Are NVMe SSD Heatsinks Worth Using? M.2 Heatsink Comparison
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- Опубликовано: 31 май 2024
- From the time I first learned about NVMe SSDs I wondered if cooling methods were really needed. In this video I take share my research on M.2 heatsinks and go through some tests of different nvme ssd heatink.
US
Sabrent NVMe Heatsink: amzn.to/2L0pyic
Pelote Heatsink: amzn.to/3sXa4g1
Elutang Heatsinks: amzn.to/3oq0Mpp
Light Pollution: amzn.to/3cuBVhV
WD Black SN750: amzn.to/3t52WhJ
Canada
Sabrent NVMe Heatsink: amzn.to/3iJF9n1
Pelote Heatsink: amzn.to/3XfEVmz
Elutang Heatsinks: amzn.to/3IL97lg
WD Black SN850: amzn.to/3W8eWwd
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0:00 Do you need an M.2 heatsink?
0:38 Scientific studies on NAND temps
2:21 Heatsinks I will test
4:00 Test Parameters
5:03 Heatsink Test Results
8:25 Should you even use an nvme heatsink
10:35 Final Conclusion
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Are NVMe SSD Heatsinks Worth Using? M.2 Heatsink Comparison
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Thanks for watching! If you're interested in any of the heatsinks or the WD black, links in the description :)
Hey there. If you can, you should do this test with the WD Black SN850. It's super fast and gets super hot. It's recommended by many that you absolutely use a heatsink with it. Maybe you'll see better results on that SSD where those heatsinks you have would be much more useful
Thanks for the video, I'm just investigating this topic and the sources are scarce. I have not come to a conclusion yet. One point I disagree with is, that ssd is idling most of the time. I think that there is a lot of writing activity all the time. Even when youre doing nothing, there is a/ background processes doing some small writes all the time and b/ cleanup/TRIM algorithms of the drive itself - including page erases, running in background. Moreover, I do not see a scenario, where the controller actually cools the NAND. At least with my 970pro. Cold storage is relevant for when the system is off, that is *usually* not a problem. From this perspective, the sabrent heatpipes make a lot of sense... the controller heats up the NAND quickly, then keeping some of an equilibrium/compromise at ~50C. The thing is... 970pro gets the controller really toasty at 100C when left uncooled with benchmark loads, so the question is how fast would the heatpipes deal with this king of thermal load and if it is not too much for the NAND. So if you want to throroughly investigate, you can do tests from cold/room temperature with individual/common heatsink. Though the more i look into this, the less I believe there's a silver bullet...
Do you plan on comparing any of those active heat sinks with a fan?
Hi. thanks for the great tutorial. in my special case, my NVME should work at full capacity 24/7 reading/writing. what do you think about it?
@@DidarAmini that it wont last long. Check your TBW.. chia? :)
Thanks for your thoughtful analysis, honesty and actually talking to normal people and users. You earned another subscriber. I ordered the 1tb wd black, and I panicked after seeing too many reviews of overheating, clearly my kind of use is such as the one you showed and now I feel good about it. Thank you!
VERY very interesting and informative. I like the way you approached this, and accepted the ability to learn something new. Making mistakes is a normal part of the process - it's the integrity to lay out your own learning process, that made this as informative as it was. I'm impressed. I don't care how smart you are - I care about how honest you are. Will keep watching.
It is the first time that I see you and the explanation of every detail by detail is excellent and easy to understand ... we hope to continue growing.
Thank you for the encouragement. Cheers!
Solid channel man. I really like your style of editing and the general vibe of the channel. Very straight forward, good lighting, good music, and you have a nice voice. Keep it up.
Dude, this was surprisingly in depth and really covered the technicalities of this in ways I never expected. This is legit. I just got a Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus that seems to have heat issues. And even bought that huge heat sink. I really feel like I learned a lot about cooling the controller, not the NAND. Would love to see a tested solution for that. Thanks for all the legitimately solid info! Subbed!!!
Yeah! I just installed a SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2 and copied 500 GB to it, and is was REALLY hot. It felt hot. Could have been 65°C, I dont know. And I was like... STOP, I need a heatsink.
But this was very interessting, having parts that allow different temperatures. Aha. Hm. So, one schon grab small GPU RAM heatsinks and stick it to the controller. Nice! Thank you!
