Motherboard for 2 x Gen4 Firecuda SSDs

stevegardner630

Active member
I am at final planning phase for an indulgent Home desktop. I have one of a few questions on different technical or sales issues, but one at a time!

I am planning to have a set up with a Ryzen 3700x and 2 xSSDs and 1 x HDD. The SSDs will both be Seagate Firecuda 520 - 1 x 2 Tb and 1 x 500 Gb (or 1Tb) depending on availability - the latter for operating system and programs.

I realise I will need a Motherboard that is able to take 2 M2 SSDs. Also the Firecuda 520s are "PCIe Gen4 ×4, NVMe 1.3" which is way faster than PCIe Gen3×4 NVMe 1.3 and the motherboard needs to be able to take that spec level. .

However, I am sure I have read somewhere that you need that check if both M2 slots on the motherboard are Gen4 capable. If not the second one will operate at the slower Gen3 speed which makes it less relevant to in buy the second Gen4 SSD.

From advice I have so far it has been suggested that I go for the: "ASUS AMD Ryzen ROG STRIX X570 F AM4 PCIe 4.0 ATX Gaming" which seems to take 2 x Gen4 SSDs but its not clear if both can be Gen4..

Before I press the GO button for the whole system,, can anyone please advise me on the motherboard suitability.

Many thanks for any help. I apologise for my rather convoluted question
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I would suggest the X570 strix for this as well, as it's a really good board without going over the top.

Looking on the product page on Asus:


  • Storage
    3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ Processors :
    1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280/22110(PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support
    2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™/2nd and 1st Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors :
    1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280/22110(PCIE 3.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support
    AMD X570 chipset :
    1 x M.2 x4 Socket 3, with M Key, Type 2242/2260/2280/22110(PCIE 4.0 x4 and SATA modes) storage devices support
    8 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s),
    Support Raid 0, 1, 10
So breaking that down, I think it's stating that it's got 2 separate controllers:

The first runs from the CPU will only be PCIe 4 if paired with Ryzen 3000 processor (which your 3700x is)

And the second runs direct from the X570 chipset, and that is PCIe 4 no matter what

So I think you'll be fine with the Strix
 

stevegardner630

Active member
Very many thanks - and sorry for duplicating this post on another sub-forum where I moved it just after you replied! You're really quick!
 
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