CPU/Mobo MSI Pro B660M-A M.2 slot

A

Arjun

Skilled
This motherboard has two M.2 slots, one with a heatsink and another without heatsink. Both have the same speed. I assembled new system with this motherboard yesterday but my M.2 Samsung 980 SSD was not delivered when i assembled it.

I will get the SSD in 1-2 days but the problem is that the slot with heatsink is covered by the CPU heatsink ( Deepcool Gammax 400 V2 ) and the granphics card. The second slot is still usable. Is it worth it to remove CPU heatsink and GPU and install in the first slot or should i just use the second slot which is easily reachable?

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As for my Asus Rog Strix B550, the first slot just under the cpu operates at pci 4.0 while the 2nd slot operates at 3.0 this 2nd one disables sata 5 & 6 ports completely (shared bandwidth thing).
Even my M.2 Samsung 980 SSD from amazon is pending delivery. In fact no tracking update since past 43hrs now.

Check specification for your mobos m2 slot it might be slightly different.
 
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Both M.2 slots are gen 4, If the SSD don't come with its own heatsink then using the M.2 slot with heatsink is obviously worth.
 
If the drive doesn't come with its own heatsink then its better to go with the slot that has the heatsink. Luckily on my Asrock B550 steel legend, I was able to do the installation by removing only the graphics card and didn't have to reinstall the CPU heatsink.
 
I use a 980 as a secondary SSD in the slot at the back of my ITX motherboard. Even in this scenario, I've never seen it run hot enough to warrant using a heatsink. The worst I've seen it is probably around 55c. Mostly it stays at or under 50c. Idle or low load is in the mid-40s.

My suggestion is to leave the primary slot empty if you have any plans to add a faster Gen4 SSD down the line. Those run much hotter when you push them. If you have no such plans, it's totally up to your preference/convenience.
 
I have managed to install in the heatsink slot without removing the CPU cooler. But samsung magician software is stuck at "scanning drive" . Can i transfer my OD partion to this with samsung migration software?
Is this a good benchmark
1665249118519.png

THe max temp it went to was 52c stable when the OS partition was being cloned. usually around 40-45c.
 
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