So, I will check the temperature after this pause and then continue the copy process.
@@eDrumsInANutshelldo you have an update?
Heatsink should cover (and cool) both controller and the Flash!
This is correct that in idle mode the heatsink may heat the Flash by 3-5C, but in the lower Temp range.
However, in operational mode, it will help to reduce the heat from the Flash by 25-35C on the higher range of the Temp.!
that WD SN750 drive also has a version that comes with a heatsink BUT it’s about $20 more expensive….just thought I’d throw that in. When you’re selectively adding thermal pads (just on the controller) make sure the heatsink doesn't rock and short something out. Great video!
i want to thank you for this awesome video. Very informative and well done! I came here because I am setting up my brand new pc with 2 M.2 2280 NVME's. I realized the motherboard did not have a second heat sink, so I figured I would watch some videos on if it needs it or not. Since I have yet to use it yet but this is my theory is this and it could extremely wrong. I think the main NVME should have a heat sink and the backup NVME should not have one. Time will tell I suppose. Keep up the great work!
These benchmarks were super helpful!! Thank you so much!!
Commenting for the algorithm, great, concise, and informative video. Much appreciated
What a great review (and test), and so helpful! Thanks!
Thank you sir. I am very happy that I have watched your video before hitting the purchase button on Amazon. I have been using two NVMe on my PC but there is no problem.
This has got to be the most crisp camera quality I've ever seen.🔥👌
Thank you very much for your analysis. Very useful, instructive and important.
Interesting video, ive been watching your content for a while, i recently got a mp33 team group nvme, no heatsink and tbh after seeing this video i think I don't need to worry about it.
good video, good camera, good microphone, really liked it. It really seems like it was all for nothing, but at least you educated us. and you did a nice job at that
Great vid! Very educational and helped me a bunch.
5:25 this is really important for people who don't use their drives a lot.
Very very informative! Thank you so much for taking the time to do it. :P
A huge help to me! Thanks. Great effort.
thank you for your effort to clearing this topic :)
I live in a tropical country with ambient temps at summer reaching 33 C. Before attaching a heatsink to my Lexar NM610 500GB SSD (inside an Acer laptop), the controller temp would reach 77 C when writing big files, which throttled down the write speed significantly. After putting on a simple copper heatsink with thermal pad, the max temp never went beyond 65 C under any condition. The heatsink was a mere 1mm thick to make sure it fits in the laptop.
That's happened to me. So when I go for nvme in the desktop I just bought a normal heatsink with RGB because I wanted RGB. Still if a simple sheet of copper do the trick then a more bigger heatsink also helps. Maybe aluminum not is the best vs copper but there's more material. Also in desktop having a lot of fans flowing air in the motherboard and heatsinks helps a lot.
Useful video bro, Many thanks for the digging and efforts. I had Samsung Magician installed to keep observing the temp of the Samsung 870 NVMe SSD and the idle temp is always around 42 to 45c max. and while multi-tasking or stressing the laptop, it reaches 61 to 65c but that is only for around 15min and then back to 50c or less. all without a heatsink and of course that's at summer days, during winter, these temps are even lower. I will try using a laptop cooler that i have it laying around, it may be useful cooling the whole system at summer days.
I have samsund 970 evo ssd and samsung magician too, it shows only temp of ssd, it doesn't show controller temp, use aida64 or something like that to monitor that. if your ssd 40 your controller must be 50-60, if your ssd 60 your controller must be 70-80 ( according to experience with my ssd).
Wow, great info! I'll try myself to see how it reacts without heatsinks. Thaks!
Thanks for the information it really helps a lot
You need more subscribers. Good stuff. Thnx
Literally one of the best heatsink reviews on RUclips. I loved the quality! I subscribed from two accounts because you need more followers for the quality you make!
P. S. What's your camera setup? Video quality is amazing, the details of your eyes and beard can be seen superb in 1080p (no homo).
Hey thanks for the support I really appreciate it!
I'm using a Pansonic S5 mirrorless camera. No expert with it. Still learning how to use it properly.
Well Said !!
I wish this guy would teach a class on how to review and test computer tech!
Not kissn ass.
This Is How It Is Done !!
