Anything I should know before hand on M.2 NVME Install?

Plan on trying to buy M.2 nvme drive for my newer desktop i hope next month or month after. while i'm thinking about it, is there anything i should know on prior to installing?

M.2 slot is above video card, and right under CPU cooler, should i get one with a heatsink? or is it nothing to worry on, plan on keeping my Serial ATA SSD, possibly for game storage (250gb size) new one gonna be 512gb minimum boot drive, and maybe 1 game, unless i keep the games on secondary serial ata ssd.

You need to be concerned about the "key" for the drive. M, B, B plus M, etc. Your motherboard spec sheet should tell you which you need. Most likely M key, but you need to confirm.

Do you have the tiny screw needed to affix the end of the drive to your motherboard??

They are NOT supplied with the drive. Your motherboard should have included the screw, but they are NOT standardized, so you will play hell finding one if your motherboard one cannot be found. Don't bother with Ace Hardware, etc.

I am using an add-on SIIG card. The drive is affixed to the card with a standard screw. 20 additional bucks I had to spend after I discovered I couldn't find the original screw and am not even sure I ever had it.

I don't use a heatsink on mine. In an 80 degree Fahrenheit room (27 Celsius), mine normally runs in the high 30s Celsius--3 or 4 degrees higher than my other drives. When reading thousands of files in succession, it might get up to 60. If torture tested for 6 hours with writes, it might hit 70. The danger level on my particular drive is 80. It's never been above 72 even when tortured. If you are going to lay awake at night worried about temps, get a heatsink.

There's a new recent generation of these NVMe drives that is a bit faster, but they are currently supported only on AMD boards. There isn't any advantage to using this newest generation on an Intel board like you apparently have-----despite your name.

A M.2 slot can be used to hold many kinds of devices, from Wi-Fi cards to fast MVMe SSD. Depends on the "key" for the drive. M.2 slot can also conflict with a SATA port. Read the MB manual.

My suggestion is to look for a MVMe SSD with read speeds above 2000 MB/s.

Ok sorry all i would've replied sooner, but got delayed in RL, My Name on here is AMDMan2016 as before i thought i would stay with AMD, but late 2017 decided to try Intel based system again with Nvidia video card. Anyways plan on going with Samsung NVME at least 512gb

right now my boot ssd is Samsung 860 EVO 250gb

probably keeping that one for games once i got the newer m.2 for boot

1tb storage drive will probably convert to just storage of music and such i think

I think you'll be disappointed. I use to have a Samsung 850 Pro as my boot drive (Windows and programs). I bought a Samsung M.2 AHCI drive that is 4 times faster then the 850 Pro but only noticed the difference on the benchmark test.

Yeah i very well maybe disappointed in terms of the performance, but figured got m.2 spot in Desktop now, may as well use it at some point here, as only other PC i got a m.2 drive in currently is gaming laptop, which i do need to upgrade that one at some point as well (only 128gb drive in that PC)

Debated between Western Digital Gaming model SN750 as possible one as well, (with heatsink) as the spot board has it on this B460M board is right smack under Stock CPU cooler, and above video card lol.

The WD SN 750 is a good choice; I'd also consider Samsung 970 EVO Plus if you don't want to go with a top end Samsung.

Well Board is Gigabyte B460M-DS3H Comet Lake S compatible board, i assume hopefully nvme latest version (except pcie 4 version lol, i'll read the manual over more, and guess go from there. Does say ultra fast m.2 pcie gen 4 on the boards main overview page on Gigabyte.com


Nvme Pcie Gen3 x4 2280 shows in manual