Uncovering the real impact of NVMe heatsinks
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- I recently crafted a video on whether you should peel the sticker off your NVMe SSD ( • Should you peel the st... ). In that video, someone left a comment suggesting you could also just leave the heatsinks off and get better temperatures. I thought that was a curious concept and so I wanted to test it for myself. So in this video I take two different motherboards and test both the WD_Black SN850 ( • How to install WD_Blac... ) and Crucial P5 Plus ( • How to install Crucial... ) and test them both with and without heatsinks on different motherboards.
I used CrystalDiskMark with several passes in both setups to test and check for reasonable use cases. I also was already running the machines in different ways to be similar to daily use so I could give a fair test. The results are surprising.
There are obviously a lot of different heatsink designs out there. Neither of the drives I tested had them built onto the drive, instead I'm relying on the motherboard heatsinks and those vary wildly. But it's still an interesting test.
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Obviously there are some caveats to these tests. The results will vary from system to system, depending on how many fans you have, the quality of your motherboard, your environmental temps and the generation of drive you're using.
Both the Crucial P5 Plus and WD_Black SN850 are PCIe gen 4 drives, running on Intel Z790 systems at x4 PCIe lanes. The motherboards are decent and have good heatsinks too. Older gen drives might not run as hot. Drives installed at the bottom of the motherboard, closer to the case fans might not be as hot.
Hardware used in these tests:
Machine 1 (Crucial P5 Plus)
Lian Li Lancool 216 RGB • Lian Li Lancool 216 RG...
Motherboard - Gigabyte Aorus Z790 Elite AX • Gigabyte Z790 Elite AX...
CPU - Intel Core i5-13600K
RAM - 32GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 6000Mhz RAM
PSU - NZXT C1200 Gold • NZXT C1200 Gold ATX 3....
GPU - Gigabyte RTX 4070 TI 12G OC • Gigabyte RTX 4070 Ti 1...
AIO - Corsair H150i Elite LCD • Corsair H150i Elite LC...
RGB - Lian Li Strimer V2 Plus 600 watt 12VHPWR RGB cables • Lian Li Strimer V2 Plu...
Lian Li Strimer Plus V2 • Lian Li Strimer Plus V...
NVMe - Crucial P5 Plus
Fans - Lian Li P28 • How to connect Lian Li...
Machine 2 (WD_Black SN850)
Asus ROG STRIX Z790-A GAMING WIFI D4 motherboard ( • Asus ROG STRIX Z790-A ... )
Intel Core i9-13900K CPU
Kingston FURY Beast RGB SE 32GB (amzn.to/3NPEuvD)
Lian Li Dynamic Evo ( • I made some mistakes w... )
Corsair HX1500i PSU ( • Corsair HX1500i instal... )
NZXT Kraken Z73 ( • NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB In... )
Lian Li SL120 V2 fans ( • Lian Li SL120 V2 fans ... )
Asus Strix RTX 4090 white edition
Is your M.2 NVMe port slower than you realise? Not all M.2 ports give equal speeds • Is your M.2 NVMe port ...
Crystal Diskmark download - crystalmark.in...
🏆Big thanks to my super awesome RUclips members:
SirSpawnsALot, Meatykeyboard, Rawrr483, Aaron Yarden, Space Cannons, Riggs79, Mike S, Jay Shank 007, Jason Morgan, Starastin, Charles Latrom, McFarty, Chief Hao, Kraken Tortoise and Megan Schafer.
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Products:
Products featured may also have been sent for free for review/testing purposes. Often these have to be returned by me, but not always. I endeavour to avoid bias in my videos wherever possible and try to give honest, subjective opinions.
Lower slots typically come through chipset and share bandwidth with other periphelias and are slower. So the top most slot is the one you should use unless you know that using bottom-slot doesn't hurt performance.
That is true.
-- They make a HUGE difference. I run passive heat sinks on Samsung 990 pro 2tb NVME drives. I have Acdale sinks, under constant tests with disk mark, I can't the drives over 39c. They run gen 4, Glid .5/1.0mm pads where relevant, thermal grizzly between the sync and the spreader. Also did tests first with labels on and labels off the drive. That saved me about 1c.
I think you meant Acidalie.
Important illustration of the function and purpose of heatsinks !!!
nice detail sir
Thanks
Very Informative, my Samsung 970EvoPlus runs at about 54deg using your Methodology on Asus Mbd heatsink.
Oh, lucky... just as I start searching for NVMe heatsinks, this video comes up and the motherboard you're using is the one I have.
Nice
From my research the best method is leaving just the pad on the controller taking it off the nands and using the pieces u remove to put under the controller to the MB the nand need a high temp and the controller needs to be as cool as possible for longevity.
saw you had the same motherboard for the first part and great to see the heatsink on it works really well
The temperature gun at 30cm away from target measures a circle of 5-10cm diameter depending on model, so you are not measuring the SSD alone.
Tbh the internal sensor temps are a better measure of what I'm showing anyway but thanks for the input.
