Samsung 960 Evo add-on cooling fins

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c3k

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I'm about to pick one up. (Next few weeks.) I understand the 960 label incorporates some copper threads to help mitigate the thermal throttling problems the 950 faced.

Would adding cooling fins help?

Which fins fit? (What are the dimensions of the memory chips and the control module?)

TIM: use sticky (3M double sided tape); thermal pads; or arctic ceramique?

Does it even matter? Going into an air-cooled case with good meta-flow. I don't know if the 960 will be in spot with poor flow.

Thanks.
 
In the 19th century it was snake oil.
In the 20th century it was swampland in Florida.
In the 21st century it's SSD coolers.
The products change over time, but the scam motivation does not.
 
margrave said:
In the 19th century it was snake oil.
In the 20th century it was swampland in Florida.
In the 21st century it's SSD coolers.
The products change over time, but the scam motivation does not.
Click to expand...

Excellent idea! I’ll use snake oil as the TIM under my fins when I use a swamp cooler for the SSD!
 
If your SSD is constantly under load...not sure why it would be for a normal client load, then maybe you need a cooler. But if that's the case you should've bought an enterprise drive.
 
Okay... the consensus of the [E]xperts ;) seems to be that for normal home enthusiast use, I will not see any thermal throttling on a Samsung 960 EVO? Throttling only gets induced by artificial stress tests?
 
c3k said:
Okay... the consensus of the [E]xperts ;) seems to be that for normal home enthusiast use, I will not see any thermal throttling on a Samsung 960 EVO? Throttling only gets induced by artificial stress tests?
Click to expand...

Sometimes not even then.

I have a laptop with a 960 EVO in it.

Pretty sure you're fine.
 
c3k said:
Okay... the consensus of the [E]xperts ;) seems to be that for normal home enthusiast use, I will not see any thermal throttling on a Samsung 960 EVO? Throttling only gets induced by artificial stress tests?
Click to expand...

This is correct.
 
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I have a 960pro doing double duty as an os/app and game drive. This drive/pc is on 24/7 and Hwmonitor shows min 32c max 41c. Currently running handbrake (from 960 to drivepool) as a test and after 30mins, temps are going back and forth between 39c and 40c. I tested before using handbrake from 960 to 960 and temps were the same. Games installed on this drive are fallout 4, gow4 and cities skyline. I believe thermal throttling only kicks in around 70c with these drives, so with good air flow in your case, you should be good.
 
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I never see mine go much over 50C while gaming. Can't say I've put it under the worst case scenario of stress though.

This was after a marathon session of Doom last night (Nightmare mode, so I died alot ;)):

fABPTAu.png
 
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I guess one caveat could be if you just have really bad case airflow...but then if that's the case spend the money on better fans!
 
Has anyone used an NVMe drive like this installed on the back of the motherboard? How does that affect the temperature?
 
Never had ssd thermal throttling be a problem (or one that I’ve noticed) with the 960 and my room gets up over 40/100 in the summer.

I smash my ssd with workloads as well.
 
DangerousMan said:
I have a 960pro doing double duty as an os/app and game drive. This drive/pc is on 24/7 and Hwmonitor shows min 32c max 41c. Currently running handbrake (from 960 to drivepool) as a test and after 30mins, temps are going back and forth between 39c and 40c. I tested before using handbrake from 960 to 960 and temps were the same. Games installed on this drive are fallout 4, gow4 and cities skyline. I believe thermal throttling only kicks in around 70c with these drives, so with good air flow in your case, you should be good.
Click to expand...

I bought an EK heatsing for my Samsung 960Pro and I installed it from day one. However, I realize that it was not really needed since I have never exceeded 40C on it yet and this is because I have very good airflow even at really slow fan speeds. I don't think the EK heatsink makes a difference of 30c and that without it I would hit thermal throttling temps. No way.
 
The Controller on my ADATA 6000 sits at 58-60 degrees most of the time and I added a heatsink that covers it perfectly. The heatsink is too hot to touch so it's soaking up the thermals. This is just sitting idle.

I'm not worried about it as it only runs the Pagefile and some other junk app data. The other NVME drive I have (Samsung) sits at 32 all day. I got in another ADATA 6000 and it also ran hot. It has a Realtek controller I think.
 
JargonGR said:
I bought an EK heatsing for my Samsung 960Pro and I installed it from day one. However, I realize that it was not really needed since I have never exceeded 40C on it yet and this is because I have very good airflow even at really slow fan speeds. I don't think the EK heatsink makes a difference of 30c and that without it I would hit thermal throttling temps. No way.
Click to expand...
That was my point; with decent(any) case air flow the 960pro would hit 45/50c max, and one shouldn't worry about thermal throttling (at 70c.)
 
The reason Samsung don't put heatsinks on their 960/970 Evo/pro is because on the mayority of cases is not needed, that said I own 4 nvme drives all with the ek heatsinks and never pass 45c, personally I think it's worth it just for the piece of mind that a heavy investment will be sustain at good temps.
 
The 960 Evo has two sensors, one on the memory that for me idles in the 30s(c) and tops out in the low 40s under load, and one on the controller that idles in the 40s and 50s but quickly hits the low to mid 70s under load. If I run CrystalDiskMark the second temp is in the high 70s to mid 90s, the sequential test heats it up the most.

From what I've read it sounds like the controller temp is the one that determines if the drive gets throttled so I've been meaning to put the heatsink that came with my MB on it. The rest of my temps are nice and low so I don't think airflow is an issue, ambient temps have been in the 75-85f range though which I'm sure hasn't helped
 
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