M.2 SSD owners listen up! SilverStone has announced a new TP02-M2 aluminum alloy heatsink that supports drives up to 80mm in length. Specifically designed for M.2 SSDs, this kit provides an anodized heatsink, thermal pads for both single- and double-sided M.2 SSDs, and silicone bands for easy, non-permanent installation that won’t damage your drive.
Although many high-end desktop and enthusiast-level motherboards come equipped with M.2 heatsinks, the majority of motherboards today do not. If your particular motherboard does not offer an M.2 cooling option, SilverStone’s TP02-M2 cooling kit is a viable option to prevent thermal throttling caused by excessive heat. By design, M.2 SSDs scale back performance or “throttle” to prevent damage when operating temperatures get too high.
Excessive heat can be caused by several different factors, including simple tasks such as sustained data transfers. Even the physical location of the M.2 slot on your motherboard and the surrounding components can adversely affect temperatures. M.2 slots that are located between PCIe x16 slots on the motherboard place your M.2 SSD very close to your GPU or, for SLI and CrossFire users, between two graphics cards. The heat generated by a multi-GPU setup can add excessive heat to an already hot M.2 drive, thus causing your SSD to scale back performance.
Installation is a fairly straightforward process. SilverStone recommends using the included 1.5mm-thick thermal pad for single-sided M.2 drives and the 1mm pad for double-sided drives. If one thermal pad is not thick enough to make contact with both the M.2 SSD and your motherboard or adapter card, the company suggests carefully sandwiching both included thermal pads in the TP02-M2 kit together, creating a pad thick enough that the heat from your M.2 SSD can be transferred to the motherboard or adapter card.
Given the fact that the TP02-M2 M.2 heatsink measures 10 x 20 x 70mm (H x D x L), its size may interfere with other system components located close to the M.2 slot. SilverStone recommends using an alternate M.2 slot away from PCI-E slots when possible.
Pricing and availability were not available at the time of writing. We have reached out to the company for more information.
