since it's the shortest one to the CPU.

Anyway you shouldn't worry that much, even if it has some drawbacks, it won't be noticeable.

The ideal location should be clear of any disturbance, like GPU or cables.

[Rstolpe]

14 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

I'm confused to, usually slot 1 is better since it's the shortest one to the CPU.

Anyway you shouldn't worry that much, even if it has some drawbacks, it won't be noticeable.

The ideal location should be clear of any disturbance, like GPU or cables.

Then it's slot_3 that one is totally free, slot 2 is under GPU slot 3 is between GPU and CPU

[SupaKomputa]

That slot usually labeled as slot 1 in most motherboards.

[Rstolpe]

4 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

That slot usually labeled as slot 1 in most motherboards.

Ok, well it's labeld 3 here MSI maybe are a little strange.

So what I'll do is that I'll put my Windows disk at Slot 3 (the free one) Then the game one on the GPU and then the storage at the CPU.