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ROGBot
Just upgraded to a 1TB NVMe 970 Evo Plus on my Strix Z-370e. I sat here for awhile wondering what I need to do with the heat sink and if I should just install the SSD onto the top M.2 slot. I was worried about the heatsink not doing much due to the sticker on the front of the 970 Evo, and there doesn't seem to be much info on the real difference other than "Just do it bro".
At first I used the top slot when using the Samsung Data Migration tool. I cloned my C: drive (An 860 Evo) and got everything set up which was kind of a pain to swap the boot drive over. (TL;DR you just enable the new m.2 in Disk Management, reboot and set it as the primary drive, and disable the CSM.)
Now i'm booting off of the SSD, and I wanted to test thermals since it sits right above my 1080 Strix (And not much airflow gets past that thing since i have bottom fed fans.)
Here are my Test results. The temperature fluctuated between 65 and 67 degrees. Honestly, to me that's pretty warm. And this is using Samsung's Magician tool, not a gaming benchmark test. If it got that hot on this test, i'd be worried about gaming on it.
After that test, I took the GPU off again and installed the 970 into the bottom slot (M.2_1?*) That shares a SATA port with #1. I moved the SATA #1 (My old 860) and left it empty. I left the sticker on the 970 on, and installed the heat shield with the thermal pad.
This second test, I only hit 38 degrees. And here are my results.
Looks like the bottom m.2 slot is MUCH better than the top. It's only sharing the 1 Sata slot.
So, hopefully this helps some people who had the same questions as me. I assume this is the same on almost all Asus motherboards that have m.2 slots with the heat sink. You should probably try installing your m.2 there before wasting your time like me. Taking your GPU out to take the heatsink off isn't really that bad. Give it a shot.
At first I used the top slot when using the Samsung Data Migration tool. I cloned my C: drive (An 860 Evo) and got everything set up which was kind of a pain to swap the boot drive over. (TL;DR you just enable the new m.2 in Disk Management, reboot and set it as the primary drive, and disable the CSM.)
Now i'm booting off of the SSD, and I wanted to test thermals since it sits right above my 1080 Strix (And not much airflow gets past that thing since i have bottom fed fans.)
Here are my Test results. The temperature fluctuated between 65 and 67 degrees. Honestly, to me that's pretty warm. And this is using Samsung's Magician tool, not a gaming benchmark test. If it got that hot on this test, i'd be worried about gaming on it.
After that test, I took the GPU off again and installed the 970 into the bottom slot (M.2_1?*) That shares a SATA port with #1. I moved the SATA #1 (My old 860) and left it empty. I left the sticker on the 970 on, and installed the heat shield with the thermal pad.
This second test, I only hit 38 degrees. And here are my results.
Looks like the bottom m.2 slot is MUCH better than the top. It's only sharing the 1 Sata slot.
So, hopefully this helps some people who had the same questions as me. I assume this is the same on almost all Asus motherboards that have m.2 slots with the heat sink. You should probably try installing your m.2 there before wasting your time like me. Taking your GPU out to take the heatsink off isn't really that bad. Give it a shot.
