AM4/x570 board with PCIe lanes available
AM4/x570 board with PCIe lanes available
Hello! Here’s a clearer version of your message:
I’m trying to upgrade my system but face some challenges. Right now I have:
- AMX 3950X with Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite PowerColor 5600X Seasonic Prime 750 (or 850?)
- ADATA XPG SX8200 1 GB M.2 SSD (system)
- Samsung EVO 120 GB (system)
- Samsung PRO 512 GB 4 TB SSD
- Seageta Baracuda HDD 1 TB
- WD HDD All in One Lian Li Dynamic XL case
I want to upgrade, but the RTX 3000 series is either out of stock or too expensive. Same with the Radeon cards. I’m a bit hopeful and plan to wait for better GPU availability. Right now, I need to replace my monitors first since they’re running low on space. The 120 GB SSD isn’t enough anymore.
I recently installed DaVinci Resolved and now only have 2 GB free. Chrome with OPERA won’t work well. I’m also starting to upgrade my storage—my current M.2 slots have two slots, one of which should be PCIe 4.0. I have two M.2 slots total, with six SATA ports.
I’m considering adding another M.2 SSD with high capacity for the PCIe 4.0 slot, replacing the existing SATA SSD to a larger size (like 500 GB or more). I also want to swap out the 1 TB HDD for another larger one or add two more SATA drives.
How many devices can I install? Also, I’ve heard that using all M.2 slots and SATA ports might reduce GPU performance—do you think it will drop to 8 lanes instead of 16? If so, by how much will my performance decrease (in percentage)?
Both m.2s support PCIe Gen 4, so insert the second SSD there. The second m.2 won’t block any SATA ports, allowing full use of all SATA connections. The GPU will always run at X16, while the remaining slots stay dedicated to chipset lanes.
CPU sets up 24 PCI-E lanes: * 16 for the video card slot (or two 8-lane slots if the board supports it) * 4 to the first M.2 connector (or other configurations depending on board design, most keep four lanes for M.2) * 4 to the chipset. The chipset combines these lanes into a larger network. Some lanes stay inside the chipset for USB or SATA connections, and eventually, the chipset forms eight PCI-E lanes that the motherboard manufacturer can organize into slots or other sections. Many boards arrange these eight lanes as: * four into an x16 slot (though only four lanes fit there) * four to a second M.2 connector (sometimes down to two lanes if using x1 slots) * two lanes for one or two PCI-E x1 slots (disabled when a second M.2 NVMe SSD is installed and the BIOS doesn’t restrict it). Make sure your M.2 connectors won’t change the PCI-E lane count available for the graphics card. A few boards are built differently, but these are the standard cases. Your board is typically "normal."
According to common knowledge, the IIRC x570 supports 16 lanes.
It varies by motherboard maker, but generally yes. Refer to the images below: observe how the CPU links to the chipset and note the difference between CPU PCIe lanes and chipset PCIe lanes. The motherboard maker may opt to remove SATA ports for more PCIe lanes or additional M.2 slots, though most stick with 2 M.2 connectors and one PCIe X4 slot (in an X16 physical slot) plus many SATA ports. There are reportedly 12 PCIe lanes from the chipset, but likely only 8 can be used for external connections or onboard devices.
The actual performance variation between your configurations is probably minimal—less than 5%. This is mainly a small tweak rather than a major concern. Unless you aim for an exceptional score on a specific benchmark, it shouldn’t cause much worry. Your GPU will receive a full x16 lane to the system’s mainboard (often called the northbridge, though in Ryzen it resides inside the CPU). Regardless of your storage configuration, the M2A connector provides a direct link to the root complex via an x4 PCIe lane. Your chip (X570) also connects through an x4 PCIe path to the same hub. Together they form the 24 lanes available to the root complex. Other PCIe devices will route through the chipset (the southbridge). No matter which socket you use—M2B, x16, or x1—they can only offer up to x4 PCIe, which is the maximum speed the chipset can provide. When several devices connect, they share those lanes, potentially slowing things down if all try to communicate at once, similar to how a busy Wi-Fi network affects speeds. The extra overhead from the chipset also reduces effective performance when many devices are active. This situation depends heavily on your specific use case, so testing and fine-tuning will be key. There are some advanced features like GPUdirect Storage (Nvidia), RTX I/O (Nvidia), and DirectStorage (Microsoft) that can help optimize data flow, but their impact is unclear without more details. In short, stick with your highest-performance M2 NVMe card in the M2A slot, and ensure your OS uses the correct device for swapping or pagefile management.
The project is coming up next. I own many old family VHS tapes that I'm converting into digital format. I need to do a lot of adjustments and editing. A regular Sony Vegas worked fine for these tasks, but during the quarantine I suddenly wanted to learn video editing and drawing, play games, and create footage to share with friends. I've started using DaVinci Resolve and am learning it. I wondered: - It seems clear from games that I just install it and it should be on the drive you mentioned, though it also partially installs on the system ©. But what about programs like DaVinci, do they need to be installed on the system drive or can they be on a separate one (second SSD)? - Should I keep all raw footage on an HDD or is an SSD enough? Right now I'm uploading everything to a standard 5400 rpm hard disk. - Regarding the actual work and the final project, should I save them on the SSD as well?