I use an ASRock B550M Pro4 MoBo and a Samsung 860 SSD. I am now thinking of getting a Samsung 970 EVO Plus PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280), but as all I have ever used was Sata, I have no idea how to figure out if this will fit on my MoBo.The two large slots are occupied by an NVidia card and a Lan Card, there is one more small slot between them, below the M 2 ARMOR... will it work there? Are there any arguments against this set-up? Also, as I am only using a 5 5500 cpu, might such a disk be overkill? Thank you
Thank you so much, I would have never found that on my own..... My idea is, and as it is mine, it might be wrong, that it might better to upgrade the by now very old 860 SSD, than to upgrade the cpu. Is that correct?
The manual has a list that does NOT show the 970, it only accepts the 960, and then there is a link to the homepage of ASRock. There you are supposed to ask the question. I did not receive an answer to a single of many formulations I used... The 970 is quite expensive, even in a good deal. But buying it and then having to buy a new motherboard for it..... Also the drawing in the manual shows, what I assume to be a 960, which has TWO notches, while the 970 has only ONE...? Lets just say, I get a confirmation that the 550M pro4 does work with the 970, it will be totally fine to install it, in spite of the crowded space? Also, if I stick it in a slot that is not a 4, how much less than the 3500MBs will I get there? Thank you for your time... Maybe I am simply a bit old for all of this....
Hi there! Those are only tested models, not the only supported models. The 970 EVO Plus uses the same standard (M.2 nvme pcie) that your motherboard supports. Two notches (B+M key) and one notch (M key) are different M.2 keying arrangements. The 970 EVO Plus is an M-key drive, which is exactly what the NVMe slot is designed for. 1 x Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_1), supports M Key type 2280 M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen4x4 It's totally fine, motherboards are designed with layout in mind. That's why its preinstalled with a heat sink, because its in a crowded space where you put your gpu and other extension cards. If you put in the pcie 3.0 which is only x2 you can expect roughly around ~1900 MB/s which is almost the half of 3500 MB/s and you would loss the proper cooling too because that slot doesn't have a heat sink. I would recommend to use the pcie 4 that uses x4 to use the speed and performance that your nvme can offer in this situation. However if you would install to the pcie 3 for normal windows use the difference is not too obvious and it would be still faster then sata.
The TechPowerUp test article shows that the 970 PLUS EVO only ever supports PCIE 3.0 x4, it does not benefit from PCIE 4.0. True PCIE 4.0 devices show speeds of over 7000MB/s, so, I guess the 3500MB/s figure is already scaled for 3.0. Nevertheless, I'd still recommend the slot with the heat sink, for proper heat dissipation.
Thank you both, but that still leaves me withe two or only one notch. The 970 has only one, and if the socket on the MoBo really has, as the manual shows, two notches then it will not fit.... I cant just a slit in it... so, I will have to forget it...
The important is the text above the illustration in the manual which states that: "The Hyper M.2 Socket (M2_1) supports M Key type 2280 M.2 PCI Express module" M key type slots can accept M (one notch) or B+M (two notch) SSD's too. And your ssd is an m key. Its just an illustration.
The pictures are generic and not correct. You did send screenshots yourself, the second one clearly shows only one notch (there are no contacts in that place).