Can Asus Z790 Hero have 2 PCIe 4.0 SSDs?

[HungryHamster]

I want to install 2 Samsung 980pro SSDs on the Asus Z790 Hero motherboard. Will this reduce the bandwidth of the PCIe 5.0 slot which is used by the graphics card? I would rather not have to install the ROG Hyper M.2 card.

 

https://rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-z790-hero-model/spec/

 

I also found this, but not sure how to interpret it:

ROG / PROART Intel 700 Series	PCIe x16 slot	PCIe bifurcation in PCIe x16 slot
		M.2 SSD quantity
ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO	PCIEX16(G5)_1	1(X16)*/ 2(X8+X8)*
	PCIEX16(G5)_2	1(X8)*

[Ebony Falcon]

From what I was reading on z790 u can use up to 4 m.2 without effecting pcie slot speed 

[Shimejii]

You should be able to yes. Usually you can actually have 4 and it just disables SATA ports and such. You wont notice it any difference.

[RONOTHAN##]

9 minutes ago, HungryHamster said:

Will using 2 PCIe 4.0 m.2 slots on the Asus Z790 Hero motherboard reduce the bandwidth of the PCIe 5.0 slot which is used by the graphics card?

If you don't use the M.2 expansion card, no bandwidth will ever be taken from the GPU. If you do use the M.2 expansion card, you can have bandwidth reduced from the GPU if you populate the 2nd PCIe slot, but if you use the bottom PCIe slot no bandwidth will be taken from the GPU. 

 

The only way you can have bandwidth taken away from the GPU is if the 2nd PCIe slot is used as well, otherwise the GPU will have its full 16 lanes (there are no switches on that board that move PCIe lanes to an SSD like there are on the Z790-E Strix, Z690 PG Velocita, Z690/Z790 Extreme, etc.). 

 

That board has 3 M.2 slots on the board itself, so you can have 3 Gen 4 SSDs easily. 

[Ebony Falcon]

1 minute ago, Shimejii said:

You should be able to yes. Usually you can actually have 4 and it just disables SATA ports and such. You wont notice it any difference.

I know on my z790 tomahawk if u run all 4 m.2’s on the board it disables 1 sata port