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What Is PCIe 5.0, and Why Does It Matter?
More bandwidth than you can shake an Ethernet cable at!
Take the Ethernet adapter as an example. 10Gb Ethernet is useful if you're managing a sophisticated homelab or home server setup, but 10 gigabit internet service is still extremely uncommon. Unless you already have access to that kind of connection, you're spending extra money on something you can't take advantage of.
Five PCIe M.2 ports—particularly ones with such high speeds—are also a very costly upgrade, and using them fully comes at a steep price. For instance, Crucial's T705 PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSD costs around 170 dollars for a 1TB model, which is typical for this class of device. To make full use of those three PCIe 5.0 slots, you’d need to spend at least 510 dollars. Then there’s still the cost of filling your two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots. Those drives typically run about 100 dollars per terabyte.
Of course, you could just install slower, more affordable PCIe M.2 drives into those slots, but then again, you’ve spent extra money on capabilities you aren’t actually utilizing.
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Having several high-speed USB ports on your PC—whether they’re USB4 or Thunderbolt—is great, but ten 10 gigabit USB ports?That might be helpful if I had chosen to skip internal storage entirely and was booting solely from USB devices, but otherwise, it's way beyond what most people need. If you really require that much bandwidth, it makes more sense to invest in something more specialized, like a PCIe Thunderbolt card that offers up to 120Gbps over a single port, paired with the right dock.
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8 More Affordable Motherboards Have All the Features You Need ------------------------------------------------------------In contrast, less expensive motherboards are far more reasonable and usually include features you’ll actually find useful.
Most mid-range current-gen motherboards come equipped with at least one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot, along with a mix of PCIe 4.0 M.2 ports and often at least one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot as well.
Take the ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WIFI as an example. It includes one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, Wi-Fi 7, 2.5Gb Ethernet, one USB 3.2 2x2 port, three USB 3.2 2x1 ports, four USB 3.2 1x1 ports, and costs around 220 dollars.
You won’t be able to support five PCIe M.2 SSDs, you won’t get 10 gigabit Ethernet, and there's no USB4 included, but with this option, you’ll have an extra 760 dollars to spend elsewhere.
What You Could Buy Instead
Not every motherboard is as expensive as the ROG model I mentioned earlier, but the idea still holds true: once you go beyond mid-range models, the added features significantly increase the cost, and even most power users won’t be able to make full use of them.
Alternatively, 760 dollars can stretch quite far if you choose to invest it differently:
- You could upgrade from an RTX 5060 to a 5070 Ti or even a 5080, assuming you can find one at MSRP.
- Purchase two quality 27-inch IPS 1440p 144Hz displays.
- Invest in one excellent OLED 1440p display (or possibly a 4K OLED if you catch a deal).
Even if you never considered spending 1000 dollars on a motherboard, the few hundred dollars difference between a mid-range and upper mid-range board could easily let you step up from a 5070 to a 5070 Ti, add another monitor, grab a premium pair of headphones, or invest in a top-tier mechanical keyboard. You could even double your RAM capacity.
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---Building a computer isn’t cheap, and when putting one together, it’s important to focus on the features that will truly make a difference. I’d argue that having a huge number of 10 gigabit USB ports and an overwhelming amount of PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots won’t bring you the most enjoyment—or even the biggest productivity boost—if that’s what you're after.
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