PCI-E lanes. I don't get it!

Hvaheterdu · October 17, 2018

I am thinking about building a PC again, but don't want to use any SSDs, only M.2

I was thinking about buying the i9-9900K and a ASUS ROG Maximus XI Formula.

I know that the CPU only has 16 PCI-e lanes and the has 24.

If I wanted to run two GPUs that would use alle the lanes that CPU can provide, but If I wanted to add 2 M.2 SSDs, would that automatically use the chipset, or would the M.2 drives use any lanes from my CPU even doh they aren't "available"?

This is what the manual for the motherboard says.

Socket 1151 for 9th / 8th Gen Intel® CoreTM, Pentium® Gold and Celeron® processors

2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (supports x16, x8/x8, x8/x4+x4)

Intel® Z390 Chipset

1 x PCIe 3.0 x 16 slot (max. at x4 mode)*

1 x PCIe 3.0 x 1 slot

* The PCIe x 16_3 slot shares bandwidth with SATA6G_56 ports. PCIex16_3 slot is set at x2 mode by default.

Intel® Z390 Chipset with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and Intel Rapid Storage Technology support

- 1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (PCIe 3.0 x 4 and SATA modes)*

- 1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 (PCIe 3.0 x 4 mode)**

- 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
- Intel® OptaneTM Memory Ready

* When M.2_1 Socket 3 is operating in SATA mode, SATA port 2 will be disabled.

** When a 22110 M.2 SSD is installed in M.2_1 Socket 3, M.2_2 Socket 3 will be limited to a 2242 M.2 SSD.

Would anybody care to explain to me if it is possible to have two GPUs and two M.2 drives where the GPUs would be running at PCI-e 16 x8 mode and the M.2 drives at PCI-e 16 x4 mode?

Feeling stupid, even doh I am am learning about how the an ARM CPU is build at uni

Thank you in advance!