Yes, a Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD can run at maximum speed on a B550 motherboard when using the M.2 slot.
Yes, a Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD can run at maximum speed on a B550 motherboard when using the M.2 slot.
Yes, a Gen 4 M.2 NVMe SSD can run at maximum speed on a B550 motherboard when using the M.2 slot.
The initial m.2 connector links straight to the processor via PCI-E lanes from the processor itself. These lanes are PCI-E 4.0, allowing a peak throughput of approximately 7.5 GB/s. The subsequent connectors will draw from the chipset, which provides only PCI-E 3.0 lanes. Consequently, the m.2 SSD will reach about 3.9 GB/s (four times 985 MB/s). Remember, the chipset must merge data from the m.2 SSD with inputs from the network card, audio chip, USB controllers, additional SATA drives, and route it to the processor through a PCI-E 3.0 x4 connection, which also caps performance at around 3.9 GB/s.