Single vs. Multi M.2 Performance

[MyNameGoesHere]

I originally posted this in another topic I thought was related but it was never answered there, so I decided to start a new one for this specifically.

 

This is something I've been wondering for quite a while, and I haven't been able to find any good information on it elsewhere yet.

 

Take the 2 below separate system configurations. In both cases, the CPU has a total of 20 PCIe lanes, 16 of which would obviously be used by the GPU:

1) Single NVMe drive (PCIe 4.0 x4 mode) direct to CPU for everything

-or-

2) NVMe drive (PCIe 4.0 x4 mode) direct to CPU for OS, and NVMe drive (PCIe 3.0 x4 mode) via Z590 chipset for games.

 

Assuming the total storage would be the same for both configurations (2TB vs. 1TB + 1TB) and all other hardware is the same, what would the difference in system performance be between the 2 configurations?

 

I've been thinking that having separate drives would eliminate the possible bottleneck of the drive's read/write limits when trying to do OS and game tasks simultaneously, but would the second drive in config 2 be more limited by using PCIe 3.0 or other bottlenecks in the system and actually turn out perform worse than just one drive for everything?

[Electronics Wizardy]

For games it won't matter at all. The performance needed by games is pretty low, so you really don't need to buy crazy hardware for games. Your no where near the limit of the games when loading games.

 

 

[Jurrunio]

36 minutes ago, MyNameGoesHere said:

eliminate the possible bottleneck of the drive's read/write limits when trying to do OS and game tasks simultaneously,

OS and games dont use enough bandwidth to saturate a fast NVMe SSD at the same time. Especially since when running games, you arent starting new apps which reduces OS task loads on the SSD to a minimum