M.2 slot selection

[willierw]

I have an Asus Prime Z790-P motherboard with a 13900KS. I have 2 identical samsung PM9A1 (980 Pro) 2TB NVMe 4.0 drives. I only have 1 PCIe slot used, PCIE 5.0 x16 with a Nvidia 4090. I understand that M.2 slot 1 uses CPU lanes and M.2 slots 2 & 3 use Z790 chipset lanes, thus the chipset controlled NVMe drive could have more latency. My question involves DMI. To my understanding the 4090, with select games, can use DMI. On one drive (C:) i have the OS (Windows 11) and productivity apps. On the second drive (D:) i have games. Which drive should be in slot 1 (cpu lanes) and which should be in slot 2 (Z790 lanes)

[willierw]

The reason for my internal debate is because after boot OS is stored in Ram so i would think that having the game drive on the cpu lanes along with the 4090 could have more benefit than having MS office and chrome.

[RONOTHAN##]

The difference is gonna be completely unnoticeable either way. It really doesn't matter. 

 

16 minutes ago, willierw said:

To my understanding the 4090, with select games, can use DMI

DMI is the link between the CPU and the chipset, completely separate from the GPU. Unless you are thinking of something else like Direct Storage the 4090 cannot do that in the slightest. 

[willierw]

6 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The difference is gonna be completely unnoticeable either way. It really doesn't matter. 

 

DMI is the link between the CPU and the chipset, completely separate from the GPU. Unless you are thinking of something else like Direct Storage the 4090 cannot do that in the slightest. 

Yes i was referring to direct storage. I know that SATA drives are not supported for direct storage but my understanding was that 40 series graphics cards and NVMes were supported. Though not by much... yet.

[tkitch]

1 minute ago, willierw said:

Yes i was referring to direct storage. I know that SATA drives are not supported for direct storage but my understanding was that 40 series graphics cards and NVMes were supported. Though not by much... yet.

what does SATA have to do with anything?

 

The effective difference between chipset and direct-PCIE m.2 NVMEs is minimal in real world stuff.

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, willierw said:

Yes i was referring to direct storage. I know that SATA drives are not supported for direct storage but my understanding was that 40 series graphics cards and NVMes were supported. Though not by much... yet.

They are for Direct Storage, DMI is just something completely different. It still isn't gonna make a worthwhile difference having it in one slot over another though, even if you play the one game that supports Direct Storage at the moment (Forspoken, which from the little I've heard is a bit of a mess). 

[willierw]

Thanks @RONOTHAN## & @tkitch. I was thinking it wouldnt matter what slots they were in, but i wanted so more opinions. @tkitch I was just saying that SATA is not supported by direct storage, and from my understanding NVMes and 40 series gpus are.

[tkitch]

2 minutes ago, willierw said:

Thanks @RONOTHAN## & @tkitch. I was thinking it wouldnt matter what slots they were in, but i wanted so more opinions. @tkitch I was just saying that SATA is not supported by direct storage, and from my understanding NVMes and 40 series gpus are.

yes, but SATA wasn't anywhere in the original post, so it's just a non-sequitur.

 

Yes, NVME is supported, regardless of generation.