Subbed !!
Belled !!
Thank You !!
That beard part though 😆😆
Excellent video and analysis.
Great content and well thought out, thank you. The MTE article is a good read as well. I am not going to use a hs on my second nvme and mine is not right under gpu and is indeed in path of fan air.
I have an Sabrent SSD which the controller fails when it starts overheating (If i have a heatsink and a fan constantly blowing on it will remain accessible)
From that experience I'm now going to install a heatsink for the SSD.
In terms of work where i work with Dell systems, enterprise laptop's NVME SSDs now all have heat spreader. (They used to be without)
I'm going to assume it lowers failure rates with the heat spreader otherwise it doesn't make sense for Dell increase the production costs.
These can go both ways! I got a cheap aluminum heatsink off Amazon mainly because it matched the matte silver heatsinks on my motherboard and my nvme ends up upside down due to which way the port is facing. I just wanted to cover it up, OCD. My temps ended up 5c hotter! I am guessing it is due to the garbage thermal pads that they tend to include with these things. It was as if it was holding more heat in than dissipating it. I did end up getting a cooler that performs insanely well! I have the Mushkin Redline Vortex Gen 4 x4 NVME which runs HOT and does not come with a heatsink really, just a copper shim sticker with "nano carbon graphene" lmao. Whatever it is it don't do shit because the thing runs up to 71c and the max operating temp is 70c. I put this Icy Box M.2 cooler on it, the sickest cooler I have ever seen. It has a nice sized heatsink w/ a 30mm 4pin pwm fan attached to a swiveling copper heat pipe so you can adjust its position. Dropped my temps a whopping 19c I shit you not! Keep in mind though, I did NOT use the included thermal pads as they looked like the same exact ones I got with the last heatsink (garbage). I used Cooler Masters new 13.3wmk purple pads and they are awesome! I went with 0.5mm because my SSD is double sided and the thinner the pad the better. It is hard to explain but it can be faced either way and I faced it so that it would cool the controller and not so much the nand.
Thanks! Nice research, helped me to restrain from buying a heatsink)
you deserve more subs, great vid
Really good video and reasearch!
Good tests, well said 👍🍻
Cool controller + warm nand
Is the way 💯
Thanks for the info, very interesting!
Just added a heatsink to M.2 in one of my computers and noticed drop from 58c to 54c. While I am waiting for a heat sync for my other PC I placed a 40mm fan on top of GPU and pointed it at M.2 drive and temp dropped from 68c to 56c. I think they definitely need heatsinks. This is under normal operation in well ventilated cases with lots of airflow and not a stress test at 28c ambient temp.
No, they don't. Big data centers that use NVME drives don't have any heatsinks on them either, and this is well out of any consumers' budget stuff. Real high end data center NVMEs don't use heatsinks, so why should you? Its just stupid.
Try with a air CPU cooler rather than liquid. It might be able to keep more airflow over the drive (depending on orientation and type of heatsink), which could potentially have a great effect.
Possibly. I'll need to buy a popular one and give it a shot at some point.
i found some old aluminum cpu coolers with large fins, and i'm gonna try that if i can mount those large blocks over my nvme drive in a pci-e adapter; gonna use thermal paste and fasten with cable ties, perhaps; later, if this contraption holds together, it is possible to attach a ventilator to that cpu cooler chunk of aluminum easily;
Well put together information.
very good explaination. love it. thanks m8.
Subscribeed !! For the sake of effort you put in !!
Thanks for the testing 👍
Thanks for this video. I've just built a new PC and the Motherboard came with a M.2 mount on the board. I bought a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB, but wasn't sure about using a heat sink with it. I phoned the Tech Department of the local company I bought everything from and they said not necessary, as Samsung don't recommend it. Having found your video, it basically confirms what my local supplier said, so I am now going to install the SSD onto the mobo and install Windows 10 Pro, as the mobo doesn't support Win 11. Cheers, Russ. UK.
Great analysis, bravo!!!!!
Love my sabrent heatsink. Cut my Temps by 30°c when working my drives hard doing large data copy on my GEN 4 drives (7000MB/s). I've been using it for years without any issues at all
Excellent video! thank you
Thank you, that's very interesting!
dude thats an great video! Tks!
Thank you for information.
