ASUS Z170-WS, M.2 slot question.

[Harsh Kumawat]

The ASUS Z170-WS has 2 M.2 slots, I'm thinking of using both slots in RAID 0 but if I use an M.2 SSD on the first slot will using a 2 PCIe slot GPU above that M.2 fit or can the M.2 cause clearance issues?

Thanks in advance.

 

[an1m473dph33r]

The ASUS Z170-WS has 2 M.2 slots, I'm thinking of using both slots in RAID 0 but if I use an M.2 SSD on the first slot will using a 2 PCIe slot GPU above that M.2 fit or can the M.2 cause clearance issues?

Thanks in advance.

Hey Kumawat,

First off as far as clearance issues, have you simply plugged everything in and looked to see how tight it is in there? Bear in mind you don't want to be blocking the cooling fan on the graphics card if it has one, and you also don't want the cards to be putting pressure on one another or even touching as heat in the wrong places on one component, could damage another. Next, when you say "M2 slots", are you referring to the PCIe 3.0 x 16 slots? I looked up this board and it has 4 3.0 slots. Regardless you should get full utilization out of your M2 drives, however if you could provide me with your graphics card, I can tell you if there is even enough bandwidth on the 3.0 bus to support 2 M2's and 1 graphics card (or 2 graphics cards if you are have either a Crossfire or SLI set up). the 2 M2s will use 8 of your 16 busses on the PCIe 3.0 slots.

 

[Harsh Kumawat]

The ASUS Z170-WS has 2 M.2 slots, I'm thinking of using both slots in RAID 0 but if I use an M.2 SSD on the first slot will using a 2 PCIe slot GPU above that M.2 fit or can the M.2 cause clearance issues?

Thanks in advance.

Hey Kumawat,

First off as far as clearance issues, have you simply plugged everything in and looked to see how tight it is in there? Bear in mind you don't want to be blocking the cooling fan on the graphics card if it has one, and you also don't want the cards to be putting pressure on one another or even touching as heat in the wrong places on one component, could damage another. Next, when you say "M2 slots", are you referring to the PCIe 3.0 x 16 slots? I looked up this board and it has 4 3.0 slots. Regardless you should get full utilization out of your M2 drives, however if you could provide me with your graphics card, I can tell you if there is even enough bandwidth on the 3.0 bus to support 2 M2's and 1 graphics card (or 2 graphics cards if you are have either a Crossfire or SLI set up). the 2 M2s will use 8 of your 16 busses on the PCIe 3.0 slots.

Thanks for the reply, but I don't have the parts quite yet so I can't tell if there will be clearance issues or not. Also, the Z170-WS has PCIe lanes provided by the chipset so the M.2 do not use any one the CPU lanes and I still have 16 free lanes which will be used by my single GPU. I plan on getting a GTX 1080/70.

 

[an1m473dph33r]

Yeah I just now say that when I looked at your mobo again. That completely caught me off guard. I was unaware that they were making slots specifically for M2 SSD's. In that case with the M2's being so skinny i doubt clearance is going to be an issue. So do these M2 slots have their own chipset? I'm assuming there is since you said u still have 16 to use on top of the PCIe chipset. Since the chipsets between the PCIe and M2 are separate you should have no problem, but if your wrong then the bus is not wide enough. 2 M2's + 1 GTX 1080 = 18 needed lanes. I will research this further.

 

[Harsh Kumawat]

Yeah I just now say that when I looked at your mobo again. That completely caught me off guard. I was unaware that they were making slots specifically for M2 SSD's. In that case with the M2's being so skinny i doubt clearance is going to be an issue. So do these M2 slots have their own chipset? I'm assuming there is since you said u still have 16 to use on top of the PCIe chipset. Since the chipsets between the PCIe and M2 are separate you should have no problem, but if your wrong then the bus is not wide enough. 2 M2's + 1 GTX 1080 = 18 needed lanes. I will research this further.

No the M.2 don't have a chipset specially just for them, some motherboards have PLX chips that supply PCIe lanes for other uses such as M.2 SSDs which leaves you with 16 still available from the CPU, so you can use M.2 and still even have 2 GPUs running perfectly fine.