Hi all. I have recently completed the purchase of all my hardware for a new rig and pulled the trigger on two 1tb M.2 Sata NVMe SSDs without actually checking if it were possible to plug them in both at the same time on my Motherboard. I got two of them to get them working in raid0, because that's how my current 2.5" Samsung 850 Pros are set-up in my present build. Before I get to my questions, this is a few of the hardware in the build because I think m.2 ports concern those too (?):
Motherboard: Asus X570 Crosshair VIII Hero (https://www.newegg.com/asus-rog-crosshair-viii-hero/p/N82E16813119109?Description=asus%20x570%20crosshair%20viii%20hero&cm_re=asus_x570%20crosshair%20viii%20hero-_-13-119-109-_-Product&quicklink=true)
SSDs: Two Samsung 970 Pro 1tb (https://www.newegg.com/samsung-970-pro-1tb/p/N82E16820147694?Description=samsung%20970%20pro&cm_re=samsung_970%20pro-_-20-147-694-_-Product&quicklink=true)
CPU: Ryzen 9 5950x
GPU: RTX 3090 K|NGP|N
 
Now, it is my understanding from reading a few articles and the mobo's specs that while there is only one PCI-E 4.0 NVMe port, which shouldn't matter because the 970 Pros are Gen 3 PCI-E anyways and since the most use I'll be doing with this PC is Gaming, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. 
However, I'm confused by the specs as to if I have only ONE dedicated PCIE 3.0 slot or two ??. Will they both be NVMe PCIE3.0? What exactly is the best set-up for my two drives if I'm not dead set on wanting to do raid0 ? Technically, I was also considering having the two drives separated. Would that be easier?
Thanks for the help !

X570 chipset is PCIE 4.0 on the chipset itself.
 
You have two M2 slots on the board. The reason it seems so garbled on the site is because the CPU controlled M2 supports 3.0 (Ryzen 2000 & 3000) and 4.0 on the 5000 series.
 
The second slot will be the chipset controlled M2.

B550 will be 3.0 on the chipset, but will save you $$
 
No need to RAID these things at all. Load times will be so short your bottleneck in gaming is going to be waiting for others to load in.

Cool GTX
No need to RAID 0 with M.2 ... just buy a fast M.2

castrator86
X570 chipset is PCIE 4.0 on the chipset itself.
 
You have two M2 slots on the board. The reason it seems so garbled on the site is because the CPU controlled M2 supports 3.0 (Ryzen 2000 & 3000) and 4.0 on the 5000 series.
 
The second slot will be the chipset controlled M2.

B550 will be 3.0 on the chipset, but will save you $$
 
No need to RAID these things at all. Load times will be so short your bottleneck in gaming is going to be waiting for others to load in.

Okay, definitely not going to raid0 then. 


However, with the board that I picked, are both drives going to be NVMe or is one of them going to be SATA, which is considerably slower than NVMe from what I've read ?

Dabadger84
Look at the bright side, at least your board doesn't do what mine does I.E. disables up to half the SATA ports when you have more than one M.2 plugged in... luckily I got the M.2s to replace SATA drives, so only having 4 SATA ports is fine for now lol
 
I'm upgrading to X570 soon myself so I'll have to keep an eye on this, but I plan on going with an MSI Creation X570 so I'll have an entirely separate M.2 card.

Yeah, I've read about that kind of f*ckery online, that sucks and I'm sorry. Hopefully your new MSI board does the trick ;-)

Seriously though, this MB has the following M.2 NVMe (PCIe 4x, Gen 4.0) possibilities:  
 
 https://dlcdnets.asus.com...R_VIII_HERO_UM_WEB.pdf
 
- CPU lanes attached M.2 socket
- Chipset lanes M.2 socket
- 3rd 16x slot on chipset lanes, can run M.2 with an AIC
- 2nd 16x slot bifurcates from 8x to 4x/4x so you can run a dual M.2 "Hyper" AIC
 
Anyway, you can readily run FIVE M.2 drives on this MB plus any current GPU at 8x Gen 4.0, and it looks like all eight sata ports will still operate.
 
Also, if you are bothering to buy Samsung PRO NMVe drives, you should get the new 980 PRO which is Gen 4.0 and totally the same price.
 

To answer your question you should be able to RAID them. 
 

Zomgtuberun

kevinc313
Seriously though, this MB has the following M.2 NVMe (PCIe 4x, Gen 4.0) possibilities:  
 
 https://dlcdnets.asus.com...R_VIII_HERO_UM_WEB.pdf
 
- CPU lanes attached M.2 socket
- Chipset lanes M.2 socket
- 3rd 16x slot on chipset lanes, can run M.2 with an AIC
- 2nd 16x slot bifurcates from 8x to 4x/4x so you can run a dual M.2 "Hyper" AIC
 
Anyway, you can readily run FIVE M.2 drives on this MB plus any current GPU at 8x Gen 4.0, and it looks like all eight sata ports will still operate.
 
Also, if you are bothering to buy Samsung PRO NMVe drives, you should get the new 980 PRO which is Gen 4.0 and totally the same price.
 

Yeah, I actually noticed the 980 Pro's existence *after* I had ordered two 970 Pros. 
F
So I should be good to have em both in NVMe PCIE3.0, then? Reading the mobo's guide you just posted and seems like everything'll be fine

Yeah Gen 3.0 4x on each will be fine.  I'd still return them and get the 980 Pro - 2TB.

I'll third that sentiment of returning (if there's no fee) for a 980 Pro or a WD Black.

Zomgtuberun
Very well. I'll call today and ask to return the two 970 pros and get a single 980 pro 2tb.
Cheers guys.

If you have only 1 m.2 ssd make sure you have a good backup.