Zenith II Extreme - Location of M.2 SSDs

[PMokover]

I’m doing a build with a Zenith II Extreme. I will be using two M.2 SSDs. C: drive and 😧 drive.

The Zenith II Extreme has five possible locations for M.2 SSDs: Two slots on the top side of the board under the big heatsink. One slot on the bottom side of the board. Two slots on a DIMM.2 card that plugs into the DIMM.2 slot on the board.

Does it matter in any way (performance, thermal, other) which of these five possible slots I use? My first priority is performance and thermal control. My next priority is ease of access if I ever need to get to them.

Thanks.
Peter

[Dimitrios1971]

Hi Peter,
I'm not going to write much just that.
Use the Two slots on a DIMM.2 card or buy an M.2 CARD

[Hivemind]

I think you can figure it out with this.
going with the Dimm.2 you are going through the chipset first then the CPU (probably lower SSD temperature but a slightly more delay (think not even noticeable)

I got 2 SSD under the heat shield but when the chipset fans starts it kinda warms up the ssd to around 50 degrees (still no problem for the ssd anyway) but this way it is directly connected to the PCIe controller inside the CPU.

[PMokover]

Hivemind wrote:
I think you can figure it out with this.
going with the Dimm.2 you are going through the chipset first then the CPU (probably lower SSD temperature but a slightly more delay (think not even noticeable)
I got 2 SSD under the heat shield but when the chipset fans starts it kinda warms up the ssd to around 50 degrees (still no problem for the ssd anyway) but this way it is directly connected to the PCIe controller inside the CPU.

Thanks for the reply!
I understand that putting the M.2 SSDs on the DIMM.2 card is a less direct route to the CPU. However, you said the delay is not even noticeable and the thermal situation is probably better on the DIMM.2 so why didn't you go with the DIMM.2 card instead of right on the motherboard? I'm not arguing. I just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

Thanks.
Peter

[zl1_ghost]

I put both of mine in the slots that directly connect to the CPU. The DIMM.2 card is too tall and interferes with the radiator.

[xOperator]

Wait, so the Dimm.2 Card, right next to the CPU, is routed through the chipset first?

I was thinking that since it was so close to the CPU, that it used PCIE lanes directly from CPU and not chipset.

So which M.2 slots are going to the CPU first? Its hard for me to see that image because of my screen resolution

edit: okay, found the source of the image, good to go

[vdimitri]

xOperator wrote:
Wait, so the Dimm.2 Card, right next to the CPU, is routed through the chipset first?

I was thinking that since it was so close to the CPU, that it used PCIE lanes directly from CPU and not chipset.

So which M.2 slots are going to the CPU first? Its hard for me to see that image because of my screen resolution

edit: okay, found the source of the image, good to go

I have installed 4 980 Pro's in pairs in RAID 0 Configuration. The ones that are on DIMM.M2 give a combined seq read of about 9GB/Sec.
The ones "under the bonnet" give a speed of 11.7 GB/sec.

The benefit of the two drives in the DIMM.M2 card comes just from the added capacity: before getting myself more space, my original RAID 0 had gone down to 4GB/s read and less than 3GB/s in write.

I hope this helps.

Here are some stats of my kit.
https://pcpartpicker.com/b/dT7TwP