I recently finished building my first serious desktop PC, and after about two hours of graphically demanding gaming, HWiNFO reported my Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD at around 70°C. The drive is installed directly above the graphics card, so I suspect it is absorbing heat from the GPU exhaust. I considered moving it to the M.2 slot beneath the GPU, but I'm worried that slot might reduce performance. The case also currently has limited fan support near the SSD heatsink. Pointing a desk fan at the open side of the case lowers the SSD temperature to roughly 45°C, but I'd prefer a permanent solution. The system is used for both gaming and productivity, including high-resolution video work. Is 70°C dangerous for this drive, and should I improve the case airflow or move the SSD to another slot?
4 Answers
70°C is within the normal operating range for a high-end PCIe 5.0 SSD, especially one using the relatively hot E26 controller. It should not be a problem by itself, and the drive will throttle before temperatures become damaging. The factory heatsink is there because these drives run much warmer than older PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 models.
For gaming, 70°C is essentially a non-issue. Moving the drive to a PCIe 4.0 slot would usually make little noticeable difference in everyday use and could reduce temperatures, but you’re unlikely to see a meaningful gaming performance loss either way. Since you also work with very large video files, keeping it in the faster slot is reasonable if you actually benefit from the extra transfer speed.
You can also consider a more substantial M.2 heatsink if the motherboard’s heatsink is not making good contact. However, the current temperature does not require an urgent upgrade. Check the drive’s peak temperature during sustained transfers rather than only during gaming, since the SSD may become hotter when the GPU is idle and there is less warm air movement around it.
The bigger concern is that the case appears to have very little planned airflow. Adding slim intake fans at the rear or bottom, plus an exhaust fan where the case supports one, would improve temperatures for the SSD, GPU, and other components. Even if the SSD is safe at 70°C, better overall airflow is worthwhile. If you relocate the drive, the slot under the graphics card may also be cooler, but don’t sacrifice useful performance solely to avoid a temperature that is still within spec.
That makes sense. I was mostly comparing the temperature to older NVMe drives, so I didn’t realize PCIe 5.0 models were expected to run this hot.