How do I determine what bus lane my M.2 slots are using?

[Yeti78]

Hello,

I am not sure how to ask this question.  I have a Hp Omen 15 2020.  It has an Intel I7-10750H CPU, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 GPU. 

The motherboard is an HP 88C8.  I believe this motherboard uses a PCIe 3 interface for the GPU and M.2 NVMe slots.  Not sure how many channels they have or where to find that information. 

From my understanding of how PCIe bus lanes work.  Some lanes come out of the CPU itself.  While other lanes come out of the chipset.  Please correct me if I am wrong. 

I am attempting to determine the specific bus lanes that are utilized by my M.2 NVMe slots.  I am hoping to use the fastest of my two M.2 NVMe drives in the fastest M.2 slot.  How and where can I find this information?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. 

[banhien]

@Yeti78 

It supports dual M.2 NVMe PCIe 3x4 drives. Backward compatible allows you to install PCIe 4x4 drives BUT they won't run at PCIe 4x4 speed.

Regards.

[Yeti78]

Hello Banhien,

Thank you for responding to my question. I greatly appreciate it. 

Do you know if there is any way to verify which M.2 slot goes to the CPU and which slot goes to the Chipset?

I read that HP designs Omens in a way that only allows the GPU(discrete) PCIe bus goes straight to the CPU.  Meaning the NBMe M.2 slots go to the chips etc.

Do you know if this is true.  Where could I even find this information.  

Thank you in advance.

[Yeti78]

I think I figured it out.  The NvME M.2 slots go directly to the chipset on PCIe 3.0 lanes.  The GPU is the only component that is directly tied to the CPU.  On a PCIe x16 4.0 lane.  However, my GPU currently only uses PCIe 3.0 speeds.  I can't figure out how to change it to 4.0 speeds.  I tried looking in the BIOS menu screen but didn't see anything.  Do you have any suggestions?  I appreciate any help you can provide.