Intel 10th Gen CPUs like those currently sold with the R11 do not support pcie 4.0. So it is somewhat of a moot point if you have a 10th gen CPU in there.
Full spport will be introduced with 11th gen Rocket Lake on the z590 boards.
But the z490 boards have the capability to fully support pcie 4.0 with Rocket Lake CPUs. It will not supported on 10th gen Comet Lake according to what's been reported so far.
Who knows what Alienware will do with 11th gen, roll out an R12 or just refresh the R11 and update the manuals. Maybe the R10 approach (which did the latter approach) gives us a clue. Your guess is as good as mine.
Nice answer. Does this mean my system would bottleneck a pcie 4 NVMe? I have the Alienware R11 with 10700kf and 3080, and will be ordering a NVMe M.2 SSD to PCIe X16/X8/X4 Card. Just deciding whether to get a gen 3 or 4 NVMe..
Looks like a link that has a "conversion" error in it. It is HTML based. This is the PDF link: R11 manual
As you can see it says "slot 4". They must have made a translation error and list it as PCIe 4 meaning they wanted to say PCIe slot 4
R11 is PCIe 3.0.
The M2 slot supports 3.0 x 4.
Putting in a NVMe 4.0 will cause it to link at 3.0 x 4. So yes, the M2 slot would bottleneck the drive. However, since solid state drive prices are on the rise due to Chia mining, it might not be a bad investment to go for a 4.0 drive. You could always use it in your next system at 4.0 if that system supports it. Gives you a piece of mind if you ever decide to upgrade your system.
As for the modern cards like the RTX 3000 series, they will link at PCIe 3.0 x 8 because the mechanical x16 long slot only supports a link speed of x 8. This is common for most newer Alienware's including the brand new R12 and R10.
"As for the modern cards like the RTX 3000 series, they will link at PCIe 3.0 x 8 because the mechanical x16 long slot only supports a link speed of x 8"
This is really lame by Dell IMO. A 'high-end gaming PC' for lots of $$ with an x8 PCIe.
Don't know how it's listed now, but when I got my R11, I was unaware of this fact because it was only listed in the fine print in a downloadable .PDF on system specs.
Recent tests have shown that even a RTX 3080 would show like only a 2% possible drop in performance as a result -so not currently a huge issue. But, as you speculate a fast drive might be considerably worse.
Because of the (still??) continued use of x8 (and no IGPU access <- basically a hidden detail - and high fan speeds), this will probably be the last of my 6 Dell purchases.
One could only imagine when systems move to PCIe 4.0 that Dell would finally change the x8 to x16?? Not holding my breath.....
I have an R10 and have PCIe 4.0. The slot is still limited to an X 8 link speed.
At least with 4.0 it's the same bandwidth as 3.0 x 16 and I am not missing a lot.
The M2 that is a different story, because that is 3.0 x 4 even on my R10. You will not know that either unless you carefully read the PDF.
They do it because it's cheaper to wire up at X 8 than X 16.
I don't agree with it and it's one of the negatives of owning one of these systems, but that is what they provide you with.
And I fully agree they should clearly state the link speed on the ordering page, and not on a separate PDF that you carefully have to read. They will not list it in the order confirmation or anything like that either.
r72019
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January 30th, 2021 14:00
Intel 10th Gen CPUs like those currently sold with the R11 do not support pcie 4.0. So it is somewhat of a moot point if you have a 10th gen CPU in there.
Full spport will be introduced with 11th gen Rocket Lake on the z590 boards.
But the z490 boards have the capability to fully support pcie 4.0 with Rocket Lake CPUs. It will not supported on 10th gen Comet Lake according to what's been reported so far.
Who knows what Alienware will do with 11th gen, roll out an R12 or just refresh the R11 and update the manuals. Maybe the R10 approach (which did the latter approach) gives us a clue. Your guess is as good as mine.
Anonymous
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January 30th, 2021 14:00
@sveilien1 From the manual is see that SLOT 1 on the motherboard is listed as "PCI-Express x16 mechanical/x8 electrical slot PCIe Gen4 (SLOT1)"
That is very interesting because in the 'Setup & Specifications' document they indicate that the chip set supports PCIe Gen 3.
Aurora R11
imnotminh
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May 7th, 2021 13:00
Nice answer. Does this mean my system would bottleneck a pcie 4 NVMe? I have the Alienware R11 with 10700kf and 3080, and will be ordering a NVMe M.2 SSD to PCIe X16/X8/X4 Card. Just deciding whether to get a gen 3 or 4 NVMe..
Vanadiel
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May 7th, 2021 15:00
Should clarify that on those system supporting PCIe 4.0 they will link at 4.0 x 8.
Vanadiel
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May 7th, 2021 15:00
Looks like a link that has a "conversion" error in it. It is HTML based. This is the PDF link: R11 manual
As you can see it says "slot 4". They must have made a translation error and list it as PCIe 4 meaning they wanted to say PCIe slot 4
R11 is PCIe 3.0.
The M2 slot supports 3.0 x 4.
Putting in a NVMe 4.0 will cause it to link at 3.0 x 4. So yes, the M2 slot would bottleneck the drive. However, since solid state drive prices are on the rise due to Chia mining, it might not be a bad investment to go for a 4.0 drive. You could always use it in your next system at 4.0 if that system supports it. Gives you a piece of mind if you ever decide to upgrade your system.
As for the modern cards like the RTX 3000 series, they will link at PCIe 3.0 x 8 because the mechanical x16 long slot only supports a link speed of x 8. This is common for most newer Alienware's including the brand new R12 and R10.
C H
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May 8th, 2021 02:00
"As for the modern cards like the RTX 3000 series, they will link at PCIe 3.0 x 8 because the mechanical x16 long slot only supports a link speed of x 8"
This is really lame by Dell IMO. A 'high-end gaming PC' for lots of $$ with an x8 PCIe.
Don't know how it's listed now, but when I got my R11, I was unaware of this fact because it was only listed in the fine print in a downloadable .PDF on system specs.
Recent tests have shown that even a RTX 3080 would show like only a 2% possible drop in performance as a result -so not currently a huge issue. But, as you speculate a fast drive might be considerably worse.
Because of the (still??) continued use of x8 (and no IGPU access <- basically a hidden detail - and high fan speeds), this will probably be the last of my 6 Dell purchases.
One could only imagine when systems move to PCIe 4.0 that Dell would finally change the x8 to x16?? Not holding my breath.....
Vanadiel
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May 8th, 2021 15:00
I have an R10 and have PCIe 4.0. The slot is still limited to an X 8 link speed.
At least with 4.0 it's the same bandwidth as 3.0 x 16 and I am not missing a lot.
The M2 that is a different story, because that is 3.0 x 4 even on my R10. You will not know that either unless you carefully read the PDF.
They do it because it's cheaper to wire up at X 8 than X 16.
I don't agree with it and it's one of the negatives of owning one of these systems, but that is what they provide you with.
And I fully agree they should clearly state the link speed on the ordering page, and not on a separate PDF that you carefully have to read. They will not list it in the order confirmation or anything like that either.