Buying an M.2 for Taichi x470 motherboard

[Kiiryu]

I'm currently looking at M.2 SSDs, however I'm a little confused about what my options are, the motherboard specs seem to imply that there are two M.2 slots, but that they are different

http://www.asrock.com/MB/AMD/X470 Taichi/index.asp

 

I've also seen it mentioned that M.2 SSDs "use" PCI slots (aside from using an adapter), which I don't really understand.

 

So in the 200-300$ range which M.2 cards should I be getting, and what can I use in either slot? 

 

[airdeano]

the upper most m.2 is ultra: supports M Key type 2260/2280/22110 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s) Supports ASRock U.2 Kit

the lower most is m.2: supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen2 x4 (20 Gb/s) and when occupied: If M2_2 is occupied, PCIE5 slot will be disabled

[Senzelian]

The difference between the two M.2 slots is, that one can use up to 4 PCI-e 3.0 lanes and that the other one can use up to 4 PCI-e 2.0 lanes - effectively only providing half the bandwith. So in short:

 

1. M.2 PCI-e 3.0 4x - 4GB/s of Bandwith
2. M.2 PCI-e 2.0 4x - 2,5GB/s of Bandwith

This is only relevant if you want to buy a M.2 NVME SSD, which can exceed the limit of 2,5GB/s.

If you buy M.2 AHCI (SATA) SSDs, you won't have to worry about it!

 

 

To your next question:
M.2 slots are nothing more than PCI-e slots, just with a different pin-layout, which are afaik always routed over the chipset and not directly to the CPU.

That means they will most likely disable a few SATA ports (usually 2) when in use.

 

 

And to your last question:

That entirely depends on your use case. I generally don't recommend to use NVMe SSDs, as they are much faster, but you most likely won't be able to make use of the speed and are more likely in need of more storage. You get a lot more storage with a AHCI (SATA) SSD, than with a NVME SSD for the same price!

[Kiiryu]

5 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

And to your last question:

That entirely depends on your use case. I generally don't recommend to use NVMe SSDs, as they are much faster, but you most likely won't be able to make use of the speed and are more likely in need of more storage. You get a lot more storage with a AHCI (SATA) SSD, than with a NVME SSD for the same price!

Well, there are two things that I deal with that make me think I might benefit from the faster speed.
1. Loading, compiling, and saving Game project files (Upgrading from an Intel i5 2500k to a Ryzen 7 2700x only sped up compiling slightly, so I'm hoping a faster SSD will have more of an impact)

2. Loading Kontakt libraries in music production, for which loading is directly tied to how fast your hard-drive is.

 

Storage space isn't a huge deal for me, since my game projects aren't big, they just have a lot of files, which makes file transfers time consuming. Kontakt libraries are large, but I only ever use a few big ones.

For PCI slots, all I'd ever have is a graphics card, so that would only be an issue if the graphics card also uses multiple slots (which I also don't know enough about).

 

[Senzelian]

12 minutes ago, Kiiryu said:

Well, there are two things that I deal with that make me think I might benefit from the faster speed.
1. Loading, compiling, and saving Game project files (Upgrading from an Intel i5 2500k to a Ryzen 7 2700x only sped up compiling slightly, so I'm hoping a faster SSD will have more of an impact)

2. Loading Kontakt libraries in music production, for which loading is directly tied to how fast your hard-drive is.

 

Storage space isn't a huge deal for me, since my game projects aren't big, they just have a lot of files, which makes file transfers time consuming. Kontakt libraries are large, but I only ever use a few big ones.

For PCI slots, all I'd ever have is a graphics card, so that would only be an issue if the graphics card also uses multiple slots (which I also don't know enough about).

 

Okay, then you might want to look into NVMe SSDs.
If you get a NVMe SSD with speeds upwards of 2.5GB/s, you should install it in the first and therefor faster M.2 slot.

 

Graphics cards usually go into the first 16x PCI-e slot, which is wired directly to the CPU and therefor always have enough PCI-e lanes available, if nothing is plugged into the other PCI-e slots. And even if not enough PCI-e lanes were available and your GPU would have to run effectively on 8 PCI-e lanes, it would not impact performance.

 

M.2 SSDs are usually wired to the chipset, which has its own set of PCI-e lanes. I don't know how many AMD provides with their Ryzen platform, but most likely enough for you to be able to use two NVMe SSDs at max speed and still have 2-4 SATA slots left for HDDs/SSDs.

 

In short; unless you run multiple 16x/8x PCI-e devices and more than at least 4 storage devices, you don't have to worry at all on mainstream platforms like Intel Core i3/5/7 CPUs and AMD Ryzen CPUs.

 

(And if I recall correctly, AMD provides even more PCI-e lanes with their Ryzen CPUs than Intel. But don't quote me on that )

[Kiiryu]

6 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Okay, then you might want to look into NVMe SSDs.
If you get a NVMe SSD with speeds upwards of 2.5GB/s, you should install it in the first and therefor faster M.2 slot.

 

Graphics cards usually go into the first 16x PCI-e slot, which is wired directly to the CPU and therefor always has enough PCI-e lanes available, if nothing is plugged into the other PCI-e slots. And even if not enough PCI-e lanes were available and your GPU would have to run effectively on 8 PCI-e lanes, it would not impact performance.

 

M.2 SSDs are usually wired to the chipset, which has its own set of PCI-e lanes. I don't know how many AMD provides with their Ryzen platform, but most likely enough for you to be able to use two NVMe SSDs at max speed and still have 2-4 SATA slots left for HDDs/SSDs.

 

In short; unless you run multiple 16x/8x PCI-e devices and more than at least 4 storage devices, you don't have to worry at all on mainstream platforms like Intel Core i3/5/7 CPUs and AMD Ryzen CPUs.

 

(And if I recall correctly, AMD provides even more PCI-e lanes with their Ryzen CPUs than Intel. But don't quote me on that )

Thanks!, that more or less answers any questions I would have had. Now I just need to decide between the 500gb and the 1tb, but that's something I've gotta decide for myself.