I need some clarification please <3

Smokeweedaboutit · January 7, 2020

Hi Everyone! first PC I built myself and I may not have done my due diligence before ordering the WD Black SN750 500GB PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe M.2 2280. I have the B450 AORUS ELITE, included is an M.2 Thermal guard, Highlighted in yellow. Upon checking the M.2's compatibility with the motherboard ( https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-black-ssd/compatibility-list-wd-black-sn-750.pdf ) I did not find the B450 AORUS ELITE, but it states the list is for the model with the Heatsink. So am I lead to believe that the standard model that I ordered will fit with any motherboard with an M.2 slot (including my B450?) which brings me to my next question, if the NvMe is supposed to go in the top M.2 slot and the GPU is also supposed to go in the top PCI slot, And I already had to remove the thermal guard (that was covering the empty M.2 slot) to fit my graphics card... won't the M.2 (without thermal guard) be stifling hot pinned under the GPU? Not sure if any of this even warrants concern but as I am new to this, and scouring forums is becoming overwhelming... any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you so much in advance

Spotty · January 9, 2020

On 1/8/2020 at 9:54 AM, Smokeweedaboutit said:

which brings me to my next question, if the NvMe is supposed to go in the top M.2 slot and the GPU is also supposed to go in the top PCI slot, And I already had to remove the thermal guard (that was covering the empty M.2 slot) to fit my graphics card... won't the M.2 (without thermal guard) be stifling hot pinned under the GPU?

It should be fine. I have my drive mounted under the graphics card and temps are fine, this is also without a heatsink in the drive.

The drive is compatible with your motherboard so that's not an issue.

Smokeweedaboutit · January 9, 2020

you're the man spotty! I'm literally sitting here with my case open about to go for it!!! thanks

TVwazhere · January 9, 2020

On 1/7/2020 at 5:54 PM, Smokeweedaboutit said:

And I already had to remove the thermal guard (that was covering the empty M.2 slot) to fit my graphics card... won't the M.2 (without thermal guard) be stifling hot pinned under the GPU? Not sure if any of this even warrants concern but as I am new to this, and scouring forums is becoming overwhelming

PCI-E NVME drives rarely require a heat sink. NAND Flash (the modules used to store memory) work best at roughly 60ºC, so you actually want those to be warm. The controller theoretically you dont want to get that warm (though it's fine if it does.) Much like how most RAM sticks dont "require" heat sinks but most come with them now for aesthetics.

If your drive was a Gen 4, the heatsink would arguably help since those drives run even hotter. (And dont worry, this info is not widely known nor talked about, so scouring the internet would have yielded a few results, but not as many as something like "Which GPU is best in 2020?")