Sooooo,
I got a question I found VEEEEERY difficult to answer.
I'm planning to build a new PC and I'm currently stuck in figuring out all of that PCIe-Lane stuff.
My current build would be like that:
Intel Core i5 7600K
ASUS ROG Strix Z270F Gaming
6GB Asus GeForce GTX 1060 Strix OC
That stuff together, of course shouldn't be much of a problem, BUT now I want to use an M.2 SSD in my build for aesthetics, because I wouldn't use that many cables. But then I realized, that a green piece of plastic sitting right in the middle of my beatifully designed black motherboard would look kind of .... well.... shit.
So I thought about getting an adapter to put the SSD in an PCI x4 slot, so you wouldn't see it, something like that one:
https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessory/HYPER_M2_X4_MINI_CARD/overview/
But now I'm stuck on the question with PCIe-Lanes as the "normal" processors, like mine, only support up to 16 lanes. And I don't understand entirly how my motherboard handels the lanes in that case. The only thing I found out is, when I use both PCIe x16 connectors, for example for SLI, they would split to x8 and x8. But how does it handle an extra x4 connector in the actual x4 connector (and yes, I know, it actually is an x16 connector, but only using x4 lanes).
And the other thing that I found out, is, if I put the M.2 in the actual M.2 slot, it would disable one of the 6 SATA III ports, which I wouldn't use all anyways, so that is the last possible solution if everything else fails, but I wouldn't like it....
So in conclusion:
How would the lanes get splitted if I use an M.2 SSD in a PCIe x4 slot? And would it affect the performance of either the SSD or the Graphics card and could I use other expansion cards, for example a TV card or something similar?
I got a question I found VEEEEERY difficult to answer.
I'm planning to build a new PC and I'm currently stuck in figuring out all of that PCIe-Lane stuff.
My current build would be like that:
Intel Core i5 7600K
ASUS ROG Strix Z270F Gaming
6GB Asus GeForce GTX 1060 Strix OC
That stuff together, of course shouldn't be much of a problem, BUT now I want to use an M.2 SSD in my build for aesthetics, because I wouldn't use that many cables. But then I realized, that a green piece of plastic sitting right in the middle of my beatifully designed black motherboard would look kind of .... well.... shit.
So I thought about getting an adapter to put the SSD in an PCI x4 slot, so you wouldn't see it, something like that one:
https://www.asus.com/Motherboard-Accessory/HYPER_M2_X4_MINI_CARD/overview/
But now I'm stuck on the question with PCIe-Lanes as the "normal" processors, like mine, only support up to 16 lanes. And I don't understand entirly how my motherboard handels the lanes in that case. The only thing I found out is, when I use both PCIe x16 connectors, for example for SLI, they would split to x8 and x8. But how does it handle an extra x4 connector in the actual x4 connector (and yes, I know, it actually is an x16 connector, but only using x4 lanes).
And the other thing that I found out, is, if I put the M.2 in the actual M.2 slot, it would disable one of the 6 SATA III ports, which I wouldn't use all anyways, so that is the last possible solution if everything else fails, but I wouldn't like it....
So in conclusion:
How would the lanes get splitted if I use an M.2 SSD in a PCIe x4 slot? And would it affect the performance of either the SSD or the Graphics card and could I use other expansion cards, for example a TV card or something similar?