NVMe SSD installation can reduce graphics card PCIe lanes

Desktop computer users may experience reduced graphics card performance due to a phenomenon known as lane sharing. Because desktop processors from AMD and Intel provide a limited number of direct PCIe connections, manufacturers of motherboards with multiple M.2 slots may design them to share bandwidth with the primary graphics card slot.

In some configurations, installing an additional NVMe SSD into a specific M.2 slot can cause the primary PCIe slot to drop from x16 to x8 lanes. For example, on the Asus TUF Gaming X870-Plus Wifi, using the M.2_2 slot can reduce the available lanes for the graphics card when using Ryzen 7000 or 9000 series processors.