Use the designated boot drive port.
Use the designated boot drive port.
Hello, your question is clear. You're working on a rig with limited PCIe lanes—only 9600x has them—and you need one more for Wi-Fi. The board includes an X2 M.2 slot that could accommodate the game drive, but there are challenges. If boot times aren't critical, placing the boot drive in the X2 slot might help achieve full x4 speeds with the game drive. Just be aware of any compatibility or performance concerns. P.S. Eth isn't an option.
It doesn't really matter either way. NVMe speeds usually aren't the main bottleneck for boot times or game loads. I own both PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 NVMe drives. I switched games from Gen 3 to Gen 4 and noticed almost no difference for most titles. Even when changes occurred, they were minor. The main reason is that other components (like CPU speed) often restrict performance before the drive does.
I sensed it too, though I needed to confirm. It's still frustrating we're limited, just one extra lane. -______
They're being used for various purposes, but in the end it's still impressive to run x1 4.0 smoothly—maximizing a SATA SSD is already tough enough for most tasks.