This active M.2 cooler will help keep PCIe Gen 4 / Gen 5 SSD temps down

[midian182]

In context: With the arrival of PCIe Gen 4, NVMe M.2 SSDs are now hotter and faster, two elements set to increase even more in the next-gen PCIe 5.0 SSDs. As such, companies are producing more robust active cooling systems, including one from Qiao Sibo that features a blower fan design.

ITHome reports that the M.2 cooler, which attaches directly to a drive, comes with an integrated aluminum heatsink and fan, offering speeds of 3,000RPM and a maximum air volume of 4.81CFM. It’ll certainly be noticeable through your case’s tempered glass window as it measures 76 mm x 24.5mm x 70.5mm, weighs 120g, and has a maximum noise output of 27.3dBA. You might even struggle to fit it alongside your board’s other components.

We’ve already seen M2 drives with similar beefy integrated cooling solutions—Gigabyte’s Aorus Gen4 7000s Prem. SSD (below) features a nanocarbon coated heatsink called Thermal Guard Xtreme that it claims allows the drive to maintain consistent 7GB/s seq. read speeds for over 8 hours. Teamgroup, meanwhile, unveiled the T-Force Cardea Liquid II, an all-in-one liquid cooler designed to be used with the latest PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSDs.

While these sorts of SSD coolers can help PCIe Gen4 SSDs maintain speeds of around 7GB/s without throttling, they may become necessary for PCIe 5.0 SSDs due to their higher power requirements (around 14W) and speeds. We recently heard about the ‘Project Nighthawk’ and ‘Project Blackbird’ prototype PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs from Adata that can reach sequential speeds of up to 14GB/s reads and 12GB/s writes in the case of the former.

No word on the performance offered by Qiao Sibo’s cooler or the price.

We can expect to see several PCIe 5.0 SSDs at CES next week, though most of them will likely be shown off virtually, given how many companies won’t have an in-person presence.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92782-active-m2-cooler-help-keep-pcie-gen-4.html

 

[Geralt]

How to put that if the drive is covered in the mobo like in my Aorus Extreme?

 

[bviktor]

No, just no. Draw the line. I don't want active, noisy cooling collecting dust on my friggin' SSDs. Figure thermal out. If you can't do it without active cooling, you're doing it wrong. We want performance, yes, but not at all costs.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

The best way to cool down M2 SSD would be a small water block / AIO.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Completely unnecessary. SSDs only draw 5-10 watts max at full load, most of that is the controller. You only need a heatsink for the controller to keep it cool, and with a chip that small and a thermal load that small a tiny slab of aluminum is sufficient.

 

[Nintenboy01]

On most mobos I don't think you can use a tower air cooler for your CPU along with those SSD heatsinks.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Completely unnecessary. SSDs only draw 5-10 watts max at full load, most of that is the controller. You only need a heatsink for the controller to keep it cool, and with a chip that small and a thermal load that small a tiny slab of aluminum is sufficient.

Gen 5 was stated in the article as 14w. Heat causes throttling in some current drives. We know this (SN850 for example). Don't like/need it, don't buy it, but it's not an entirely useless product.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Gen 5 was stated in the article as 14w. Heat causes throttling in some current drives. We know this (SN850 for example).

Again, not much power draw or heat created. You dont need a cooling complex this large for such a low power load. We know already that a simple aluminum heat sink is sufficient to prevent throttling.

Don't like/need it, don't buy it, but it's not an entirely useless product.

A simply aluminum heatsink (often included with motherboards) is more then sufficient for such a low thermal load. Having a big fan and cooling chamber is unneeded, its useless. It's like putting a fan on a southbridge controller or a LED.

Pointless complexity, noise, and power draw for something that doesnt need it.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

You totally need this active cooling if you can saturate your PCIe 5 drive for extended periods. This will NEVER happen outside of a busy server.

But someone dumb will no doubt buy it for more FPS...

 

[hahahanoobs]

Again, not much power draw or heat created. You dont need a cooling complex this large for such a low power load. We know already that a simple aluminum heat sink is sufficient to prevent throttling.
A simply aluminum heatsink (often included with motherboards) is more then sufficient for such a low thermal load. Having a big fan and cooling chamber is unneeded, its useless. It's like putting a fan on a southbridge controller or a LED.

Pointless complexity, noise, and power draw for something that doesnt need it.

Depends on how hard you're running it.

 

[Vigilance]

The best way to cool down M2 SSD would be a small water block / AIO.

Actually I've seen few m.2 water blocks, but as someone who has custom liquid cooling, I see this pointless and just complicates your system for no reason.

 

[Vigilance]

Am I the only one that wishes that more mainstream U.2 or U.3 drives will come to market (also it would be nice if mobo will put this connector more). I get it that faster drives require more power and so more heat is produced, so U.2/3 drives can have many advantages like more heat dissipation, plus most case do support 2.5" drives already. Instead of using SSDs with obsolete SATA3 protocol, newer connection can be alternative to m.2 drives.