SSD Temperatures

Under light loads, a modest heatsink usually handles the requirements of PCIe Gen 4 M.2 SSDs and, to some extent, PCIe Gen 5 SSDs. However, for both types—particularly PCIe Gen 5—high-end SSDs can begin to throttle thermally after just 20 seconds of sustained workload without adequate cooling.



To shield yourself as much as possible from this, it's important to know just what your motherboard's cooling is capable of and just as importantly, which heatsink you should use as some are larger than others while some may be impacted by nearby hardware such as your GPU.


In the case of the ASUS ROG X870E Crosshair Hero, the tall heatsink above your graphics card that also features innovative tool-free mounting, isn't the best option. Our PCIe Gen 5 SSD hit 80°C after just a single CrystalDiskMark run, sitting dangerously close to the throttling threshold. However, dropping it down to the larger heatsink below saw that reduced to just 67°C. Our PCIe Gen 4 saw its temperature peak at 63°C in the same position. A lot will depend on your own system's airflow, especially if you have any local airflow from a fan-equipped pump section on an AIO liquid cooler for example.

PCIe Gen 4 Performance (Samsung 990 Pro)

PCIe Gen 5 Performance (Team Group T-Force Z540)