Solved Question about NVme heatsinks

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

A lot of the newer faster NVme drives have heatsinks. I'm interested in the Samsung 990 Pro model, Samsung says the drive has a height of 8.3mm including heatsink according to their specs.

Do these drives fit under the PCI slots without problems? I'm guessing the heatsink height on any NVme is designed for 'normal' motherboards that have the drive slots under the GPU? In my case it would go in the top slot between the CPU cooler and first GPU slot.

Motherboard is X570 Aorus Xtreme

Ghot · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
A lot of the newer faster NVme drives have heatsinks. I'm interested in the Samsung 990 Pro model, Samsung says the drive has a height of 8.3mm including heatsink according to their specs.

Do these drives fit under the PCI slots without problems? I'm guessing the heatsink height on any NVme is designed for 'normal' motherboards that have the drive slots under the GPU? In my case it would go in the top slot between the CPU cooler and first GPU slot.

Motherboard is X570 Aorus Xtreme

In the top M.2A slot, it won't need to go "under" the GPU.
It will be just a tad above the GPU.

A normal two slot GPU lives between the RED lines.
A vid card doesn't go higher than the center of the slot it's plugged into.
If you have one of the big 4000 series GPUs, the 2nd M.2B slot will be blocked.

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

Ghot said:
In the top M.2A slot, it won't need to go "under" the GPU.
It will be just a tad above the GPU.

A normal two slot GPU lives between the RED lines.
If you have one of the big 4000 series GPUs, the 2nd M.2B slot will be blocked.

View attachment 62080

Yes I'm aware, I have three M2 drives, one in each slot! My concern is the height of the heatsink

Ghot · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
Yes I'm aware, I have three M2 drives, one in each slot! My concern is the height of the heatsink

IF your vid card is bigger than a 2 lot wide vid card... then you have to worry about it.
If not... it won't be over any of the M.2 SSDs

Lastly... there's no way we can answer how many mm you have "under" the vid card.
The manufacturer's don't give that information. You have to measure it.

LED flashlight and an accurate 6" straight-edge rule.
Or possibly some Inside Calipers.
Or maybe some automobile feeler gauges.

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

Ghot said:
IF your vid card is bigger than a 2 lot wide vid card... then you have to worry about it.
If not... it won't be over any of the M.2 SSDs

Lastly... there's no way we can answer how many mm you have "under" the vid card.
The manufacturer's don't give that information. You have to measure it.

LED flashlight and an accurate 6" straight-edge rule.
Or possibly some Inside Calipers.

It's a 3-slot 3080 Ti, but the 990 Pro (if I get one) will go between the CPU cooler and the GPU. I just hope it will fit!

Ghot · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
It's a 3-slot 3080 Ti, but the 990 Pro (if I get one) will go between the CPU cooler and the GPU. I just hope it will fit!

It will definitely fit between the GPU and CPU socket.
But again... you'll have to "measure" the clearance you have under the CPU cooler.

There's NOT a standard height for CPU or GPU sockets. That's up to the manufacturer.
There won't be any seriously tall CPU or GPU sockets... but they "could" vary by a few mm.

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

Ghot said:
It will definitely fit between the GPU and CPU socket.
But again... you'll have to "measure" the clearance you have under the CPU cooler.

There's NOT a standard height for CPU or GPU sockets. That's up to the manufacturer.

Cool, thanks

Ghot · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
Cool, thanks

It might be easier, to take the vid card out. Then do your measuring.
Probably easier to "see" what you're doing that way.

I don't think you'll need to worry about the CPU heatsink.
They usually try and make them high enough for the RAM.
For example, the Hyper 212 EVO cooler...

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

Ghot said:
It might be easier, to take the vid card out. Then do your measuring.
Probably easier to "see" what you're doing that way.

View attachment 62082

My cooler is a Noctua D15S which is the offset model designed not to cover the first GPU slot. I will look into it more closely. Thanks for the tips!

Ghot · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
My cooler is a Noctua D15S which is the offset model designed not to cover the first GPU slot. I will look into it more closely. Thanks for the tips!

One thing manufacturers do generally have on their sites, is mechanical drawings of CPU coolers.

bobkn · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
It's a 3-slot 3080 Ti, but the 990 Pro (if I get one) will go between the CPU cooler and the GPU. I just hope it will fit!

I presume that you mean the M.2A slot (post #2). The graphics card doesn't overlap that space.

The only way you could have trouble would be if the M2 drive was much wider than the nominal 22mm. The width spec with heatsink is 24.3 mm.

Alternately, the 990 is available with no heatsink. It may cost a bit less than the heatsink model. You could then use the heatsink included with the motherboard, which may work better than the Samsung one.

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

bobkn said:
I presume that you mean the M.2A slot (post #2). The graphics card doesn't overlap that space.

The only way you could have trouble would be if the M2 drive was much wider than the nominal 22mm. The width spec with heatsink is 24.3 mm.

Alternately, the 990 is available with no heatsink. It may cost a bit less than the heatsink model. You could then use the heatsink included with the motherboard, which may work better than the Samsung one.

The heatsink would fit under the CPU no problem, but like you said it's probably too wide. Bugger.

Ghot · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
The heatsink would fit under the CPU no problem, but like you said it's probably too wide. Bugger.

Generally M.2 heatsinks are the width of the SSD.

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

Ghot said:
Generally M.2 heatsinks are the width of the SSD.

Then Samsung specs show it as 24.3mm with heatsink, 22mm without so it's slightly wider. I did wonder why new Gen 5 boards have a 25mm slot for NVme drives, now I know.

Oh well I'll have to get the non-heatsink model, shame because the Samsung heatsink has RGB.

Ghot · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
Then Samsung specs show it as 24.3mm with heatsink, 22mm without so it's slightly wider. I did wonder why new Gen 5 boards have a 25mm slot for NVme drives, now I know.

Oh well I'll have to get the non-heatsink model, shame because the Samsung heatsink has RGB.

Amazon has 100's of M.2 SSD heatsinks

bobkn · Jun 11, 2023

BrianInEngland said:
Then Samsung specs show it as 24.3mm with heatsink, 22mm without so it's slightly wider. I did wonder why new Gen 5 boards have a 25mm slot for NVme drives, now I know.

Oh well I'll have to get the non-heatsink model, shame because the Samsung heatsink has RGB.

Is an extra 2.3mm of width a problem? I'm surprised.

My #2 desktop use an Asus Tuf Gaming X570-Plus motherboard. The primary M.2 drive has a Sabrent heatsink which is spec'd to be 0.95" (24.1mm) wide. The graphics card is a Gigiabyte RTX 3090 ti. There are no clearance issues.

Personally, I could live without the RGB.

BrianInEngland · Jun 11, 2023

bobkn said:
Is an extra 2.3mm of width a problem? I'm surprised.

My #2 desktop use an Asus Tuf Gaming X570-Plus motherboard. The primary M.2 drive has a Sabrent heatsink which is spec'd to be 0.95" (24.1mm) wide. The graphics card is a Gigiabyte RTX 3090 ti. There are no clearance issues.

Personally, I could live without the RGB.

I will have to double check