Storage Interfaces

Block Digram

Storage Performance

The ASRock Z790 PG Sonic Edition goes a light on the high speed ports with only four 10 Gbps USB 3.2 ports. The rest are a mixture of USB 2.0 and USB 3.2 5 Gbps. This should be enough for a majority of users that are just looking for any USB ports, regardless of the rated speed. These are good for headphones, USB Audio DACs, web cameras, game controllers, keyboards and mice.

*ORICO USB4 NVMe Enclosure (ORICO-M208C3-U4) used for USB bandwidth tests.

DiskSpd (SATA 6 Gb/s)

DiskSpd (USB 3.2)

Testing the USB ports, these are right on spec for the rated speed.

DiskSpd (NVMe M.2)

For this test, the motherboard has four M.2 NVMe drives installed simultaneously to simulate real world use, while each drive is tested one at a time. One stands out as a bit lower due to not having a heatsink. Since socket 1 and 2 share the same physical space, both could not be tested at the same time. Without access to a Gen 5 NVMe, that M.2 slot cannot be fully tested for peak bandwidth.

*Socket not tested with the rest at the same time.