M.2 Slot location behind the GPU

8BaLL · 11 Oct 2022 at 18:25

Hey all,

My motherboard is MSI Tomahawk Z690 I have on the board three gen4 M.2 slots and one gen3 M.2.
I have a M.2 installed on the first slot which I plan just for system and software the second empty slot is located right behind my beefy INNO3D 3080TI iChill GPU.
I just ordered a WD Black SN850X purely for games should I remove my GPU and place it underneath or move to the next gen4 slot just below? The board does have built-in heatsink plates and the GPU does put a little pressure on the plate is that okay? will it also affect the heat?
Im not sure this is right but heard it's going to run better on the closest slot to CPU

Thanks

pastymuncher · 11 Oct 2022 at 19:14

I found that the built in heatsinks on my MSI MPG Z690 EDGE WIFI DDR4 motherboard had awful contact with the M2 drives so there is something to watch out for. I ended up with my primary drive with Windows on it in the top slot between the cpu and gpu and removing the supplied heatsink and replacing it with a very effective clamshell type M2 heatsink (£12.99 for a pack of three from Amazon). My second drive is in the very bottom M2 slot also with one of the heatsinks from the three pack on it. It may not look as good but it works much better than the boards built in heatsinks that barely touch the drives and caused my gen4 drive to thermal throttle.

Wing-Man · 11 Oct 2022 at 22:49

make no difference use any slot you want.

8BaLL · 12 Oct 2022 at 15:32

Wing-Man said:
make no difference use any slot you want.

Thank you

Mr Jack · 23 Oct 2022 at 14:39

Wing-Man said:
make no difference use any slot you want.

Not quite correct. The 1st slot on that board (I have the DDR4 version of the same) is direct to the CPU and should be used for your main SSD, while the others are from the chipset. The 3rd slot supports only PCIe 3.0 not 4.0 so avoid if you need that feature. But there's no reason to prefer the slot under the GPU to the more accessible slots further down, and they'll probably cool better too.

8BaLL · 23 Oct 2022 at 15:35

Mr Jack said:
Not quite correct. The 1st slot on that board (I have the DDR4 version of the same) is direct to the CPU and should be used for your main SSD, while the others are from the chipset. The 3rd slot supports only PCIe 3.0 not 4.0 so avoid if you need that feature. But there's no reason to prefer the slot under the GPU to the more accessible slots further down, and they'll probably cool better too.

Yeah I have sorted now works great actually the third slot or should I say plate has two underneath the left supports only 3.0 and the right 4.0 Thanks