Posted October 9, 2017 I'm just trying to decide a new mobo for my coffee lake chip, was planning on throwing an Samsung 960 Evo M.2 drive in there for booting up and storing often used applications, a mix of games and 3d modelling software, was probably going to go for the Asus Z370 Prime A or the ROG strix Z370-H but noticed the ROG doesn't have a M.2 heatspreader, how essential are they and unless doing heavy file transfer is my M.2 likely to thermal throttle without one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 9, 2017 You don't need those covers for NVMe devices. The label on the 960 EVO has a thin copper film that dissipates heat from the drive. Cor Caeruleus Reborn v6 Spoiler CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K CPU Cooler: be quiet! - PURE ROCK Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver - 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste Motherboard: ASRock Z370 Extreme4 Memory: G.Skill TridentZ RGB 2x8GB 3200/14 Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive Storage: Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive Storage: Western Digital - Blue 2TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive Storage: Western Digital - BLACK SERIES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive Video Card: EVGA - 970 SSC ACX (1080 is in RMA) Case: Fractal Design - Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA P2 750W with CableMod blue/black Pro Series Optical Drive: LG - WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit and Linux Mint Serena Keyboard: Logitech - G910 Orion Spectrum RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard Mouse: Logitech - G502 Wired Optical Mouse Headphones: Logitech - G430 7.1 Channel Headset Speakers: Logitech - Z506 155W 5.1ch Speakers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 9, 2017 Assuming a GPU isn't sitting on top of it, it'll be fine. I use 960s in several machines and have never experienced throttling outside of prolonged transfers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 9, 2017 Author Fair enough, they're only £12 so if for some reason i did have any issues it seems a reasonable solution but I would hope just basic application boots shouldn't subject it too strong loads over a long time so shouldn't get too hot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 9, 2017 As an anecdotal testimony... I'm running my NVMe drive behind the motherboard. The way my case is designed and the video card I use makes it so that the video card's hot air blows underneath the motherboard. So if I'm running a game, the NVMe drive will start to get toasty, sitting around 55C at worst. I've been doing this for at least a year with the current video card I have but I imagine that warming from the CPU has also caused it to get warm down there too. Either way, I'm seeing no issues with my SSD. The system's over two years old now as well. If you're worried about thermal throttling, that's only a problem if you're hammering the SSD with something to do. I have a blog! And a list of guides I've posted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted October 9, 2017 Some Asus mobos have 3D Printable fan mounts, so you can cool the M.2 Don't buy Apple M1 computers with 8GB of RAM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now