msi PRO Z690-A WIFI Main Board, powerspec g440 what slot for second m2 drive is best?

Midblues

Looking to install second M2 drive going with WD BLACK sn770 PCIe 4.0. I know there are 4 M2 slots on main board and slot M1 is taken with fist M2 drive I just leave that there. M3 is limited to PCIe 3.0, so I would like to install on slot M4 on main board. Does it matter what slot I install this on? I do not want to remove GPU I believe I can clearly get to M4 slot on Mian Board and should be very simple install.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Midblues

M.2_4 is PCIe 4.0 x4. That would be the best, most easily accessible option for you.

Midblues

Ok but since I am adding a drive I might as well get the pcie 4.0 boost a little faster drive I can clone the main drive and put Windows on faster drive. So my question is would it pay to pysically install the faster drive in the m1 slot and move the orginal drive to m4 (or even m3 slot because the orginal drive is pcie 3 not 4 and the m3 slot is only pcie 3 ) or can i just change the boot drive in the bios to boot from m4 slot and not worry about moving drives? Trying not pysically install and reinstall drives if I dont have to but I knew I would need more storage so just want to get it done before I load up the machine with games software ect ect.

Thank you for your time .

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Midblues

No, M.2_1 and M.2_4 are both PCIe 4.0 4x4, performance would be the same. You can just change the boot priority in the BIOS like you mentioned and you should be good to go. The only technical difference is how they're wired. M.2_1 likely to the CPU, while M.2_4 likely use the chipset PCIe lanes.

Midblues

Understood would I see a performance gain by putting the PCIe 4.0 dr with windows on it in the M.2- 1 closer to cpu or not worth the hassle?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Midblues

No, their may be some miniscule latency difference, but there's certainly no bandwidth difference going through the chipset lanes and DMI. You wouldn't see any performance difference.

Midblues

Ok I just leave it in M2-4 ,thank you for all your help.

Midblues

One more question, i have been reading better to put faster drive in M2 socket by CPU, Is the heat sink that came with the orginal WD Blue M2 drive clued to the WD Blue or will it just com off so I can use it on a new M2 drive for that socket?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@Midblues

The included drive doesn't have a heatsink. The heatsink is part of the motherboard, it does have a thermal pad, but you should be able to swap this over to your new drive with no issues. If your new drive has a heatsink with a good fin structure, I would use that rather than removing it to install the boards heatsink.

Here is a test result on the MSI Pro Z690-A board with the WD Black SN750SE 1TB drive:

M.2_1

M.2_4

Midblues

Wow thank you for that chart obviously very little difference between M2 slots. So I will install newer second drive in M2. 4 with OS and change boot drive in Bios .Thank you.