The shape of the heatsink is essential, but...
The SSD cooler database finally adds SSD temperature results without a cooler. These show to what extent a cooler is beneficial, or by how much it knocks down controller and memory temperatures. Some really significantly, for others it’s worse. There are more reasons for this, but the important thing is to have a check on what is happening and under what circumstances. You might end up using an alternative cooler instead of the motherboard one.
The shape of the heatsink is essential, but…
Although SSD coolers are already part of virtually every modern motherboard, their impact isn’t always such that the maximum satisfaction can be achieved.
There are a number of reasons for some objections to SSD coolers. One of them lies in the weaker heatsink articulation. Even when you’re dealing with a relatively heavier block of aluminum, cooling performance can easily be below average. This is because it lacks fins and therefore a surface that would interact with the air flowing around it. And it’s quite common for the material used for a heatsink to only use a small part of its potential. In such cases, it is quite safe to say that, from a cooling point of view, the material is being used inefficiently.
Cooling deficits may be the result of trying to achieve a “better look”, lower manufacturing costs, or the manufacturer simply didn’t see fit to tinker too much with the heatsink design. Because, for example, SSDs don’t really need a cooler in a typical gaming or even an office workload. The power consumption of current SSDs is always very low, only a fraction of the maximum, and thus there is no critical temperature. But that’s another topic, one that we’ll get to one day as well.
Now, let’s stay with the fact that higher cooling performance could be wrung out of many designs by simple “reformatting”, in which flat surfaces are turned into fins. We’ve covered this issue a bit before – SSD coolers are sufficient, but waste material.
And then there’s the amount of contact between the cooler base and the SSD. It can vary even with two heatsinks that are structurally identical, in which case the differences are caused by the characteristics of the mounting mechanism. For example, the secondary SSD cooler (shared by the 2nd to 4th M.2 slots) on the Gigabyte Aorus Z790 Aorus Pro X motherboard has visibly weaker contact with the SSD, as indicated by the faint (SSD) footprint in the thermal pad.
On a different Gigabyte board (the Aorus Z790 Aorus Elite AX) with a similar cooler that has a rather smaller heatsink, the efficiency is higher. One of the reasons for this might be that Gigabyte hasn’t used the tool-less, snap-on mounting system yet, but the heatsink is “properly” screwed in at three points. This may be considered a disadvantage by some due to the greater complexity of the installation, but the contact with the SSD is demonstrably better here.
Of course, the contact can be very decent, non-limiting of heat transfer, even with push-pin systems. You just need to set everything correctly. And it is Gigabyte that can learn from old mistakes in this regard. On the Z790 Aorus Elite AX, the problematic cooler, from a cooling performance perspective, on the first M.2 slot is downright wiggling. Its contact is poor, which corresponds to the only average results, which should be significantly better given the heatsink’s design. But that’s assuming higher pressure, which you also won’t get with SSDs with taller chips, be it controller or memory. On the newer Gigabyte motherboard (Aorus Z790 Aorus Pro X), however, the similarly designed heatsink (also a taller aluminum monolith with longitudinal finning and with comparable amount of surface area) is already performing significantly better in terms of cooling performance.
Weaker contact between coolers and SSDs can also be contributed to by motherboard PCB deformation. Not in our tests, but in general when there tends to be a lack of precision in mounting within the case, where any flexing (of the motherboard PCB and subsequently the SSD itself) should even out.
Methodology
The tests take place in a wind tunnel that substitutes for a standard computer case. Four Noctua NF-S12A PWM@550 rpm fans are used for system cooling in a balanced ratio of two intake to two exhaust fans. The intake air temperature is strictly controlled and is kept within a narrow range of 21–21.3 °C for maximum possible accuracy.
In line with findings from measurements of the impact of different positions on cooling efficiency, we test standalone SSD coolers in the first slot, above the graphics card. From board tests we naturally have a lot of results of coolers (referred to as cooler 1, cooler 2, …) from other positions as well, but in those cases, it is due to their fixed position.
The SSDs without a cooler are tested on an Asus ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi motherboard in two locations – in “Slot 1” above the graphics card and in “Slot 2” below the graphics card. We know from thematic tests where we’ve looked at the dependency of SSD cooling on the position chosen that there are some differences in cooling here, although it’s impossible to generalize which is the ‘preferable’ option. It can always be different depending on, for example, whether or not the graphics card cooling is in active mode (but also, naturally, on the layout of the case fans and the overall nature of the system cooling). Our case, with only passive cooling of the graphics card, turned out to be the worse choice from a cooling point of view. Due to excessive temperatures, the maximum performance was not even reached, the sequential read performance of which on the Intel platform in the PCIe 4.0 ×4 slot should be in the range of approximately 6600–6900 MB/s. In this case it was only around 5500 MB/s.
For testing, we use a Samsung 980 Pro SSD (1 TB). The load is run for 10 minutes (which is enough time in the wind tunnel for temperatures to stabilize) in CrystalDiskMark – sequential read and write cycles. The achieved power draw then is about 6 W, which is the upper limit of what M.2 SSDs can do, and not even models with PCIe 5.0 interface support are supposed to change this.
For completeness, it should be added that the tested SSD is always in its original condition with the sticker left on. Removing it is rather unnecessary as it does not really affect the heat transfer to the cooler. We have also already dealt with this in detail in tests:
Please note: The article continues with following chapters.
