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New Built For Beginner and M.2

timlab
Level 9
Currently, this is my very first built at age 67. It's terrifying to say the least. But here we go. I currently have a Z590-e motherboard that I'm starting to work on. In this according to ASUS it has 4 M.2 drives. Wait 4 M.2 drives, yes, 4 M.2 drives. Darn don't need an SSD now (LOL). Anyway, In addition to this, I'm adding in a RX 5500 XT Graphics Card. So the Graphics Card will go into PCI-1 slot. I'm not sure about what it takes, but in my last computer after I put it in, it was reading 8x (in a 16x PCI-e slot running 3.0. However, now this motherboard has 4.0) I guess for the speed in the BIOS. As for the M.2 drives that I have they are (according to their site Sabrent) are M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. NVMe 1.3 compliant. In addition to this, I have 2 SSD and 1 HDD in my system. So with all this going on, I would like one of my M.2 drives to be my boot drive, and the my other M.2 drive to be my storage drive. So which 2 slots do I put these in out of the 4?
Also with my Graphics Card (as mentioned above), and with this system running 4.0, would my Graphics Card start running at 16x or still the 8x?
Thank You
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64 REPLIES 64

iBruceypoo
Level 16
Nothing to be terrified about. lol

I've been ROG'ing (building with Asus ROG boards) for 10years, there's nothing to it.

I'll help you out good sir.

The very worst thing that can happen is: "You'll find yourself between a ROG and a hard place." LOLOL 😛
Z790 Epiphenomenal Raptor Bench

ROG Z790 Apex / Intel 13900KS SP111 P121 E93 MC83
Gskill 8000 kit - TM5 stable at 8200MT/s 38 48 48 121 VDD and VDDQ 1.5v
WD_Black SN850X 1TB 7300MB/s Reads 6300MB/s Writes
LG 32in 4K IPS 32UP83A-W

After doing some research on line, this is what I found out. For my GPU even tho it's designed for 16x (I guess you only put this in the 1st 16 pin PCI-e slot), it's built to ONLY run at 8x. No matter what type of port it is, only 8x. That solves that problem. I re-read my last post and I forgot to mention the type of processor I was putting in at the time which was a i9-10850K. Since I posted that post, I've changed my mind and I'm putting in an I9-11900K instead. But everything else is the same. So the research I found out about the I9-11900k is that CPU will allow me to run my M.2 in any of the four slots because of the extra lanes this processor has that the I9-10850K didn't give.
But if you have any other insight into this I would like to hear it.
Thanks

iBruceypoo
Level 16
Your GPU might be 16X (16lanes) physical and only 8X (8lanes) electrical.

Your motherboard manual will tell you your PCIe lanes layout, what is shared and what is separated.

My motherboard Z590 Apex, the M.2 slot closest to the CPU socket is separate PCIe 4.0.

So when graphics card is installed in slot #1 and M.2 in M.2_1, graphics uses the full (16) PCIe 4.0 lanes and M.2 SSD uses the full (4) PCIe 4.0 lanes.

Total of 20lanes directly off the Rocket Lake 11600K processor I have installed.

My M.2 SSD is mounted directly under the heatsink labelled APEX, its closer to the CPU socket than my graphics card.

94069
Z790 Epiphenomenal Raptor Bench

ROG Z790 Apex / Intel 13900KS SP111 P121 E93 MC83
Gskill 8000 kit - TM5 stable at 8200MT/s 38 48 48 121 VDD and VDDQ 1.5v
WD_Black SN850X 1TB 7300MB/s Reads 6300MB/s Writes
LG 32in 4K IPS 32UP83A-W

I'm kinda of new to all this stuff, but I understand. My manual really doesn't state it unless I know what I'm looking for. I know when I had the I9-10850k chip, the 1st m.2 drive slot was off limits totally. But since I upgraded my cpu to the I9-11900K chip it open it up to me.

I like the teddy bear tho, they hit the spot.

