Placement of M.2 Slot

IT Troll · 13 May 2016 at 08:02

Is the position of the M.2 slot a concern when choosing a motherboard?

On many boards the slot is placed so that an M.2 device will be covered by the primary graphics card. As both devices can reach 80 degrees does this have an adverse effect on either and increase the chance of thermal throttling?

A few boards have the M.2 slot positioned above the PCI slots so that it is not covered.

glenimp617 · 13 May 2016 at 08:24

I bought the Gigabyte Gaming 7 which has two M.2 slots. When I first fitted the nvme drive, I chose the top one so it would have better cooling. The issue there is that it disables half of the sata ports. The lower down one, right underneath the graphics card doesn't so I moved it there.

Can't say I have any issues with heat, so long as you have good cooling generally you'll be fine.

IT Troll · 13 May 2016 at 09:52

Thanks. What graphics card do you have and is it reference or custom cooler.

Videos like this are a concern when you are putting a hot thing under another hot thing. Especially if the graphics card has a blower-style cooler.

bowza · 13 May 2016 at 20:12

for some reason I never thought about the heat from My M.2 drive
and I have the exact same board in this video with an SM951 drive.

Brazo · 13 May 2016 at 21:01

If you can get some air near(ish) the nvme drive you should be fine. My 950 pro runs at 45-50c whereas I've seen them go hugely higher without decent airflow.