Advice First build: Node 202, i7-9700, Vega 56, W10 + W7

[Tonkatsu]

A question about PCI-e lanes: well this is how they're used currently (the GPU isn't in yet)
This is how the drives are arranged, the 250GB SATA SSD is W7, the 1TB NVMe is W10...
...Could I be doing something wrong that affects my build's sanity there ?
If I read correctly B365 mobos have 20 lanes available.
(sorry for the french)

 

[ParallaxStax]

I think all of the disk partitions are ok. Windows automatically creates EFI and recovery partitions for each drive it is installed on. For PCIe lanes, the CPU provides 20, of which 16 are used directly by the GPU. The CPU communicates with the chipset via DMI 3.0 (4 lanes). The motherboard then splits these lanes among NVMe, SATA, networking and USB. I also found a chipset diagram for a similar motherboard:

 

[Tonkatsu]

Wouldn't that mean, with the GPU and one NVMe I'll have used all available lanes already ?
And therefore the additional SATA SSD I've installed for W7 will be in the way ? or am I just misunderstanding and overthinking things ?
I might be mixing things up between PCI-e, SATA, and what's available (that diagram isn't explanatory enough for me) idk...
Conscious this isn't a high-end card, I might be worrying too much (what to think of my previous mobo then lol)

Another three things that worry me in what I see in these snaps are;

• 'Interface Unknown' for the NVMe. I remember contrary to the SATA SSD where you can specify its SSD nature in the BIOS menus, there is nothing for the NVMe, it's just there on the M.2 port and there are no particular options offered to 'word' that it's a NVMe. So I wonder if it's properly recognized for what it is.
• NTFS ? well, when I installed W7 first I cleared the SATA SSD and specified GPT. But later when I installed W10 on the NVMe I didn't bother going into Diskpart, just selected the sole appearing drive and let the Windows install handle this. Anyway I didn't think NTFS is still the default even for any Win OS installs on SSD and even in the W10 era...hope it's alright.
• Slot 2 x1 lane -> what's in that slot ? all that's connected to the mobo are the SATA SSD and the NVMe. is ti the SATA ?

I'll have more stupid questions after that.

 

[Valantar]

Yeah, there shouldn't be any reason to suspect the configuration to be affecting anything, as long as the chipset is actually running at PCIe 3.0 speeds at least. Which it is, going by your benchmark scores. Instlaling a GPU won't affect anything. Of course there's a theoretical bottleneck between the CPU and chipset given that the chipset link is just PCIe 3.0 x4, so if both SSDs were being hammered at the same time that would theoretically slow them down a bit. But it really isn't worth worrying about, as that will never happen in real life. That would be true even if there were two NVMe SSDs - the chance of both seeing heavy simultaneous workloads often enough for it to matter at all is infinitesimally small.

What I would do, given that both drives are visible to the other OS: benchmark the W10 drive from W7, benchmark the W7 drive from W10. That way you should avoid any OS/background application interference.

 

[Tonkatsu]

Alright i'll stop worrying. ^^

'benchmark' ? not sure I understand what you mean in this particular circumstance, you mean hide ? if so I have been wondering about the best way to do that, actually.

 

[Valantar]

Alright i'll stop worrying. ^^

'benchmark' ? not sure I understand what you mean in this particular circumstance, you mean hide ? if so I have been wondering about the best way to do that, actually.

Ah, no, I meant if you wanted to exclude the OS and background applications from interfering with your CDM speed measurements

As for hiding drives, I think you can just delete the drive letter in Disk Management (Change drive letter and paths -> Remove) and the drive won't be visible any longer in that OS. Obviously don't do this for the drive you're currently booted from Given two separate installs on separate drives (and I assume the OS partition shows up as C: in both OSes, right?), they should have entirely separate settings for this. I have no idea how this would affect your ability to dual boot through Windows' built-in boot manager, though you might not be using that anyway given your series of workarounds (do you select your OS on boot, or do you switch boot devices in BIOS?) - I could definitely see it causing problems if using the built in boot manager, as it would no longer have a path for that boot drive. YMMV, and of course try this at your own risk. With a fresh install at least the risks should be minimal

 

[Tonkatsu]

Nope, as you can see above, C: is the NVMe where W10 is installed, and D: is the SATA SSD where W7 is installed.
On boot I see the ASRock sequence where I have the opportunity press F2 to access the UEFI, F11 for boot device select, etc
and after a few seconds I see the W10 'choose your OS' screen appear, I use that.

Maybe the two installs and drives aren't truly separate as I expected them to,
I don't know if there was a better way to do this, honestly. What I grabbed from tenforums (frankly the only place I found information on the exact topic) was a bit too over my understanding and skills.

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