--READ ME--
What you're seeing is the controller thermal throttling. Flash will perform better under higher temperatures. If you cool the controller and not the flash you will get better performance.
However to prevent bit rot you should keep the flash cool when not under heavy load.
it would be good to list the ambient room temperature you are doing the tests in..i got annoyed with Jay's2cents when he was doing a AIO review and going on about how great it kept the temps when i noticed on his digital thermometer that he had his room cooled down to 18c so of course he had better than expected results to make his sponsor happy
That is fair. There are obviously a lot of variables that could impact it which is why I did two passes. Also I live in England, so it's always cold, but it's still a significant difference. Worth testing your own system if in doubt :)
Gives you a little bit of an idea of what kind of heat is being generated right at the transistors. You can kind of visualize the temperature gradient through the heatsink.
I don't think the average user's temperature, heat sinks or not, will get anywhere near the temps you're showing - as long as they have sufficient cooling to begin with and the fans are not blocked. Thanks for the video.
A heatsink is very necessary with a pci gen 5 nvme. Keep up the great work and stay safe.
Yeah I've got a gen 5 drive for testing but I'm not allowed to show that yet. I'll be revisiting this when I can!
@@TheProvokedPrawn which one? The corsair one?
I just upgraded my 3 year old 500gb Nvme with a WD 2tb Nvme. I cloned the drive and instantly windows was freezing and random blue screens. I reformatted and cloned again and same results. Put the old one back and it works perfectly. So I’ve ordered a heat sink for the new one and hopefully that will solve this issue.
Great video thanks for the info.
Thanks for watching
In general, they don’t cool the Nvme drives………but cool the controller only with a copper shim and now you’re making a difference. The motherboard heatsinks are a little better because of the increased surface area. You might want to get a little closer with your thermal gun to get an accurate reading of the entire drive.
What if you're only playing games and occasionally surfing the web like RUclips? I want to buy a new ssd, but not sure if i should go with the one without the heatsink and save a few bucks. Ive heard contradictory things.
Nice vid Dr. Prawn informative as always.
Thank you kindly!
Very helpful video as always! Packed with content. Thank you, Provoked Prawn. One quick follow-up question: when ssd come preinstalled with a heatsink but is removable, such as WD sn850x. Would you opt for the heatsink from the ssd or the one from the board? Thanks
The SSD one personally. Though I'm going to test that soon too.
@@TheProvokedPrawn thank you for your insights!
How about doing a video on how to get that Corsair AIO display to actually work and not show a red triangle all the time regardless of how many rimes you treble check your wiring, uninstall and wipe all traces of the software from your pc etc etc......that would be lovely...👍
Other than that rant, love your content.....that voice of yours is something special. 👌
Sorry to hear you've been having trouble. I'd recommend uninstalling iCue completely and downloading the latest version then check for firmware updates for the Commander Core
@@TheProvokedPrawn It's ok bud. Just a little rant really. When you invest thousands into a new rig and such a simple but handy thing doesn't work, it kind of upsets you a wee bit.
I'll do as you suggest. Thanks for responding. 👍
Mike.
That’s how mine display is when the PC is off with the power plugged in
perfect timing tbh i have 1 heatsink wd drive so i had to take of my mobo heasink shield that COVERED 3 slots the other 2 are free
perfect wanted to see a ssd for temps due to heat sink also a drive without heat sink.
perfect video. thank you. i always had doubts about motherboard thermal pads cause they are not very thikness and i thought they do the opposite job, but your test demonstrate they are good. is it unsafe to remove motherboard thermal pads when changing ssd ? Is there a risk to damage the chip ?
That I don't know but I don't think it's a problem
I watched another video that stated that cooling the controller and not the nand helps more than cooling the whole nvme ....
The heatsink that comes on the WD850X has thermal pads covering some chips but not others, do we know what chips they don't want to cool and why?
And should we / is it worth trying to do the same with other ssds like the 990 Pro for example? or just cool it all?
@@simontemplar8719 comments aren't displayed in the same order for everyone
I like pcmr science, good video
Thanks Sebastian
is heatsink is also necessary with laptop motherboard ?
all of sudden my waterblock doesnt seem to crazy
haha.
After I watched this video, I tested my PCI 3.0 Samsung 960 EVO 250GB with Crystalmark. I dont have a heatsink on it. The temp quickly got to 68 degrees on the NAND and 90 degrees celcius on the controller. Didnt think a PCI 3.0 drive would get that hot...the speed is about 3500/1500
Can you use a M.2 NVMe that has a heatsink with a motherboard heatsink?
you can't usually use both. If the NVMe has the heatsink already installed, then rely on that because it's probably superior to the motherboard one.
sir how did u make your task manager black?
Windows 11 lets you do it.
I've just ordered a Gen4 drive but my motherboard only supports Gen3 so the drive will be running much slower than its max speed (it was the cheaper option surprisingly), should I still use a heatsink? thanks
Yes
Interesting