How many NVMe does this Setup support?

[Klennex]

Hey guys, 

 

so I want to order the parts to build my very own PC, for the first time.

But there is one question left: Would my Motherboard and CPU support 3 or 4 NVMe M.2 all on maximum speed?

 

I am getting:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master

CPU: AMD 7950X3D

 

The motherboard has 4 PCIe M.2 connectors 

2 of them called „CPU“ and two of them „SB“ (look picture below)

 

i really don’t know what that means. And I am therefore not sure if 3 or 4 will run at full speed. Just because the CPU has 24 lanes, 16 should be gone from the GPU and 2x4=8 from 2x M.2 Samsung 990 Pro, right? Or am I missing something?

Can I still add a 3rd or 4th M.2 990 Pro or what would happen?

 

Using the PC for editing and stuff. That’s why I want more NVMe storage.

 

Thank you in advance!

Klennex

[Oshino Shinobu]

4 at full speed with a single x16 GPU. M2A and M2B will use 4 lanes each from the CPU. M2C and M2D will run from the chipset's lanes.

[HopelessGPU]

The GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master motherboard can hold up to 4 NVMe M.2 drives. Two of the connectors are called "CPU" and are directly connected to the CPU. The other two are called "SB" and are connected to the chipset.

The AMD 7950X3D CPU has 24 PCIe lanes. 16 of these lanes are for the GPU and the other 8 are available for other devices like NVMe M.2 drives. Each NVMe M.2 drive needs 4 PCIe lanes. So, you can add up to two Samsung 990 Pro M.2 drives without affecting the GPU performance.

If you add more than two M.2 drives, they can still work, but they may not work as fast. This is because the bandwidth of the chipset is shared among all connected devices. So, adding more M.2 drives could slightly decrease the performance of other devices like USB ports or network interface.

 

In summary, you can add up to two Samsung 990 Pro M.2 drives without affecting GPU performance. If you add more, they may not work as fast and other devices may be slightly affected.

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Klennex said:

Hey guys, 

 

so I want to order the parts to build my very own PC, for the first time.

But there is one question left: Would my Motherboard and CPU support 3 or 4 NVMe M.2 all on maximum speed?

 

I am getting:

Motherboard: GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master

CPU: AMD 7950X3D

 

The motherboard has 4 PCIe M.2 connectors 

2 of them called „CPU“ and two of them „SB“ (look picture below)

 

i really don’t know what that means. And I am therefore not sure if 3 or 4 will run at full speed. Just because the CPU has 24 lanes, 16 should be gone from the GPU and 2x4=8 from 2x M.2 Samsung 990 Pro, right? Or am I missing something?

Can I still add a 3rd or 4th M.2 990 Pro or what would happen?

 

Using the PC for editing and stuff. That’s why I want more NVMe storage.

 

Thank you in advance!

Klennex

Do you need this level of PC?  It seems you're not entirely certain what it entails, and I would advise more research before buying top end components.  Your build is going to be very expensive, and I would hate to see you overbuy if you don't have to.

 

"Editing and stuff"... what are you editing?

 

 

[Klennex]

17 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Do you need this level of PC?  It seems you're not entirely certain what it entails, and I would advise more research before buying top end components.  Your build is going to be very expensive, and I would hate to see you overbuy if you don't have to.

 

"Editing and stuff"... what are you editing?

 

 

I am doing video and Photo editing mostly using Premier Pro and Lightroom.

 

Sometimes I am working with DaVinci revsolve as well. It’s 4K footage. 
 

i just wanted to know how much and what is slowing down, when I install a third M.2

[NewMaxx]

It's possible to run more NVMe SSDs than it appears on these boards, if you are so inclined.

 

If there's no discrete GPU, you can run up to 4 SSDs in the primary PCIe slot with 4x/4x/4x/4x PCIe bifurcation. Other boards will have two slots and can do x8/x4/x4 with a discrete GPU and bifurcation, so 2 SSDs.

 

If you're not using the SATA3 4/5 connectors you can use a NVMe to PCIe adapter in the second PCIe slot (PCIEX2) at x2 PCIe 3.0. Other boards will have more PCIe slots, and you can run NVMe drives even in x1 slots with the appropriate adapter.

 

No TB/USB4 so you can't passthrough/tunnel PCIe, but NVMe to USB enclosures exist. Boards with TB/USB4 can pass 4x PCIe lanes.

[Klennex]

20 hours ago, HopelessGPU said:

The GIGABYTE X670E AORUS Master motherboard can hold up to 4 NVMe M.2 drives. Two of the connectors are called "CPU" and are directly connected to the CPU. The other two are called "SB" and are connected to the chipset.

The AMD 7950X3D CPU has 24 PCIe lanes. 16 of these lanes are for the GPU and the other 8 are available for other devices like NVMe M.2 drives. Each NVMe M.2 drive needs 4 PCIe lanes. So, you can add up to two Samsung 990 Pro M.2 drives without affecting the GPU performance.

