[SOLVED] placement of m.2 on board

[mcr1324]

Hey, I had a question about the two m.2 slots on my motherboard..My board is an B450 AORUS PRO WIFI (rev. 1.0)..I was looking to upgrade my old ssd with a new evo plus 970 1tb..I wanted to make sure I took advantage of the full speed of the nvme card, would both m.2 slots work for the nvme or only the top one I was wondering..? it appears the main m.2 slot or first one is the harder one to get to, I wanted to see if I could install this in the bottom m.2 slot or second one and be able to still get the same speeds and not be limited to the sata speeds..for some reason I thought that the bottom slot was only sata, but it looks like they could both be nvme slots..if somebody that knows more than me could confirm on this I'd appreciate it..thx so much, sorry for the silly questions..I don't know what I would do wo you guys

 

[vMax]

Okay...and it is not a silly question! I had the same question when I first started to use NVMe SSD drives.

On page 13 of you manual it gives you the setup for the M.2 connectors. From what I can see the top one is a full speed NVMe connector for x 4 speed and the bottom one is for x2 speed.....

It is critical to look at the page as it shows you that if you connect a NVMe SSD to the bottom slot, you lose some SATA ports namely ports 2 and 3....

Better to install on the top one as you will get the full speed out of a NVMe SSD....

I have to admit I hate it when the put a M.2 slot right under the GPU but it looks like in this case that would be the best place unless you do not mind x2 speeds...

 

[mcr1324]

Okay...and it is not a silly question! I had the same question when I first started to use NVMe SSD drives.

On page 13 of you manual it gives you the setup for the M.2 connectors. From what I can see the top one is a full speed NVMe connector for x 4 speed and the bottom one is for x2 speed.....

It is critical to look at the page as it shows you that if you connect a NVMe SSD to the bottom slot, you lose some SATA ports namely ports 2 and 3....

Better to install on the top one as you will get the full speed out of a NVMe SSD....

I have to admit I hate it when the put a M.2 slot right under the GPU but it looks like in this case that would be the best place unless you do not mind x2 speeds...

thanks for the reply..so just to make sure I understand, the x2 speed would be the equivalent of sata at like 500 mbps then or how fast is x2..? yeah it looks like I need to just remove my 1070 and install in the top slot then..I wanted to try and get the full speed 3500mbps or whatevs it was lol..thx for the help I appreciate it..

 

[vMax]

thanks for the reply..so just to make sure I understand, the x2 speed would be the equivalent of sata at like 500 mbps then or how fast is x2..? yeah it looks like I need to just remove my 1070 and install in the top slot then..I wanted to try and get the full speed 3500mbps or whatevs it was lol..thx for the help I appreciate it..

No problems at all...The speed even at x2 should be better than standard SATA and around 1000 to 1200mbps and better, maybe even up to 1500mbps dependfing on the size of the drive and the controller...bottom line it will still be better than SATA but go x4 to get the best out of the drive and if you have good airflow in your case it should not really matter.

The speeds on NVMe drives do drop dependant on heat at around 80 degrees C plus....