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Good morning(in Germany anyhow) badrobot, looking good as always.
I tried something yesterday to see if that would speed up my M.2 SSD.
I went into BIOS and set it from AHCI to RAID then turned on IRST, so it would show up in RST inside of Windows and in Magician, and it worked.
(I did not set up a RAID though, just turned on the possibility)
Nothing was faster or slower, speeds remained the same.
But(hear is the WARNING for anyone trying the same).. When I went into BIOS and switched back to AHCI it would BSOD as it couldn't find the boot drive
I switched back to RAID´and was able to boot back into Windows, so I took a look in Device Manager and saw switching to RAID had uninstalled my NVMe driver(both Samsung's & Windows 10's default).
So I went back into BIOS, switched back to AHCI, let it boot crash twice, went into UEFI recovery/Use another OS/Macrium recovery environment and reimaged it to 27 December(my last image).

Moral of the story:
M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs run just as fast using RAID/IRST but, my PM951(not SM) just isn't as fast as the next Gen are, even though it is PCI 3 X4:

Turbo M.2

Delivering speeds up to 32Gb/s using Gen3 x4, Turbo M.2 is over 5 times faster than a regular SATA III connection! Enjoy a blazing fast system boot up and insanely fast loading of applications and games with MSI motherboards.

I saw a video at JayzTwoCents about the EVGA Power Link, I think I really really want one: EVGA - Articles - EVGA PowerLink™

You just have to love MSI and their innovation & skills:

MSI unveiled a unique new feature it is introducing with its next-generation socket LGA1151 motherboards, called the M.2 Shield. This is an aluminium heatspreader that acts as a full-length cover over the motherboard's M.2-2280 slots, hinged near the M.2 interface. The heatspreader has non-conductive thermal padding on the inside, letting it make contact with the drive's hot components (controller, NAND-flash chips, etc), and pushing heat over to the heatspreader. MSI claims that this lowers temperatures, and reduces throttling on some of the high-performance M.2 PCIe SSDs

MSI Unveils the M.2 Shield, SSD Cooling Feature on Upcoming Motherboards | techPowerUp

Huh, clever. So you just bought a 960 Pro, and rad our review, noticed the heat signature and figire what now .. well MSI might have an answer to that with the M.2 Shield.
The M.2 Shield basically is a heat sink, all styled and looking nice to match the motherboard that is offered with this feature. It covers M.2-2280 slots and the heat-spreader has been fitted with non-conductive thermal padding on the inside and thus covers the controller, NAND-ICs and other chips.

MSI To Include M.2 Shield SSD Cooling Feature on New Motherboards

Cliff S said:

Good morning(in Germany anyhow) badrobot, looking good as always.
I tried something yesterday to see if that would speed up my M.2 SSD.
I went into BIOS and set it from AHCI to RAID then turned on IRST, so it would show up in RST inside of Windows and in Magician, and it worked.
(I did not set up a RAID though, just turned on the possibility)
Nothing was faster or slower, speeds remained the same.
But(hear is the WARNING for anyone trying the same).. When I went into BIOS and switched back to AHCI it would BSOD as it couldn't find the boot drive
I switched back to RAID´and was able to boot back into Windows, so I took a look in Device Manager and saw switching to RAID had uninstalled my NVMe driver(both Samsung's & Windows 10's default).
So I went back into BIOS, switched back to AHCI, let it boot crash twice, went into UEFI recovery/Use another OS/Macrium recovery environment and reimaged it to 27 December(my last image).

Moral of the story:
M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs run just as fast using RAID/IRST but, my PM951(not SM) just isn't as fast as the next Gen are, even though it is PCI 3 X4:

Thanks for the info Cliff.

Remember the Thermaltake PCIe slot fan I mentioned to you about (photo below)?



When I was still using the previous horizontal case, I remember I removed the slot bracket on it and positioned it to blow air directly into the M.2 SSD which was under the GPU. Here's the old video I did for it.



It was actually very effective. Now I am thinking of modifying that same PCI fan again to turn it around and push the air towards the M.2 SSD behind it.

Have you thought of using a heatsink on the M.2 ?:

Premium N80 NVME NGFF M.2 2280 SSD Cooling Aluminum Heatsink (Gold) - modDIY.com

If not enough room what about removing the sticker to allow air to hits chips directly although a heatsink would be better ?

@Cliff S , I did a little test with the PCIe fan and there is a very significant difference. I took the temperature screenshot at the exact same stage of the diskmark benchmark test (don't mind the result, the M,2 is not on the fast slot).

With the fan...



Without the fan...

@badrobot wow!
20°C is quite a bit of a drop

With my PM951, Speccy doesn't see temps for the M.2:

Cliff S said:

@badrobot wow!
20°C is quite a bit of a drop

With my PM951, Speccy doesn't see temps for the M.2:

Is that a fully installed Speccy or just a portable one? I am using a portable Speccy.

badrobot said:

Is that a fully installed Speccy or just a portable one? I am using a portable Speccy.

I use the installer.

But I went and installed CrystalDiskInfo and now can see my M.2's info.
The latest version 7.0.5 supports NVMe(I should to send the dev a few €€€'s his way)

It even comes with an alarm!

A good piece of software after you take the time to set it up!


The heat does come from the SSD it self, and not from being in between the CPU & GPU.