We are not using, well at least most of us not using SSDs as idle storage devices. SSD meant to be used under fast reading and writing pressures, otherwise why would we need high random read/write speed disks that can handle multitasking; even if we are not multitasking but just queueing tasks, PC constantly doing it with multiple running apps and tabs at the same time. I don't know you guys but most of times I play two games at the same time or watch some content while playing. Anyway, I'm on the eve of buying my first 1TB M.2 ssd, so I'm constantly searching for some time; and I keep reading almost same user comments in every M.2 product that doesn't have a heatsink like "it goes too hot" and "lost X much disk health in a month" etc. and most of time blaming the heat to cause of that. Because it's so expensive for my standards, if I buy it, it would be the second most expensive part of my PC after the GPU, so I wanna make sure the money well spend and expect to not cause a problem for 5-10 years at least. And from a gamer standpoint, we would like to install our most played games to SSD, especially multiplayer ones to minimize fps drops caused by the low performance of the 90% full hdd with hundreds games. As we see from test results, playing a game pressuring as much as copying files, even close to CDM pressured temps. For some people, if a device's operating temp is 0-70c, they think it's okay to reach 65-70c. But for me, even 60c is hell hot for any hardware even if operating temp is 80c. I see heatsinks works pretty well, dropping 10-15c under high pressure. I'm definetely buying one if I don't buy Corsair MP600 Pro or Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 that has heatsinks already.
Ahh yes, My Little Pony and GTA 5. If only this were a more widespread form of benchmarking.
Dissapointing
AHHAHAH
I once benchmarked a "Barney Hide N Seek" game. 😂
Idle states - exactly how does this slight increase in temperature (due to heat distribution from these sinks) damage one's data? There certainly must be a window of heat levels that is considered "safe" for these drives and in particular, idle states.
Which chips benefit from heat sinks - interesting point made on your part. Perhaps a heatsink that is really two distinct physical sinks in one is needed for the two identified types of chips reference in your video.
The Heatsink, at IDLE increase a few 2 or 5 °C which is not that much... otherwise at FULL LOAD drops 20 or 30 °C, if we talk about a "Final Balance" it is justified for me
Thank you, very good content.
Huge bro, congrats.
hehe this my second time watching one of your vids and I like your sponsor
I bought this 850 version with the heatsink and no my MB shroud won't fit on top. I'm about to take the heatsink off. I'm here for this!
thank you for the hard work, a thumbs up from me!
Thanks Nick, l run my Samsung 1TB 980 Pro with heatsinks attached, motherboard covers removed, though, ensure they are cooled, independently by a fan, as low temps are critical for performance and longevity😊
I believe you will gain traction with your channel, but it may take some time. All the best for you ❤
Small but underrated channel
I think many are going to be misled by this video (and many older 2018/2019 videos) that are referencing cooler running Gen3 drives. Even the SN750 ran hotter than its competition, but the SN850 (Gen4) takes that to a new level. Depending on mobo layout, these hotter Gen4 drives are often stuck directly under the GPU, which only makes a hotter running drive get even hotter.
That said, the real reason I watched this video - I wanted to know if the included Aorus heatsinks were functional. And it certainly seems they work, so that was good to see.
and the controller is slightly thinner than the nand so 2 thicknesses are necessary
Misled how? Everything still applies.
Sn750 is a cool running drive have one in my laptop right now. But it is a dell laptop that has a heatsink.
Versus stock heatsinks from the motherboard, will purchasable ones like Thermalright perform better?
Belated reply. I was 'hunting' around for views about heatsinks and just watched your interesting programe. I was about to put a copper heatsink onto my mini PC M.2 ssd. I think I will now cut it to a small size to just put on the controller part. I'm only doing it because the computer tech people said my mini PC does not have a fan and it does seem to get hot.
Thanks for the video
The video you showed - passive heatsinks using metal conduction. Do you have another evaluation, this time with active heatsinks (i.e. fans like the the iStorm)?
I could come here as video for sleep everything is so calm
(It's a good thing)
Thanks to this video, and a lot of reading, I'll be trimming the thermal tape from the NANDs, and only have the pad on the controller...
i did this and now my M.2 drive is much more cooler. I'm seeing 10c reduction after gaming session. Turns out before this the thermal pad didn't touch the controller because the NAND was a bit taller.
