SSD Temperatures

The size and location of the M.2 heatsinks is critical to how well they're able to cool SSDs and with our double-sided Team Group T-Force Z540, it's clear that despite the large heatsink sitting on top of the upper PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot, its peak temperature of 80°C was a little too warm for our liking. The heatsink performs well and was very hot to the touch - it just lacked enough airflow to cool it and was blocked in by the memory modules, graphics card and VRM heatsinks. It did much better in the lower Gen 5 ports, though, dropping to 69°C. As a quick one-off test we also pointed the included memory fan in its direction and saw the top heatsink PCIE Gen 5 temperature fall 10°C to 70°C.

Needless to say if you do opt for this board and use a PCIe Gen 5 SSD, then we'd suggest using the lower ports or seeing how your particular case works with it as all are different. The PCIe Gen 4 temperatures were a little better despite our sample not including the optional thermal pads for our single-sides Samsung 990 Pro, hitting 61°C in the larger lower heatsink and 65°C in the top heatsink.

PCIe Gen 4 Performance (Samsung 990 Pro)

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