ubercake:

M.2 is using the PCIe bus which already exists. It's much faster than the SATA bus on the southbridge. At least from the Intel standpoint, what was once the entire north bridge functionality (was once part of the motherboard) is now on the CPU (memory controllers, PCIe controllers, integrated video, etc...). This all used to be on the motherboard (northbridge and further back individual chips for each). Now, you can get additional PCIe functionality/lanes through an additional controller added to some extended boards, but most people don't need them.

Right on i was well aware of the standings of the M.2 and how it works. If you were to be truly specific about them there "bridges" (north/south) then you'd have mentioned that Intel has gimped their entire line as of late with far less superior throughput of that of AMD's offerings on their threadripper platform. Intel shot themselves in the foot with limited PCI-E lanes in their CPU's and relying on the boards chipset to take up the slack. Which doesn't even come close to what is truly achievable with dedicated PCI-E lanes all on the CPU. Link here at guru. http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/eight-nvme-m2-ssds-in-raid-on-x399-threadripper-reach-28-gbs.html Some people have some videos up of their x299 and then trying to raid even four to five of these together and not even able to saturate the drives to what three of them should produce regarding throughput. Intel's sorry offering from this guy's setup.... [youtube=mNkve5XJlX0] Just doesn't compare what so ever...