I am planning on building a new pc with zen 5 at the end of the year with a crucial t700 (any gen5 really) as an os drive.
Currently I have a pcie 3.0 x16 slot open on the existing mobo. So, maybe I will purchase and use the ssd today and then use it in the new build later.
The throughput on the 3.0 x16 is nearly 16GB/s.
The throughput on the 5.0 x4 is also about 16GB/s.
Can a 3.0 x16 pass the data of a 5.0 x4 at nearly 5.0 speed?
This is the card I am looking at.
Unfortunately no. A pcie 3.0 card that uses 16x lanes will still demand the full 16x lanes available from a pcie 5.0 slot, they’ll just clock down from 5.0 to 3.0.
Or in your case, the nvme drive will only use 4x PCIe lanes clocked down to 3.0. Note that that adapter card will only use 4 lanes total (the rest of the connector is just blank/unconnected), which is all an NVMe card can use anyways.
You can think newer PCIe gen’s data/clocks as having much more precise tolerance required to work, meaning that older gen cards with their “rougher tolerance” data and clock limitations simply aren’t able to fulfill.
Thank you