Heat Sink for NVMe Hard Drive?

Hi,

I just got a new Lynx model PC with the following HD -

1x SSD M.2 (1TB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS) (NVM Express)

This is the motherboard -

ASUS Prime Z390-P (Intel Z390 Chipset) (Up to 2x PCI-E Devices) (No SLI Support)

I downloaded Samsung Magician which monitors the heat of the HD and I saw that typically, my hard drive sits between 47-50 C when idling (my apartment runs a little hot, especially in the winter when the heat is jacked up)...after playing a game for more than 30 minutes, it can get up to 68-70 C.

Now, I did some research on this and I have never seen a more divided opinion on the necessity of heat sinks for these types of hard-drives. Literally, some people say it is necessary and others say it is good the drives run hot, or doesn't matter, especially if you don't do heavy 4K video rendering (which I don't).

So, I don't know what to do. A heat-sink is only $10-20 or so, depending on the model and their effectiveness too is kind of suspect.

What does everyone here think? Is the heat sink necessary or not?

Thanks!

Thanks for the welcome.

Hm...I appreciate this answer...again, it is surprising how divided the tech community seems on this particular issue.

If anyone has a good heatsink rec I'd appreciate that too.

Thanks again!

Thanks again!...maybe I'll flip a coin in deciding whether to get one or not.

Will do...by the way, I flipped the coin and I ended up getting the EKWB you recommend.

An update...I had also emailed Digital Storm too to see if this was necessary and they insisted it was not and that it is normal for the drives to run hot and that is why they don't even offer heat sink installs in their builds...

So even though I now have a heat sink, I decided to shelve it and see how things go over the next few months.

I also bought a second 1TB Samsung 970 EVO PLUS HD that should be arriving today. I don't know if it will make any sort of difference, but I uninstalled all my Steam games and plan to reinstall them on the second drive and leave the original drive with just windows and a few ancillary, non-graphical programs.

It will be interesting to see how both drives heat now I have set up this split. If the main drive stays cool, I'll be comfortable with the second one heating up because it will solely just be games and thus it will be more easy to replace should I need to down the line...or just slap the heat sink on before it gets to that point.

Edited by Bahg777 - 03 Feb 2020 at 6:21am