brkkab123 wrote:
The only thing I'm aware of is that if you use a M.2 ssd you lose SATA ports 1 & 2 on the motherboard.
Get whichever board you can afford.

The Hero Alpha is designed a bit different than the original VIII Hero. Since the original Hero has no U.2 ports, the M.2 shares with those SATA ports. On the Hero Alpha the M.2 shares with the 3rd PCIe slot. The first U.2 shares with nothing, the 2nd shares with 4 SATA ports. I use M.2 and U.2 drives and can verify the functionality is as described.

maybe I didn't ask the question correctly. I will try again.

On the hero alpha board, can I run 2 GPU's in SLI (GPU1 in GPU slot 1, GPU2 in GPU slot 2) and an m.2 ssd at the same time? Will all 3 pieces PHYSICALLY fit into the board at the same time? In other words, if I install the m.2 ssd, will this prevent me from physically inserting the 2nd GPU into the second PCIE lane? The quote below from the review makes it sound like this is NOT a possible configuration.

Here is the quote again.
" For starters, the M.2 port will be blocked if you use a GPU in the second 16x PCI-E slot"

Is anyone out there running a hero alpha with 2 GPU's in SLI and an m.2 ssd?

Thanks again

Yes the M.2 SSD slot will work with 2 graphics card in sli/crossfire (I have tried putting my 1070 in the 2nd slot to test it, as I may add an extra card for SLI later on if I get a 4k screen). Indeed the mounted M.2 drive is slightly below the height of the PCH cover which sits underneath the 1st graphic card.
The point about it being blocked is that if you do have 2 graphics installed, the 2nd graphic card will block ACCESS to the M.2 drive. Meaning that if you want to swap out the M.2 SSD, you will need to remove the 2nd graphics card first before you can reach it.

Do note that the faster PCIe x4 M.2 SSDs (e.g. Kingston HyperX, Samsung PM951 or 950 PRO) do have a tendency to generate a lot of heat, and some have mentioned to add a heatsink to the SSD to reduce throttling. However this could make the SSD too thick and may have issues with the 2nd graphics card. Indeed the 2nd graphics card will also make it harder to cool down the SSD, but if you are using M.2 SATA drives the thermal issue should be less.

Side note: I have an msata crucial mx100 256GB SSD on my laptop and the Samsung 950 PRO 256GB on my desktop. For day to day tasks, I cannot tell the difference…so if you are going with this board and considering SLI, I suggest either using a 2.5” SATA SSD, or an M.2 SATA SSD. The board has U.2 connections also but there’s only the one Intel drive and it’s still quite expensive for now.

I Think the problem here is just the access for the M.2 slot, which is i u want to swap/clean your m.2 ssd u should remove the 2nd graphic card.
I only own VIII Hero, not Hero Alpha, but i see no problem with the Hero Alpha m.2 slot design.

Yes I believe that's the official Samsung recommendation on the PM951/950PRO, to have direct air flowing over the SSD to reduce throttling under load.
However, with open fan designs on most cards, some of the GPU heat will always be blown onto the SSD...and the 2nd card would block most of the air flow over the SSD as well.

Ultimately, it's unlikely to have both the GPU AND the SSD under full load in normal circumstances...even benchmarking would tend to use the 2 components in separate tests haha