I'm curious about the need of these. Anybody here use these sinks? Most look passive but bunch of info & videos seem to show an avg temp drop of about 10c. Yes they should throttle after getting to about 70c or so but that's got to be a heck of a workload or game. I'm thinking in a well ventilated case a boot drive without one should be fine. On the other hand for an extra 10-15$ might be good piece of mind.
Never saw any need for one.
My Intel NVMe SSD has an official "warning" temp of 77 and a "critical" warning temp of 80, per HWInfo64.
I've got a near silent system: 2 Noctua case fans running at about 500 rpm and a 92 mm Noctua CPU cooler fan running at about 800 rpm.
The day I got the SSD, I hammered it with the 7 hour Intel "Full Diagnostic Scan" from the Intel Toolbox. That test wrote 3 Terabytes of data in those 7 hours---more than I wrote in the next entire year. The SSD max temp reached was 73---below the warning level.
That 73 is the highest temp ever reached on the drive and was reached only on that day during the torture test of a 3 TB write.
In normal operation, drive temps are typically around 37. The high might hit the 60 to 65 range if I'm copying large amounts of data to the drive. When playing mp3s from the drive, temps are about 41.
This is all in a warm room----normally 79 to 81 degrees Fahrenheit.
HWInfo64 screenshot:
I agree with @ignatzatsonic. I have 2 NVMe drives in this computer and they usually run around 37-42. I have never had them throttle and have never used a heat sink. I live in Florida, so it is pretty warm here.
@Fantail and others -
I actually suggest to use a NVMe SSD heat sink if you can get it for a good price. SSD's tend to run extremely hot.
There are also external NVMe SSD USB enclosures that have large heat sinks built in or other serious venting.
See this -
Investigation: m.2 Heatsinks, are they worth it? | TweakTown
These are for even heat dissipation and component prolongation.
You don't have to buy them but it is a worthwhile investment.
However, your internal cooling is the most important item.
Invest in that, too, if the case airflow and temps aren't good enough.
HTH
PCI 3.0 m.2 drives don't really need heatsinks
PCi 4.0 Does & a couple have them already mounted like the Cosair MP600 or the Gigabyte 1TB drive (which looks good) but the Sabrent does not, but it states is is needed as PCi 4.0 is alot faster than PCi 3.0 they need them.
Also double sided m.2 have chipsets on both sides of the m.2 so a heatsink will transfer the heat to the top of heatsink keeping the chips at the same temp on the underneath.
So you could risk not using heatsinks with PCi 3.0 board but not with 4.0 since they are capable of 8,000mb/s per drive & never mind how fast a 4.0 raid config of 4 drives would be.
There is alot of choice over what heatsink you want also but I go for the lowest profile ones as my second m.2 slot is under the GPU, so clearance in important & want both m.2's to have the same thermal properties.
I would not risk the chance of overheating just for an extra £10 on top of the m.2 price.
PCi 4.0 Does & a couple have them already mounted like the Cosair MP600 or the Gigabyte 1TB drive (which looks good) but the Sabrent does not, but it states is is needed as PCi 4.0 is alot faster than PCi 3.0 they need them.
Also double sided m.2 have chipsets on both sides of the m.2 so a heatsink will transfer the heat to the top of heatsink keeping the chips at the same temp on the underneath.
An example I read on a websites review was he got a m.2 Sabrent PCi 4.0 for his laptop & it thermal destroyed itself pretty quick afterwards with no heatsink.
Last edited by RoadBlaster; 04 Jun 2020 at 21:37.
I look at it like this....if it helps prolong the life of a computer component then I'm for it and will use it. As long as the price is reasonable.
I've not purchased an NVMe heatsink specifically. My sons latest box had a heatsink for his 2nd NVMe which came with the motherboard and we are using that. His previous PC (which is now mine), has 2 x NVMe drives and both do not have a heatsink and I've never noticed a problem.
But you are on PCi 3.0 not 4.0 like me & others with new speed bandwidths, I expect all m.2 in the future will have heatsinks with them or use an aftermarket version for the faster speed as this causes heat inside the chips which needs to be sinked off.
If we had superconducter material in m.2's, ram & cpu's which have zero resistance so no heat is produced then maybee we would not need heatsinks but we are not that advanced in technology terms so heatsinks do a good job if ventilated properly.
If you all look into why silicon creates heat you might change your minds & fork out a small £10/$15 for your hard working ssd drives with a heat sink.
I have three NVMes including a gen 4 one. The gen 4 is the Aorus copper one but it still gets toasty.
Quote
