planning for installation.

[pinball001]

I bought a "MSI MPG Z790 Carbon" Motherboard. It has 4 m.2 slots. Each slot has a top and bottom bit for the heat sink.I've never had a heat-sink for m.2 before.  Obviously I need to remove the plastic before inserting a drive. But do I need to prepare the drive in some way, like removing the bit of plastic with the branding? Lastly, does it matter how closeness to the cpu affect performance?

Really appreciate it, thanks for your time.

[RONOTHAN##]

6 minutes ago, pinball001 said:

But do I need to prepare the drive in some way, like removing the bit of plastic with the branding?

Nope, that sticker is conductive, it would actually hurt to remove it. 

 

6 minutes ago, pinball001 said:

Lastly, does it matter how closeness to the cpu affect performance?

The specific slot matters, yes, but not really because of the distance between it and the CPU. Different slots get different PCIe lanes allocated to it, some come directly from the CPU, some come from the chipset, and some take GPU lanes. Slot 1 is directly from the CPU using the lanes dedicated for it, so that's probably the best slot for it, though slots 3 through 5 will likely be unnoticeably different. Slot 2 steals 8 lanes from the GPU though, so I would avoid using it unless necessary. 

[pinball001]

11 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Slot 1 is directly from the CPU using the lanes dedicated for it, so that's probably the best slot for it, though slots 3 through 5 will likely be unnoticeably different. Slot 2 steals 8 lanes from the GPU though, so I would avoid using it unless necessary. 

I don't see that mentioned in the manual. I believe you, but where could I learn that sort of information?

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, pinball001 said:

I don't see that mentioned in the manual. I believe you, but where could I learn that sort of information?

It should be in the manual, it might just be in a different spot than where you're looking. I just got that specific info from the product page though