MSI X570 Tomahawk question

Katalyst · 1 Oct 2020 at 00:20

Ello!

was just curious if there are any downsides to filling both m.2 slots with gen 4 SSDs? I’ve read sometimes this can stop other pcie slots from working when the second slot is used or sata ports. I won’t be using anything other than the main 16x slot for the GPU and 2 x sata ports, so will I be fine using both slots without screwing up anything else?

cheers!

MissChief · 1 Oct 2020 at 00:30

I don’t believe so on X570. On older boards yes there could be a loss of performance but as long as you’re using a Zen 3 processor then I believe there’s no loss of performance. I’m happy to be corrected though!

Katalyst · 1 Oct 2020 at 00:55

Ah i see. Yeah, will be getting a zen 3 for the motherboard.

orbitalwalsh · 1 Oct 2020 at 09:58

Katalyst said:
Ah i see. Yeah, will be getting a zen 3 for the motherboard.

you'll have to look at how each board has assigned their lanes.

i.e B550 Master can handle 3 PCIe 4.0 m.2 at FULL speed... to do this it cuts down the Main GPU form x16 to x8 and two m.2s get x4 bandwidth direct to the CPU. Third goes to the Chipset, but chipset to CPU link is only at 3.0 speeds. Also your paying £270 for a B550, But its VRM are 30% the power of the X570 toma and all direct.

aand as mentioned above and yourself, SATA ports can be used to fill the pci allocation . X670 is meant to have a fair increase with storage, Guessing link could beef up to x8 4.0 vs the current x4 on x570 and give reason to buy the newer chipsets...

Katalyst · 1 Oct 2020 at 11:03

orbitalwalsh said:
you'll have to look at how each board has assigned their lanes.

i.e B550 Master can handle 3 PCIe 4.0 m.2 at FULL speed... to do this it cuts down the Main GPU form x16 to x8 and two m.2s get x4 bandwidth direct to the CPU. Third goes to the Chipset, but chipset to CPU link is only at 3.0 speeds. Also your paying £270 for a B550, But its VRM are 30% the power of the X570 toma and all direct.

aand as mentioned above and yourself, SATA ports can be used to fill the pci allocation . X670 is meant to have a fair increase with storage, Guessing link could beef up to x8 4.0 vs the current x4 on x570 and give reason to buy the newer chipsets...

I had been reading that x570 was no actually even happening and they'd probably just be sticking with x570? Interesting!