B550 vs X570 (Storage)

[Jono7]

So I'm just about to explode trying to figure out which motherboard I need...

I have 3 in mind but one question which is really making my decision difficult.

The 3 boards are ROG Strix B550-F Wifi, B550-E and X570-E (for now).

My concern is actually about storage. I am looking at two M.2 SSD's and potentially 1 more SATA SSD in the future.

So if I go with the B550-E, and I decide to use one gen 4 M.2, one gen 3 M.2 and 1 SATA SSD, will the SATA pull down the gen 4 SSD to gen 3 speeds? Say the SSD is in slot 1 (I hear that using 2 M.2's will disable SATA slots 5+6?)

I am actually perfectly happy to just use two gen 3 SSD's because that is plenty for me. So if I go with two gen 3 SSD's and 1 SATA SSD in slot 1, will this cause any problems and lead to reduced storage/board performance?

Do I understand it correctly that the X570-E does not share bandwidth between the M.2 slots, the SATA slots and the chipset? So If I plug all of them, using gen 4 etc, they would all work fully with no drawbacks?

Many thanks in advance for anyone who might kindly help me!

 

[Tetras]

B550
If you use the second (PCI-E gen 3 or SATA) M.2 slot, the B550 manuals both say SATA ports 5/6 are disabled. It doesn't specify if using a PCI-E M.2 still disables the SATA ports.

The use of a SATA SSD in ports 1-4 will have no impact on the PCI-E gen of the M.2 slots. M.2 slot 1 is always PCI-E gen 4 (assuming you have Zen 3 CPU). M.2 slot 2 is always PCI-E gen 3.

X570
Both M.2 slots are PCI-E gen 4, they get all the lanes from the CPU and chipset respectively, so there is no penalty to populating both slots.

 

[Dg834man]

So if I go with the B550-E, and I decide to use one gen 4 M.2, one gen 3 M.2 and 1 SATA SSD, will the SATA pull down the gen 4 SSD to gen 3 speeds? Say the SSD is in slot 1 (I hear that using 2 M.2's will disable SATA slots 5+6?)

99% of b550 have 20 pcie 4 lanes split between the top pcie-16 and m.2 nvme these wont be effected by anything else. think on asus if you install a second m.2 it disables some sata ports, msi boards keep the sata ports but lose some other pcie slots. theres no slow down if your using a pcie 4x16 + pcie 4x4 + pcie 3x4 but some things ports/slots will be disabled.

 

[Jono7]

Thank you so much, both of you! I really appreciate the help!

 

[EsaT]

X570-E (for now).

Forget that brand overpriced board with break down timer chipset cooler design straight from arse of brand overhype marketroids:

Actual heatsink under marketing excrements is tiny.
Hence to actually cool well it relies on fan, which is constricted by more marketing BS.
With whole crud in the worst place directly under graphics card.​

If/when fan wears out that chipset will be cooking alive in gaming sessions.

Lot cheaper MSI X570 Tomahawk is far superior X570 board with proper design chipset cooler capable to passive cooling, if you just have good case cooling.

 

[Joxeon]

With your use case of 1x gen 4.0 nvme 1x gen 3.0 and 1x SATA SSD then it won't matter which board X570/B550 you go for as both will perform the same.