Motherboard
MSI MPG X870E CARBON WIFI
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Two PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots are the specific reason to pick this one — a pair of drives both running at the platform’s full storage speed, which is what you want when a fast working drive sits separate from the one games live on, or when very large files move between two drives all day. Around that is the rest of the X870E platform: power stages sized for a Ryzen 9, USB4 on the rear, WiFi 7, and screwless clips on both the drives and the graphics card release.
Key Specs
Socket — AMD AM5
Chipset — AMD X870E
Memory — 4x DDR5 slots, EXPO support
Storage — Dual PCIe 5.0 M.2 plus additional M.2 slots
Connectivity — USB4, 5G LAN and WiFi 7
Form factor — ATX
Best for — Two PCIe 5.0 drives at full speed
Warranty — Full manufacturer warranty
What It Pairs With
A Ryzen 9 is the chip this board is built around, and the power stages hold it through long sustained loads without backing off. Two sticks of DDR5 6000 with EXPO is the sensible memory, and the board will take faster kits if you want to tune them. The natural storage layout is a Gen5 drive in each of the two fast slots with bulk capacity in the Gen4 slots below. Give a Ryzen 9 a 360mm liquid cooler if it runs continuously, and budget 850W to 1000W depending on the graphics card.
Who This Isn’t For
A build that runs one drive and always will is buying its headline feature and leaving it empty — the second fast slot is the reason this board exists, and an unused slot is money doing nothing. The same is true of a machine that only plays games: load times are governed by other things long before storage bandwidth, and the gap between a Gen4 and a Gen5 drive rarely reaches the screen. This board collects when large files are moving around all day.
Common Questions
Do I have to fill both Gen5 slots?
No. One fast drive and the rest of the slots empty is a perfectly normal way to run it, and the second slot is there for whenever the storage need grows. Nothing about the board depends on both being used.
Will a Gen4 drive work in a Gen5 slot?
Yes, it simply runs at Gen4 speed. Plenty of builds put a Gen4 drive there now and move to a Gen5 one later without touching anything else in the machine.
Does filling every M.2 slot cost me anything elsewhere?
On some layouts the lower slots share bandwidth with other connectors. Tell us how many drives you want and what else is going in, and we will confirm which slots stay at full width on the revision we quote.
This is an AM5 board and takes Ryzen processors only — an Intel Core Ultra chip needs an LGA1851 board instead. Tell us the CPU and how many drives you plan to run and we will confirm the layout before anything is ordered. Availability confirmed at time of quote.