M.2 drive. Heatsink or no Heatsink?

[durka-durka]

About to buy my first M.2 drive.  One option has a heatsink and the other does not have one.  Just wondering how important one is on these things since I've never used one before.  Is it worth the extra $20?

[zildac]

It depends on your motherboard. For example the Maximus XII has it's NVME slots "under"  heatsinks already so having a heatsink on the M.2 is an issue But to be honest I've never seen an issue with heat even with a M.2 just popped in a slot on the board. My old system had exactly that, and wasn't a problem. A lot also depends on the general airflow in your case too.

Edited April 23, 2021 by zildac

[durka-durka]

15 minutes ago, zildac said:

It depends on your motherboard. For example the Maximus XII has it's NVME slots "under"  heatsinks already so having a heatsink on the M.2 is an issue But to be honest I've never seen an issue with heat even with a M.2 just popped in a slot on the board. My old system had exactly that, and wasn't a problem. A lot also depends on the general airflow in your case too.

 

 

Thanks. It's appreciated.  This is what I have.  I have a RTX2080 Super on the top slot. Seems like the fans from the video card blowing down on it might eliminate the need for a heatsink. I dunno.  

 

 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

As far as I know it also depends on the generation: a PCIe GEN4 NVMe drive might need a heatsink, but I for one use an older Samsung 960 Pro which didn't ship with a heatsink nor did motherboards back then have heatsinks for their NVMe slots. My current motherboard does, so I put it under one just because it's available, not because there's a need to do so.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Raven (Elysian Angel)

[Mars Exulte]

M.2 is a form factor. NVMe and SATA drives both come in M.2 form.

 

SATA you probably won't need one, NVMe, you might. They're cheap enough and easy to install, so no big deal. A lot of motherboards come with one or two these days. My brother's motherboard was camo patterned, and had one on it which we stupidly overlooked for sometime @@ You could easily just not use it, though, if you had a aftermarket one.