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Best location for M.2 Drives? DIMM.2?

Sprayingmango
Level 10
I have a brand new 2TB 970 Evo coming and currently use a 1TB 960 Evo drive. Should I just install the new M.2 drive in the DIMM.2 card along with my 960? Will I see a performance decrease if I do that, or will both drives run at full speed in the DIMM.2?

Should I put one drive in the DIMM.2 and one drive under the PCH cooler in the second slot on my Rampage VI Extreme?

Thanks!
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24 REPLIES 24

G75rog
Level 10
They have their own lanes on the Dimm.2 card and are easier to get to than under the cooler.

jrmcdou
Level 10
There would also be trapped heat under the motherboard shroud since it's not a heatsink. I stick to the dimm.2 card for 2 of my nvme drives and a pci-e x4 heatsink card for the third.
Rampage VI Extreme bios 1503
Core i9 7980XE @ 4.4ghz all cores
64 gb Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3600
2x RTX 2080 Ti FE NvLink/SLI
2x Samsung 970 Pro 1tb NVME
Corsair AX1600i
Corsair 1000D case
1x Dell U3818DW 38" Curved Ultrawide and 2x Dell S2716DG 27" 1ms GSYNC 2560x1440 144 hz
Win 10 Pro x64

Sprayingmango
Level 10
Great, thanks for the answers!

Great info guys. One question, if using the DIMM.2 and installing two M.2 drive on it I can use one as a primary drive and the other as program drive for instance separately? Should see a "C" drive and a "D" drive.....right?

Thank for your time guys. Just want to confirm.:)

G75rog
Level 10
Yes, no problem. I run the R6 Apex with a Hyperx16 card and have a 1TB 960 Pro as OS boot, 1 1TB and 6 2TB as program and data drives. I don't use any Sata drives.

I'll be using a Rampage VI Extreme with a Samsung 970 EVO 1TB (Primary Drive) and a 2TB (Storage Drive). Very cool G75rog, I feel so much better now.

One more question if you guys don't mind. Cooling? Because of it's location one could add heat sinks to those EVO M.2 drive but should you? I've hear that you could harm your drive buy doing so. Need more info from the ROG family.

TY

Abaidor
Level 9
I have placed an EK Heatsink on my 960 Pro (DIMM 2) and 99% of the time it does not exceed 44C. But I have great airflow too so it helps. However, since I did not test without the heat sink I do not really no the difference. It's been going strong during the last 4-5 months.
Asus Rampage VI Extreme | i9-7940X | 64GB Trident Z RGB 3600 | Asus Strix 1080Ti OC | Samsung 960 Pro 512GB | WD Gold 10TB | WD Red 4TB X 2 | PSU Corsair AX1500i | Custom Water Loop - RAD MO-RA3 420 Pro | EK Monoblock | Phanteks GPU Block | Heatkiller 200 Tube RES | EK Dual D5 Revo Pumps | 9 X Corsair ML 140 Pro Fans on RAD | | Bitspower Fittings Black Chrome | Cooler Master Cosmos 2 Modded Case | Silent WIngs 3 120mm Intake |

jrmcdou
Level 10
The heatsinks won't damage the nvme drive. Just follow the instructions carefully. Also if you are using Samsung drives and the EK heatsink make sure to put the 0.5 mm thermal pad over the controller and the 1 mm over the memory chips for a proper fit. There was a definite temp drop after putting on the EK heatsinks.
Rampage VI Extreme bios 1503
Core i9 7980XE @ 4.4ghz all cores
64 gb Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3600
2x RTX 2080 Ti FE NvLink/SLI
2x Samsung 970 Pro 1tb NVME
Corsair AX1600i
Corsair 1000D case
1x Dell U3818DW 38" Curved Ultrawide and 2x Dell S2716DG 27" 1ms GSYNC 2560x1440 144 hz
Win 10 Pro x64

Deepbluee
Level 7
I have 2x Samsung 960 Pro but Dimm.2 only recognize one of them. I cant figure out what is the problem any idea?