I was planning a PC build using one of the new Z270 boards later this year. I was planning to use an M.2 SSDs because they seem like the hot tech (literally) for fast PCs. I was heartened to see companies new motherboard attempting thermal solutions for M.2 because discussions about thermal throttling on M.2s were ragging last year . Yet, after seeing the video below I am thinking that any new M.2 solutions on the motherboards needs some extensive testing.

As needs to be pointed out again, the motherboard is likely FINE. The video is suggesting using that shield is a bad idea. I hope that there will be some testing sites that start testing M.2 solutions very extensively. At the very least all these new motherboards, with more M.2 postilion or shields, need to be tested specifically for m.2 performance.

Aside for this MSI board, I wonder what ASUS TUF board does to its M.2s since they cover them up.

MSI is a garbage company that makes garbage products for garbage people. Just do your research and you will be fine.

Kind of funny this guy in the video is trying to dispute a wonky claim made by a marketing company whilst simultaneously having a suitcase full of "gaming mints" sitting right next to him.

Yeah, a basic understanding of high school science should tell anyone that simply covering a hot thing makes it hotter. You need to make contact with something if you want to conduct heat, this shield doesn't make contact, so it ends up insulating it instead, same as if you were to improperly seat a CPU cooler.

@expensiveham Don't you think that's kind of a big generalization? MSI's GPUs and Motherboards are generally well thought of and competitively priced but unfortunately few 'pc parts' companies are immune from the occasional bogus marketing claim.

Seems like that thing was built for trying to protect the ssd from the gpu(i guess if it is installed wrong or something) and the heatsink was added to try and dissipate the heat that would cause? Anyway, are those M.2 ssd's really worth it? I know they are faster but doesn't seem worth it especially with heat issues.

@oursin_360: i have never heard about heatissues. I imagine that even with thermal throtteling its faster than sata drives but most likely you wont notice the difference.

Its very easy to install however.

@renegadedoppelganger said:

Yeah the whole gaming mints thing is stupid but it's better than taking sponsorship money from hardware manufactures like all the other tech youtubers do.

Yeah, i was obviously being a bit facetious with my post.. But i generally would never recommend a MSI product to anyone. MSI has the worst, cringiest advertising and by far the ugliest products and branding. The actual performance of their products is generally fine but their products are rarely the best option.

I can't get over the extreme gaming aesthetic, the plastic looking products with dragons and rgb leds everywhere.

The overheating problems for these drives seem overstated. You really have to have specialized professional workloads (read: not games) in order to work one of these drives into throttling territory.

As far as heatsink solutions are concerned, apparently the heatsinks used on Plextor's M8Pe range are legit, and the 960 Pro (which is what I have) does have a copper sheet embedded in the sticker that might or might not do anything worthwhile. Also pretty sure there are thermal pad and water-cooling solutions that you can apply to an M.2 drive, but I couldn't imagine ever needing anything like that.

I use a machine with an M.2 drive everyday and it's fine, it's also ballistically fast. Just leave the dumb shield thing off.

I dont have a problem with my MSI Z170A Gaming M3 motherboard. Its the cheapest available but still has all my needed ports/features. Its still supported and even just got an update to work with Kaby Lake CPUs. Only thing i hate are the LEDs but i think that goes for all motherboards.

If you've ever looked at a cars engine bay you'll often notice there are heatshield ON the firewall. Despite that they actually do help keep the interior of the vehicle cooler than without them. Same with heat shields around exhausts or turbos. Exhausts and turbos(the hot side) you actually WANT to keep warm. I can't think of many places that holds true in electronics but FYI. You think they're stupid until you don't have them. It does seem like something that could be used to protect a component from the heat of another component that MIGHT go into a PCI-E slot also, wonder what...

The other thing to note is the screw down. If that goes into the motherboard, as it might, that could very well aide in heat dissipation assuming you have airflow in your case. PCB's are professionally always made with heat in mind. So when you have a component that is known to heat up you provide it a way to get to the PCB where there is a significant copper area and that helps dissipate the heat. If you've ever tried desoldering anything from a motherboard, or any other well made piece of electronics you'll know you have to get a lot more heat into the component and board than it would take if you were actually just melting solder. Unfortunately that's never the case, ever, and you have to put extra heat into it. I don't have a schematic or board diagram to confirm that's what they're doing, and I'm certainly not going to buy one, but just because some guy has an infrared camera and tells you it's bad doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about. I don't recall him even showing any actual testing, he could wrap the thing in a blanket in one case and have it in a refrigerator with a large blower for another. It's totally possible it's another useless feature but I wouldn't outright assume they decided to spend money giving you something that's trash. Aside from the manuals, stickers, boxes, cd's, and all of that stuff.

@maginnovision: Thanks for the post, very interesting.

@maginnovision: if you are using it as an heatshield you wouldnt have thermal paste connecting it to whatever you are protecting. This is an poorly designed and named heatsink.

M.2 is fine. Don't worry about it.

@rethla: That just points to it more likely having a path to a copper area on/in the PCB which I mentioned.

@maginnovision: Possibly but this reeks of bad gimmicky design.