A bunch of folks with AMD X670E motherboards are running into a frustrating problem where their PCIe 5.0 SSDs are being dragged down to prehistoric PCIe Gen 1 speeds. It’s not just one specific brand or model that's having this issue – boards from different makers like Asus and MSI are all in the same boat.

Initially, the Gen 5 SSDs were running at their rated high speeds. But then, over time, users started to notice major drops in performance. On top of that, some folks are dealing with system freezes, crashes, or even their computers refusing to boot into Windows if both the Gen 5 SSD slot and the Gen 5 graphics card slot are filled up.

Crucial, the maker of the affected T700 and T705 SSDs, took a closer look and found that the problem is actually coming from the X670E motherboards themselves. They tested different boards and their setups and were able to replicate those slowdowns with the Gen 5 SSDs.

Crucial suggests that those hit by the issue should reach out to their motherboard maker for a BIOS update to fix the problem. They mentioned in a forum that, "The issue seems to occur when a Gen 5 SSD is connected to a Gen 5 slot on the motherboard, which is why you are not experiencing this problem with your Gen 4 drive. If you were to connect the Crucial T705 SSD to Gen 4 speeds at all times, this issue would likely be resolved."

While they haven't nailed down the exact cause yet, some people are thinking that the main PCIe 5.0 slot for graphics cards might be hogging bandwidth with the first Gen 5 SSD slot in some setups, which isn’t great for performance.

On the bright side, switching to a PCIe 4.0 SSD or running the graphics card at Gen 4 speeds helps avoid the issues for now. But let's be honest – that’s not what you want if you splurged on PCIe 5.0 for a reason.

Motherboard makers like MSI have rolled out some BIOS updates that have fixed the issue for a few users, but others are still facing the same problems.