Which M.2 slot?

[Misanthropic_Turtle]

Hi, I'm working on an AM5 build for a friend. I've got a Gigabyte B650 AORUS ELITE AX V2. It has two CPU M.2 slots, one that is PCIE 5 capable and the other that is PCIE 4. I'm going to install a 2TB WD_Black SN850X that came with a heatsink. The WD_Black drive is PCIE 4. This is the only drive I'll be installing, and I doubt whether my friend will ever want to add an additional M.2 drive.

 

So my question is simply whether I should install this drive to the PCIE 4 slot or the PCIE 5 slot? Should I put it in the PCIE 4 slot anticipating that a gen 5 drive may come around later and go there, or, because it's the single primary drive, put it in the PCIE 5 slot? Or put it in the PCIE 4 slot regardless? (Both are CPU, the third is chipset.)

 

[Fasauceome]

If your friend buys a PCIe 5.0 drive, that would be for a major use case like really demanding file transfers and stuff, generally it's for real professional applications. PCIe 4.0 isn't even really gamer-grade stuff, with very little improvement over PCIe 3.0 in general usage when it comes to storage applications.

By the time your friend gets their own new M.2 drive and installs it, chances are they can manually move the PCIe 4.0 SSD to the other slot if needed.

[Misanthropic_Turtle]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

If your friend buys a PCIe 5.0 drive, that would be for a major use case like really demanding file transfers and stuff, generally it's for real professional applications. PCIe 4.0 isn't even really gamer-grade stuff, with very little improvement over PCIe 3.0 in general usage when it comes to storage applications.

By the time your friend gets their own new M.2 drive and installs it, chances are they can manually move the PCIe 4.0 SSD to the other slot if needed.

So does that mean that I should install it in the PCIE 5 slot since it's like the primary slot? This drive will be the sole drive with the Windows installation...

[Dedayog]

25 minutes ago, Misanthropic_Turtle said:

So does that mean that I should install it in the PCIE 5 slot since it's like the primary slot? This drive will be the sole drive with the Windows installation...

Yes, just put it in the top slot.    

[Fasauceome]

26 minutes ago, Misanthropic_Turtle said:

So does that mean that I should install it in the PCIE 5 slot since it's like the primary slot? This drive will be the sole drive with the Windows installation...

The top slot benefits from the fact that it's connected to 4 PCIe lanes directly off the CPU. Small things like latency improvements. 

[Misanthropic_Turtle]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

The top slot benefits from the fact that it's connected to 4 PCIe lanes directly off the CPU. Small things like latency improvements. 

I understand, but I just want to clarify that from what I can see, the second slot does as well- it's PCIE 4x4 and goes off the CPU, whereas the top slot is PCIE 5. The third slot is chipset, I won't be using that. 

[Misanthropic_Turtle]

I guess what I'm getting at is this: I don't want to be foolish by putting it in the first slot that supports Gen 5 when the second slot is gen 4, which matches the drive and should be good enough. Both go over the CPU and support PCIE 4x4. But I also don't want to be foolish by NOT installing the primary drive in the "primary" slot. Maybe it just doesn't matter.

[Fasauceome]

16 minutes ago, Misanthropic_Turtle said:

I understand, but I just want to clarify that from what I can see, the second slot does as well- it's PCIE 4x4 and goes off the CPU, whereas the top slot is PCIE 5. The third slot is chipset, I won't be using that. 

If the second M.2 slot is also wired to the CPU on this board, there is literally no difference which you pick so you would not go wrong either way fortunately.

[Dedayog]

8 minutes ago, Misanthropic_Turtle said:

I guess what I'm getting at is this: I don't want to be foolish by putting it in the first slot that supports Gen 5 when the second slot is gen 4, which matches the drive and should be good enough. Both go over the CPU and support PCIE 4x4. But I also don't want to be foolish by NOT installing the primary drive in the "primary" slot. Maybe it just doesn't matter.

No it doesn't matter, at all.

 

You're overthinking this.