MSI Prestige X570 Creation Review

👤by Matthew Hodgson Comments 📅07-07-19
Closer Look (M.2 XPANDER-Z GEN 4):
MSI’s M.2 XPANDER-Z is an add-in card, included with the motherboard, which gives you an additional two full-speed PCI-E 4.0 NVMe slots to fill up.

The card measures in at 155mm in length, 135mm in depth and 25mm in thickness, making it a little thicker than a single PCI-E slot.


On the bottom of the add-in is a reasonably thick metal heatsink equipped with a 45mm fan for active airflow. If early PCI-E 3.0 NVMe drives are anything to go by, we expect the early 4.0 drives to get toasty when hit with a heavy workload. Manufacturers also seem to be privy to this, so are equipping the areas where they preside with decent cooling.


Installing an SSD is as easy as removing four small screws, with rubber washers, and installing the SSD as you normally would. Each of the two slots has a separate thermal pad pre-applied and ready to use.


As is the case with many PCI-E NVMe adaptor cards, a supplementary PCI-E 6-pin power connector is required for optimal operation.



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