I bought a little aluminium finstack with a tiny fan. I got it because my new 990 pro was placed directly above the 3090 and was getting past 50C which my 970 pro evo never got close to. Now I only see 42C max. I’m happy with it.
this video is soooo useful !!!!!
great video thanks
wowwwwww, great video. 13 degrees for a $10 heatsink, bloody hell, in for one!! upvoted, thanks
If your ambient temps are high, having a heatsink is a must.
Thanks! Funny - I was just thinking about this very question! Did you notice if the thermal pads were of different thicknesses for the controller vs. the storage? I know the Samsung drives have a signficant difference between the two.
nice infos thanks.
Indoors bug zapper with downwards fan came in handy when cloning 60GB operating system to a new 1 TB Gen4 980 pro in a cheap external NVME enclosure. It was taking over 24 hrs without it and experiencing extreme throttling.
I used external nvme enclosure to clone. Way to hot matter of minutes. Tossed a high speed peltier cooling fan I bought for my game vice controller for emulations on my ss22 ultra. Placed it right on top almost instantly cool write speeds jumped up. Put that on your heatsinks lol.
@@rchaze9730 Peltier coolers are great until they overcool, you get condensation and your electronics are damaged from the condensation shorting things out.
Amazing video bro
Good stuff brother
I guess the easiest thing to do is leave the thermal product sticker on, only put thermal tape over the controller, and leave a tiny gap over the NAND when you install the heatsink.
Another (perhaps less desirable) method is to use a PCIE M2 expansion card since that will elevate the drive off the motherboard and into the air path better - another YTuber showed 5C lower temps on a card compared to motherboard slot
Someone else suggested using thicker thermal tape over the controller (say 1.5mm, and 1mm over NAND), to ensure the controller makes contact with the heatsink
@@robertweekes5783 which one is better, m.2 card or thicker pad on controller
@@deruzym84did u decide ?? I’m at this crossroad now lol
@@user-hh4hc2lt6e get the m.2 card man. fr that thing really cool down your ssd a lot
Great video. Given how inexpensive the Pelote is, you could trim the heatsink down so that it only covers the controller. Then, the nands are fee to operate cool and warm as normal.
yeah, i think that's what he means by removing those thermal pads
@@01Minecrafter10 the issue with this method is that airflow is reduced by the heatsink so I guess just sticking a small heatsink on the controller could be an option. I've seen the warranty void if removed on the ssd stickers tho...
Hi Nick, thank for you elaborate research. By the way I read in another forum that testing with infrared thermometer will yield the lower result compared to the ones from internal algorithm....... so im confused which one to trust.......
As long as they are consistent with each other you could just calculate the differences if you would rather use the infrared thermometer. I suspect that the surface of the SSD is slightly cooler than what will be read on the internal sensor.
Very nice video, I do have to say though if one was to cut the pads off of the motherboard heatsink it would be very difficult to get replacement for at least my mobo. It appeared to be thicker that your normal pads. It has been a while since I installed one so I could be wrong but it would be something to keep in mind before hacking it up..
Because sometimes prebuilts don't come with those extra mobo M.2 support pads, you can always remove pads entirely and fall back to buying one of those $10 standalone sandwich heatsinks, instead of using the mobo heatsink. Oftentimes they work better than the mobo heatsink too.
My Tuf Dash F15 With 970 evo plus 2TB and Adata S40g 4tb have 12.8 wk thermal tape under controller chips between the drive and laptop motherboard. Asus actually have diagrams where to put thermal tape for both drives...the motherboard itself acts as a heatsink. Still saw the 970 hit 67 C under load....on D2 temp...A data stayed around 40C
Good video; but what is your final recommendation for the NAN and CONTROLLER heat-sink?
So here's a follow-up question to this. I'm starting my new build shortly and I'll be using 3 m.2s (2x2TB 990 Pro in raid 0, 1x1TB 990 Pro) and I have some Thermalright 0.5mm thermal pads, as well as some 1mm to cut and replace the stock stuff from my mobo. Since the controller sits a tad higher than the NAND on each drive I'll be using, would you still recommend to only cover the controller, or is it worth trying to lightly cover the NAND with the thinner pads? ROG X670e-Extreme with included heat sink plates. TIA!
