MSI Z170A SLI PLUS M.2 Placement

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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So I am getting down to business with the new MSI Z170A SLI PLUS motherboard today and one thing struck me as genius while I was getting it set up on the test bench. Look at that M.2 interface placement! The SLI PLUS is very much a "less is more" motherboard when it comes down to it feature set, so there is a lot less competition going on when it comes to PCB component placement, but that allowed MSI engineers to get your on-PCB M.2 SSD out from under your GPU. While not all folks have had issues with SSD throttling due to heatsoak, this would certainly help those that have. I like it.
 
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So 2 things
1. wouldn't having it between the two hottest things on the board also be a bad idea?

2. If you have an air cooler wouldn't it cover the M.2 drive? You would not be able to install or remove it without removing your heatsink.

I guess it is better than being on the other side of the board, but I could always take a dremel to the case if it was on the other side and alleviate that issue,
 
zaniix said:
So 2 things
1. wouldn't having it between the two hottest things on the board also be a bad idea?

2. If you have an air cooler wouldn't it cover the M.2 drive? You would not be able to install or remove it without removing your heatsink.

I guess it is better than being on the other side of the board, but I could always take a dremel to the case if it was on the other side and alleviate that issue,
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1. No. First because it has traditionally been placed UNDER the GPU where it got little or not airflow.

2. I guess it would depend on the air cooler. Possibly. But again, it is now in a place where it actually gets airflow, where being under the GPU it did not in many instances depending on GPU cooler configuration.
 
I don't think there are many aircoolers that are large enough that they would be sitting where 1st PCI-E slot would be, since many motherboards are still configured to have large graphics cards there.
 
That's cool.

Is it shared - electrically - with that 1x slot (you know, either or, but not both, or using 1x slot drops lanes to m.2 slot) or are they both fully usable at all times?

You might just have moved it out from under the GPU, and in under your Sound Card :p
 
gigabyte z170 gaming itx is on the back of the mobo, seems more efficient use of space to me unless you need to swap your m.2 out often
 
Zarathustra[H];1041979600 said:
That's cool.

Is it shared - electrically - with that 1x slot (you know, either or, but not both, or using 1x slot drops lanes to m.2 slot) or are they both fully usable at all times?

You might just have moved it out from under the GPU, and in under your Sound Card :p
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You might read up on M.2 specifications and how lanes are assigned. All the current implementations that we are seeing on current motherboards is x4.

M.2 sockets keyed to support SATA or two PCI Express lanes (PCIe ×2) are referred to as "socket 2 configuration" or "socket 2", while the sockets keyed for four PCI Express lanes (PCIe ×4) are referred to as "socket 3 configuration" or "socket 3".
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I am fairly sure that having it under a sound card is just fine unless you have a double wide sound card that is pulling 250w.
 
Putz said:
gigabyte z170 gaming itx is on the back of the mobo, seems more efficient use of space to me unless you need to swap your m.2 out often
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That would drive me nuts, if I had to remove the motherboard to change my drive.

Or is it located in the spot where most case motherboard trays have cutouts?
 
Zarathustra[H];1041979652 said:
That would drive me nuts, if I had to remove the motherboard to change my drive.

Or is it located in the spot where most case motherboard trays have cutouts?
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depends on the case, some have huge cutouts, but some you wouldn't be able too

i dont know about you but i dont touch my OS drive often, just addition SSD's and hard drives , not for everyone thats for sure
 
So people were experiencing performance issues because the controllers on those slot-style SSD's were located too close to the GPU's? Anyone got a link, just curious......
 
HeadRusch said:
So people were experiencing performance issues because the controllers on those slot-style SSD's were located too close to the GPU's? Anyone got a link, just curious......
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I think most of the time it was only under serious benchmark tests that were not real world scenarios.

I am not aware of anyone ever having an issue under normal use. It still doesn't hurt to keep it a bit cooler
 
Is that slot also compatible with msata ssds? I'm looking at the KRAIT edition of the same baord, and it seems to have two different positions for the standoff, which leads me to believe it'll work with both the shorter msata ssds and the longer m.2 ssds.
 
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duel007 said:
Is that slot also compatible with msata ssds? I'm looking at the KRAIT edition of the same baord, and it seems to have two different positions for the standoff, which leads me to believe it'll work with both the shorter msata ssds and the longer m.2 ssds.
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msata is a different thing, the reason M.2 has two standoffs is that there are shorter M.2 drives like This
 
duel007 said:
Ah that's too bad. I like the m.2 speeds but no one makes one bigger than 512GB.
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I suppose it depends on your needs. I never use my boot drive for anything other than OS and maybe some app or game installs. I always use a second drive for Data, it makes my DATA backup very easy.

If you need a larger drive with high IO you could always use one of the PCIe SSDs.

I am staying away from M.2 until the price comes down, a standard SSD is plenty fast for me and I have lots of space to add the into my case. I am interested in going with a SFF system, but then I would want a board with at least two M.2 ports and at that point I might need a much large rM.2 drive
 
I'm confused about NVMe support and this board. I've read the manual (p. 32), but it does not discuss that. Okay, I'm also confused about M.2, in general. ;) The manual makes it look like you can setup an M.2 in SATA and keep all 6 of the SATA ports available: is that the same as NVMe?

Ken
 
M.2 SATA mode normally takes up some of the SATA ports, I agree the MSI manual says nothing about this which is odd

M.2 NVMe uses PCIe x4 so it wouldn't take up a SATA port

So if you use an NVMe SSD in the M.2 slot you would still have 6 SATA ports,
 
I have this motherboard and I am thinking of picking up the Sandisk X400 M.2 1TB drive for it. Did you have any issues with heat while testing.
 
Anyone have any luck with a 1tb m.2 drive? I hope to upgrade in a month or two. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
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