Thanks

timlab wrote:
I'm kinda of new to all this stuff, but I understand. My manual really doesn't state it unless I know what I'm looking for. I know when I had the I9-10850k chip, the 1st m.2 drive slot was off limits totally. But since I upgraded my cpu to the I9-11900K chip it open it up to me.

I like the teddy bear tho, they hit the spot.

Thanks


Every home office needs plenty of teddy bears. lol 😛
Z790 Epiphenomenal Raptor Bench

ROG Z790 Apex / Intel 13900KS SP111 P121 E93 MC83
Gskill 8000 kit - TM5 stable at 8200MT/s 38 48 48 121 VDD and VDDQ 1.5v
WD_Black SN850X 1TB 7300MB/s Reads 6300MB/s Writes
LG 32in 4K IPS 32UP83A-W

Amen to the teddy bears movenment. We'll I screwed up, I ran out of thermal paste and I am at that point now. I live in a small town and no one has it. That's okay, I order some from amazon and it's going to be here on Friday. I'll keep you guys posted on how it turned out or blew up and didn't start at all.

Dan Out

Okay, I hope I can do this correctly. I got some Corsair Fans (140mm), nice looking. Tried to hook them up to my system and no luck. As the pwd plug had 4 wires and so do the RGB plug. So I called Corsair and they explained to me that I just can't hook up their fans directly to my mobo. I needed something called " iCUE COMMANDER CORE XT" if I wanted the lights to work as well. The pwd plug no problem. So I order this thing and upon reading it it mentioned that I plug this into my USB 2.0 header. Duh, where is the USB 2.0 header on my Z590-e motherboard? According to the manual for the mobo, there are two of them, well almost 2 of them. The first one says "USB_EP1E2" and the other says "USB_E34" There is a warning that states "DO NOT connect a 1394 cable to the USB connectors. Doing so will damage the motherboard. Then it says "The USB 2.0 module is purchased separately". I'm tried of spending money on this computer and I haven't even got it going yet. Can you help me please?

The iCUE commander link is here which states to plug into the USB 2.0 header.

Thanks
Dan

Yea right and if I did, I would want to play and forget there is no paste on my air cooler too. I can wait, but thanks for the info.
Dan

iBruceypoo
Level 16
I have your manual up on my screen.

Is your graphics card PCIe 3.0 or 4.0?

Is your primary M.2 SSD PCIe 3.0 or 4.0?

YES! If you're now using an 11900K, you have full use of PCIe 4.0 speed/connectivity in M.2_1 - the M.2 slot directly adjacent to your CPU socket.

Your M.2_1 slot is PCIe 4.0
Your M.2_2 slot is PCIe 4.0...Both feed from CPU lanes, not chipset lanes.

Your other two M.2 slots feed from the Z590 chipset are PCIe 3.0 thus slower.

______

Your primary boot drive NVMe M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD should install in M.2_1, closest to the CPU will give you the greatest speed.

Your primary storage drive NVMe M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD should install in M.2_2

If both your M.2s are PCIe 3.0, grab at least one WD_Black SN850 PCIe 4.0 M.2 drive for $79 500GB, you will LOVE the speed and responsiveness.

______

Your graphics card is either PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 4.0, installing into a motherboard with PCI 4.0 slot WILL NOT change that designation.

Same for your M.2 SSD drives. They are PCIe 3.0 or 4.0.

Although:

If your graphics card is PCIe 3.0 and uses 16x lanes physically and only 8x lanes electrically, and you mount it in a PCIe 4.0 slot it will use half it's normal lanes OR only 4x lanes.

If your graphics card is PCIe 4.0 and uses only 8x lanes electrically and you mount it in a PCIe 4.0 slot it will use 8x lanes.
Z790 Epiphenomenal Raptor Bench

ROG Z790 Apex / Intel 13900KS SP111 P121 E93 MC83
Gskill 8000 kit - TM5 stable at 8200MT/s 38 48 48 121 VDD and VDDQ 1.5v
WD_Black SN850X 1TB 7300MB/s Reads 6300MB/s Writes
LG 32in 4K IPS 32UP83A-W