If you are regularly running against the throttle temperature, then a heatsink might be worth it. Check the specs of your NVME, like my HP EX950 is 70C, when I hit that it slows down enough to be noticed, but I am often hitting it pretty hard.
What actually causes it to run against the throttle temp? Gaming, editing off apps installed on the SSD? Sorry if silly question but do you need to be gaming heavily or something to cause it?
@@yiannimav Not the same model, but my NVME only heats up when it was transferring big files all in one go (was transferring 70GB of files when I tried it) which heated it up to 60C, and thats with a heatsink.
Other than that, its temp stays at 40C mostly, and only ever rises up to 52C very rarely, and only for about a second or so for all other usage.
Getting a heatsink also isn't expensive, and might increase its longevity/avoid it from throttling in the long run so no harm getting one really.
@@Don_Akane89 thanks for this, appreciate it! Just a bit of a noob, and my laptop might not be thick enough for the heatsink, but I'll try put one on it! Thanks again!
Thank you!
I like watching your videos during painting. I pretend like you're in the same room as me, talking gibberish and painting as well.... like old times :)
Yeah I remember "watching" two broke girls when we painted.
@@TechIlliterate Can you edit that and say we watched something more butch... like "Vikings" or "Brokeback Mountain" ?
@@Arachn4 Lmao I don't think you understood broke back mountain
Sooo if I use my pc for working on large data sets (usually in CSV) and for a digital audio studio which has a massive library of sample sounds, is it recommended that I do use a heat sink?
Nice content straight to the point.
I have a rog strix g15 with Ryzen 7 6800 RTX 3050 8 GB Ram and 512 ssd, I want to upgrade ram and ssd, should I buy ssd with or without heatsink?
What do you think of the idea of cutting the heatsink with a metal saw, leaving a 2-3mm gap between the parts, one part on the controller IC, and the other(s) for the NAND? So the heat from the controller will not be transferred to the NAND.
With the SABRENT M.2 2280 SSD Rocket Heatsink you can drell the screw holes to screw slots, so it make contact with the nvme chips. I also rigged up acouple of 120mm fans blowing air over the motherboard, one angled at the M2's on my mobo an one angled at the VRM's. Rememer meccano is your friend as is a dremal. Edit: for refferance i have the Gigabyte X670 GAMING X AX ATX .
I got two heatsinks for my dual nvme in my QNAP.. I don't think about it , but I do sleep better & at night knowing it is there 😎
there is an additional thermal pad included in the box for single sided nvme drives.. you need to paste that extra thermal pad on the already pasted thermal pad to fill the gaps
Would like to know if the “no HS” was run with or without the stock sticker, because that is meant to be a heat spreader.
Could use a multimeter that supports a temp probe to get your nand and processor(controller) temps
I'm curious about removing the sticker as you did in the very beginning. You're the first one I see doing that when applying a NVMe heatsink. I totally agree that it has to be removed, but do you have any reference/experience when it comes to comparing both ways?
I have seen a video by a well known tech tuber that went into this question. The drive manufacturer explained the sticker has thermal conduction built in, it's not just paper.
Therefore you are best not to remove it, if you believe the company.
Was recently benchmarking a Crucial P5 Plus NVMe SSD, it does get toasty upto 66 degrees even with my Gigabyte X570 included motherboard heatsink.
If you find something with an array of thin fins like those on the cooler of a good graphics card or similar you will notice they are fairly close together so that there is more surface area to dissipate the heat. The fins I am thinking of are like sheet metal with heat pipes going through them.
Hey, great informative video! What should I do with the heat spreader sticker that comes on almost all M.2 drives? I guess you either remove it completely and apply the heatsink tape on only the controller, or you cut out the part where the controller is and replace it with the heatsink tape so that the original tape is still on the NAND(if that is even possible). What would be the ideal way to do it?
Ideally yes. I believe you should only have the head sink on the controller.
Some M.2 drives do not need to peel off the sticker, I have a Kingston SSD KC3000 1TB NVMe and the sticker is graphene-aluminum and does not come off. Otherwise, you may lose your warranty. The radiator is placed directly on the sticker and I have a temperature of around 26 degrees on it permanently.