If you add more than two M.2 drives, they can still work, but they may not work as fast. This is because the bandwidth of the chipset is shared among all connected devices. So, adding more M.2 drives could slightly decrease the performance of other devices like USB ports or network interface.

 

In summary, you can add up to two Samsung 990 Pro M.2 drives without affecting GPU performance. If you add more, they may not work as fast and other devices may be slightly affected.

Should I connect the two M.2 both to the CPU directly or should one be connected to the chipset when I don’t want to lose GPU performance?

[HopelessGPU]

30 minutes ago, Klennex said:

Should I connect the two M.2 both to the CPU directly or should one be connected to the chipset when I don’t want to lose GPU performance?

If you want to keep your GPU running fast, connect both M.2 drives to the "CPU" connectors on your motherboard. These connectors are directly connected to your CPU and have a special lane just for the drives. That means they won't slow down your USB ports or network connections.

But if you connect one of the drives to the "SB" connector on the chipset, it will have to share its lane with other devices, like USB or network connections. This might slow down your GPU a little, or make other devices run a bit slower.

[kokosnh]

actually, it could be wise, to consider PLX/ PCIe 3.0 switch chip with that budget, it cost 200-300$, but you can connect 4 x PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD M.2 NVMe to the PCIe slot, and just buy cheaper motherboard...
The only problem is that the cost of PCIe 3.0 PCIe switches, are  somewhat bearable, while the PCIe 4.0 one are horrendous expensive.  If the PCIe 3.0 x4 speeds for single M.2 SSD are acceptable, then it's not a bad solution.
And you don't need bifurcation support, so no need to run GPU through chipset.

[Klennex]

11 hours ago, HopelessGPU said:

If you want to keep your GPU running fast, connect both M.2 drives to the "CPU" connectors on your motherboard. These connectors are directly connected to your CPU and have a special lane just for the drives. That means they won't slow down your USB ports or network connections.

But if you connect one of the drives to the "SB" connector on the chipset, it will have to share its lane with other devices, like USB or network connections. This might slow down your GPU a little, or make other devices run a bit slower.

I would understand that SATA or the USB ports slow down a bit because they share the same PCIe x4 Lanes as the 3rd M.2 connected to the Chipset.

But why would the GPU run slower?

As I understand the picture below, the GPU has 16x lanes reserved

the 2 M.2 connected to the CPU have each 4x lanes and then the chipset has 4x lanes as well.

 

so if anything only the other chipset connections like the USB or the SATA connection should slow down no?

[Klennex]

On 5/13/2023 at 1:34 PM, Dedayog said:

Do you need this level of PC?  It seems you're not entirely certain what it entails, and I would advise more research before buying top end components.  Your build is going to be very expensive, and I would hate to see you overbuy if you don't have to.

 

"Editing and stuff"... what are you editing?

 

 

But would you say I can connect my GPU with 16x lanes

2x m.2 with each 4x lanes to the cpu 

and if I connect a third m.2 to the chipset it would, if ever, only slow down things like sata (which I am not using) or my usb ports.

 

 

the GPU is not slowing down because of the third one right?

[Dedayog]

2 hours ago, Klennex said:

But would you say I can connect my GPU with 16x lanes

2x m.2 with each 4x lanes to the cpu 

and if I connect a third m.2 to the chipset it would, if ever, only slow down things like sata (which I am not using) or my usb ports.

 

 

the GPU is not slowing down because of the third one right?

I don't know, I have never thought about it nor cared about it.  I don't know how PCIe lanes work at all.

 

If I were to interpret your pic there, I would say you get 16x for the GPU, 4x for 1 NVMe drive, and 4x for 1 more NVMe drive all going to the CPU.

 

Then you get 12x more lanes for more NVMe and other stuffs as listed.  Does that impact the GPU?  No idea what PICK ONE: 8x PCIe 3.0 Lanes means.

 

Even at half speed of 8x for the GPU, is it 8x PCIe 5.0?  Which is 16x PCie 4.0 if I recall?  Would that mean your GPU is fine since it's a PCIe 4.0 card?

 

No idea to any of that.

 

Hopefully someone can straighten it out for you, but I'm like Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder.  I don't know or care how it works, as long as it does.

[kokosnh]

2 hours ago, Klennex said:

But would you say I can connect my GPU with 16x lanes

2x m.2 with each 4x lanes to the cpu 

and if I connect a third m.2 to the chipset it would, if ever, only slow down things like sata (which I am not using) or my usb ports.

 

 

the GPU is not slowing down because of the third one right?

Well yes, if you run it directly from CPU, then it has dedicated PCIe lanes. So it’s not slowing down.
Did you consider anything else? bifurcation? The gpu have priority right?