I'm putting together a new PC with a B850 Aorus Elite motherboard and an RTX 5080. I planned to use a Crucial P510 SSD with its own heatsink in the M.2 slot beneath the graphics card, but the person assembling the system warned that the GPU's heat could make the SSD run too hot. They suggested buying the version without a heatsink and using the motherboard's M.2 cooler instead.
The problem is that this motherboard uses one large shared metal plate covering several M.2 slots. I also have a Silicon Power XS70 with its permanently attached heatsink, and I'd prefer to keep using it. Removing that cooler appears difficult, could damage the drive, and would likely void its warranty. Buying another SSD or a different motherboard would also be unnecessarily expensive.
Is an SSD with its own heatsink likely to have problems directly beneath an RTX 5080, or would the difference be fairly minor? Should I use the motherboard's shared heatsink, leave it off and keep both SSDs' original coolers, or take another approach?
3 Answers
The important thing is to check actual temperatures rather than assume the GPU will make the SSD unusable. The shared motherboard heatsink may help, but forcing it over a thicker factory SSD heatsink could create poor contact or excessive pressure. If the XS70’s cooler cannot be removed safely, keeping both original coolers and monitoring temperatures is the safer option.
I’d probably leave the motherboard plate off and keep the factory heatsinks on both SSDs. A drive under a graphics card is not automatically going to overheat, and many boards place the main M.2 slot directly beneath the GPU with only a small heatsink. Monitor the SSD temperatures with CrystalDiskInfo during gaming and heavy transfers. Sustained file transfers are more likely to heat the drive than gaming, since the GPU usually isn’t under maximum load during those transfers.
Don’t try to remove the glued heatsink from the XS70. You could damage the drive and lose the warranty. Ideally, put the XS70 with its original cooler in the slot closest to the CPU, then use the Crucial P510 without its cooler under the motherboard’s shared M.2 plate—but that only works if the plate can actually be installed with the XS70’s heatsink in place.
That’s the issue: the Aorus board has one shared cover for all three M.2 slots, so it’s either installed over all of them or not used at all.