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Installing a second nvme drive

Kovernater
By Kovernater
in Storage Devices
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Hello all,

 

Currently I have msi b650 gaming plus wifi mobo and one nvme pcie gen 4 ssd installed on the closer to the cpu slot. On it I have my Windows install. The other slot is below the gpu (further from the cpu) but it also supports gen 4 pcie. My question is if I get a second nvme drive where I would have strictly gaming stuff only, is it better to install it on the existing one's place? Does it even matter (I mean is there a big difference) where would I install the new ssd?

 

P.s. the closer to the cpu slot has a built-in heat sink, while the second one does not. How crucial is this?

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4 minutes ago, Kovernater said:

Hello all,

 

Currently I have msi b650 gaming plus wifi mobo and one nvme pcie gen 4 ssd installed on the closer to the cpu slot. On it I have my Windows install. The other slot is below the gpu (further from the cpu) but it also supports gen 4 pcie. My question is if I get a second nvme drive where I would have strictly gaming stuff only, is it better to install it on the existing one's place? Does it even matter (I mean is there a big difference) where would I install the new ssd?

 

P.s. the closer to the cpu slot has a built-in heat sink, while the second one does not. How crucial is this?

The difference is pretty marginal tbh. IMO, the OS drive is in the correct place where it is, and you should put the new drive in the lower slot.

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You'll have to check the mobo manual but the one nearest the CPU is likely CPU connected, and others are chipset connected. There can be a slight advantage using the CPU connected one, but you're unlikely to ever notice it outside of running specific benchmarks. And the difference will be small anyway. Leave the current one where it is and put the new one in the spare.

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1 hour ago, Kovernater said:

Hello all,

 

Currently I have msi b650 gaming plus wifi mobo and one nvme pcie gen 4 ssd installed on the closer to the cpu slot. On it I have my Windows install. The other slot is below the gpu (further from the cpu) but it also supports gen 4 pcie. My question is if I get a second nvme drive where I would have strictly gaming stuff only, is it better to install it on the existing one's place? Does it even matter (I mean is there a big difference) where would I install the new ssd?

 

P.s. the closer to the cpu slot has a built-in heat sink, while the second one does not. How crucial is this?

Generally you want the heat sink but you don't want to install a NVME drive in a position that would be covered by the GPU cooler as it may "cook" the drive and push it's performance down.

 

If you want to install a second or third NVMe drive, and the MB comes with unpopulated NVMe slots, just make sure it doesn't bump your GPU down from 16 lanes. So if you read the manual 

image.png.c9aa7f7f52d179a3d447f99fa0b22a45.png

M2_1 should be your primary NVMe and the M2_2 should be the second one. If you have a Ryzen 8500 or 8300 it will only operate in 2 lanes. Since it doesn't support 22110, check the length of the NVMe drive you want to install. Both support 2280 which is the typical NVMe SSD.

 

 

 

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