Gigabyte Teases AORUS M.2 Thermal Guard - Upcoming Motherboard Pictured

[Raevenlord]

M.2 thermal guards, heat spreaders, and heat sinks are all the rage nowadays, with some companies releasing standalone solutions - like Aqua Computers and SilverStone. Other manufacturers opt for bundling built-in solutions with their motherboards, like MSI's M.2 Shield. The efficacy of these solutions is sometimes put into question - we all remember the reports of MSI's solution being snake-oil that doesn't really contribute to better heat dissipation.

However, a feature is a feature is a feature, and motherboard makers don't look well towards other manufacturers offering something they don't. As such, Gigabyte is now teasing its own AORUS-branded M.2 Thermal Guard, through the company's Twitter. The finned design should allow the Thermal Guard to better partake on your system's airflow. What seems interesting is how close this M.2 slot is located to the motherboard's bottom, close to USB headers. The fact that this motherboard also includes what seems to be a debug port places this as probably a top-of-the-line offering. It would make sense for Gigabyte to debut another piece of tech on their top-end motherboards rather than on a middling or budget offering, so, we should be looking at an incoming announcement for a new AORUS-branded mobo.



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[Hood]

Finally, a bundled M.2 heat sink that looks substantial and effective, looking forward to the review.

 

[TheLostSwede]

And it seems like whatever board this is, has the M.2 slot in a sensible place, i.e. not underneath the graphics card.

 

[Ubersonic]

Maybe instead of coming up with ugly ways to try and cool the M.2 slots they are putting on their boards some of these manufacturers should think about putting U.2 slots on more boards so that people don't have to use hot running laptop SSDs lol.

 

[Aenra]

This is probably the 370 Designare and about time
(was my assumption from the beginning, that they wouldn't release it until after the May AGESA update)

Needless to say, 'about time' as in day-1 purchase, lol

 

[TheLostSwede]

Maybe instead of coming up with ugly ways to try and cool the M.2 slots they are putting on their boards some of these manufacturers should think about putting U.2 slots on more boards so that people don't have to use hot running laptop SSDs lol.

Please provide a comparison of currently available, in retail, U.2 vs. M.2 drives, NVMe drives only is sufficient, but with pricing. Then tell me U.2 matters.

 

[Dammeron]

Please provide a comparison of currently available, in retail, U.2 vs. M.2 drives, NVMe drives only is sufficient, but with pricing. Then tell me U.2 matters.

M.2 and U.2 are the same performance wise.

And why would i pick U.2, which need both signal and power cables and takes space in the case, if I can have a compact M.2 mounted directly on MB? Throttling is not a problem in everyday use, and I can always buy a cheapass RAM radiator from aliexpress.

 

[eidairaman1]

And it seems like whatever board this is, has the M.2 slot in a sensible place, i.e. not underneath the graphics card.

Should be above all pcie slots

 

[cadaveca]

Should be above all pcie slots

Why? M.2 usually connects to chipset, makes more sense for it to be as close to the chipset as possible.

I mean, for cooling reasons, yeah, I get that, but then, if it's placed there, there isn't much need for a M.2 heatsink, is there?

 

[ShockG]

Why? M.2 usually connects to chipset, makes more sense for it to be as close to the chipset as possible.

I mean, for cooling reasons, yeah, I get that, but then, if it's placed there, there isn't much need for a M.2 heatsink, is there?

There's no performance to be gained by moving the slot closer or farther to the PCH or CPU pcie root complex within the CPU. It's not DRAM so the latency introduced via distance has no bearing on performance.
Moreover what makes the M.2 drives hot is primarily the controller, which generates heat in and off itself and not because of the VGA or anything else close to it.
Samsung XP941 M.2 drive is a great exampled of this. The controller hits above 100'C -

This heatsink actually seems to do the job.

 

[Xajel]

For me, U2 will only be sensible when it can handle data and power, hell the M.2 it self support power already.

and it better also support dual 4x lanes ( or dual 2x lanes ) so we can use two M.2 slots inside a regular 2.5" adapter.