The SSD cooler database finally adds SSD temperature results without a cooler. These show to what extent a cooler is beneficial, or by how much it knocks down controller and memory temperatures. Some really significantly, for others it’s worse. There are more reasons for this, but the important thing is to have a check on what is happening and under what circumstances. You might end up using an alternative cooler instead of the motherboard one.
Test results
The SSD cooler database finally adds SSD temperature results without a cooler. These show to what extent a cooler is beneficial, or by how much it knocks down controller and memory temperatures. Some really significantly, for others it’s worse. There are more reasons for this, but the important thing is to have a check on what is happening and under what circumstances. You might end up using an alternative cooler instead of the motherboard one.
Conclusion
Our tests show that the cooler can reduce the SSD controller temperature by as much as 45°C. That’s the difference between the first cooler on a Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Pro X motherboard and the SSD temperature without a cooler. However, it should be noted that this variance may be substantially smaller in practice, but it may also be greater. It is typically smaller under “normal” loads, when idle power consumption is often less than 1 W.
And it is true that significantly higher consumption (than 1 W) does not occur in the long term, neither in gaming nor in work that could be described as office work. When sequential reads or writes with an SSD are reaching maximum performance, then yes, it is significantly higher. And that’s also when compared to about 6W on the Samsung 980 Pro. Then, due to the influence of the cooler, a bigger difference is to be expected, as we have observed. Especially with more intensive system cooling. This can be important in combination with the most powerful SSDs, if these are under very high load for a long time. Especially when the SSD is in an unfavorable position, such as below the graphics card in our model situations.In this environment, with average system cooling airflow, even our test SSD, which isn’t the hottest SSD on the market, won’t maintain maximum performance. There are also more power hungry ones that heat up more.
Going back to how much “power” the cooler has over the temperature of critical SSD components, it’s relatively significant, but that may not always be the case. For example, the middle cooler on the Z690 Tomahawk DDR4 motherboard does dissipate some heat, but it’s one of the weakest ones. Although, it’s with a “disadvantageous position” note. Since it’s under the graphics card, a comparison with an SSD in the same position is appropriate. The temperature reduction we measured here was “only” at 15°C, although with the same performance (SSD) it would be a bit higher. Don’t forget that in the second position (below the graphics card), the test SSD did not reach maximum performance due to overheating. The performance was a bit lower.
Even worse is the MAG B760M Mortar WiFi cooler, which reduces the temperature by just 9°C. Again, with the most powerful cooler on the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Pro X, the temperature drop is as much as 5X compared to this one. So the difference in cooling performance here is substantial. And that’s even compared to third-party SSD coolers such as the Akasa Gecko Pro, the Axagon CLR-M2L10, the BeQuiet! MC1 (Pro) or the Gelid IceCap, which have comparable dimensions and comparable weight (to the “weaker” cooler on the MAG B760M Mortar WiFi motherboard).
Regardless of size, high-end coolers like the Axagon CLR-M2XL or the Thermalright HR-10 2280 are always useful, where all the elements come into play to the point where very significant differences in SSD temperatures with and without a cooler can be noted. In addition to having well finned heatsinks, they are also in good contact with the SSD, so the heat transfer is above average. Conversely, it is below-average with the cooler on the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX above the first M.2 slot, for example. It can’t be said that it doesn’t cool the SSD, but its efficiency is significantly lower than it could be at higher pressure. This cooler is indeed a proper piece of nicely finned aluminum profile, but the SSD temperatures with it are higher than when using the nearly 12 times lighter Axagon CLR-M2L6 with a smaller emissive area.
We can still state that SSD coolers on Gigabyte motherboards know how to surprise. Sometimes they’re great (the first cooler on the Z790 Aorus Pro X), other times they’re worse (the first cooler on the Z790 Aorus Elite AX, but the large shared cooler on the Z790 Aorus Pro X also has weak contact), and at the very least, it’s safe to say that they fall short of expectations. Usually, however, these are not coolers that occupy the bottom positions of the results charts. For such placements, MSI’s selected motherboards, typically the older Tomahawk models, are the specialists. With the newer ones (MAG Z790 Tomahawk Max WiFi or MAG X670E Tomahawk WiFi) the situation is much more favourable and, for example, the cooler on the MEG X670E Ace, above the M.2 slot with PCIe 5.0 support atypically placed along the DIMM slots, is already among the most efficient ones. This is despite the push-pin mounting system, the pressure of which MSI has obviously set up effectively.
Asus? Average to above average results. Efficiency of the coolers on the primary M.2 slot on the ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi is top-notch, and both ROG Z690 Maximus Hero coolers are very respectable as well. Looking at the lower price class, acceptable results of SSD coolers also characterize the TUF Gaming B660 Plus WiFi D4 or TUF B760M BTF WiFi D4 motherboards. And also worth noting, when it comes to SSD cooling, are the capabilities of the Dual RTX 4060 Ti SSD graphics card. It is worth taking advantage of its cooler and the M.2 SSD bay, especially in builds that don’t have their own PCI Express 5.0-enabled M.2 slot.
To conclude, just a short summary: SSD coolers on motherboards definitely make sense to use, but as in all component categories, there are some “better” and some “worse” designs. The fact that some manufacturers don’t make it as efficient as possible in terms of cooling on some motherboards, let’s say, and below-average results are achieved is a bit disappointing, but I guess they can’t be blamed. Especially when the cooling performance for a typical load is sufficient, which is perhaps the case with all motherboards even in combination with the most powerful SSDs that can be fitted into the respective slot (under the SSD cooler).
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš