Issues with gaming on an NVME SSD?

[N0REGARD4LIFE]

I finally ordered an NVME SSD so I can move some of my games over for quicker loading times. I'm wondering if gaming on one of these will make it generate a lot of heat? My motherboard has heatsinks for this with a thermal pad, but the slot is literally right above my GPU but I do have great air flow in my case. Any concerns about heat with these drives?

[Omega]

The flash on the SSD runs best when hot.

Gaming is not heavy on the disk at all. It's almost a waste to put games on such a fast disk since they will barely use it.

Heat is only an issue when you run these drives at 100% for hours.

[N0REGARD4LIFE]

Originally posted by Omega:

The flash on the SSD runs best when hot.

Gaming is not heavy on the disk at all. It's almost a waste to put games on such a fast disk since they will barely use it.

Heat is only an issue when you run these drives at 100% for hours.

I meant PCIE nvme if that makes a difference. I already have an SSD as my OS drive but it's only 120gb, I just wanted to speed up games that had longer load times that are on my HDD.

[Chompman]

Originally posted by N0REGARD4LIFE:

Originally posted by Omega:

The flash on the SSD runs best when hot.

Gaming is not heavy on the disk at all. It's almost a waste to put games on such a fast disk since they will barely use it.

Heat is only an issue when you run these drives at 100% for hours.

I meant PCIE nvme if that makes a difference. I already have an SSD as my OS drive but it's only 120gb, I just wanted to speed up games that had longer load times that are on my HDD.

Your loading times on this and a normal ssd will be nearly identical in most cases however with such a small ssd you may as well load your games on it if it has the space.

Otherwise the amount of heat it produces will be minimal for gaming and as long as you have normal airflow it should not be an issue really.

[vadim]

Originally posted by Omega:

The flash on the SSD runs best when hot.

Why do you think so?

[Spec_Ops_Ape]

Originally posted by vadim:

Originally posted by Omega:

The flash on the SSD runs best when hot.

Why do you think so?

Some third party site says so. I've never been able to find this information from the manufacturers directly, Samsung, Micron nor SK Hynix.

[Omega]

Originally posted by vadim:

Originally posted by Omega:

The flash on the SSD runs best when hot.

Why do you think so?

It runs more efficient, is less prone to errors and lasts longer when hot. I am talking about the NAND flash memory here. The controller of the drive needs to run cold.

[tacoshy]

Actually it's true. Hardware to cold will not operate well, that's why hardcore OC team have a poor guys that has to monitor temps and either cool it with LN2 or heat up again with a gas burner (no joke)

[Omega]

Originally posted by tacoshy:

Actually it's true. Hardware to cold will not operate well, that's why hardcore OC team have a poor guys that has to monitor temps and either cool it with LN2 or heat up again with a gas burner (no joke)

We are talking about normal operating temps here. 20c-100c.

Computers run more efficient when hot. That is the reason some data centers have a high ambient temperature, it's to reduce power usage.

With SSDs there are some other thigns which it also affects like the wear on the drive and how prone it is to error.

[Supafly]

Shouldn't be an issue. Samsung 970 is fine upto 70 degrees C. If you actually get that hot it'll throttle performance. I gaming you likely won't notice and once a level has loaded it'll drop fairly quick.

If you will be using it intensely for hours, encoding videos or something, or just want lower temps you could look at m.2 Heatsinks. They're pretty cheap. I'd use HWmonitor and watch the temp first and decide if you really want to spend money on them.

Got an Ek m.2 Heatsink as a gift over the Hols. Haven't monitored temps before of even after attaching it so I have no idea if and how much cooler my drive is. Looks nice but my case is to the left of my desk and not inverted so I can't see inside it anyway

Comes in various colours.
https://www.ekwb.com/shop/water-blocks/ssd-blocks/m2-heatsinks

[Lord Flashheart]

Originally posted by N0REGARD4LIFE:

I finally ordered an NVME SSD so I can move some of my games over for quicker loading times. I'm wondering if gaming on one of these will make it generate a lot of heat? My motherboard has heatsinks for this with a thermal pad, but the slot is literally right above my GPU but I do have great air flow in my case. Any concerns about heat with these drives?

An NVMe drive will help with loading times with some games but mostly not.

My suggestion is if you have a modern Ryzen setup is to use storeMI. Pair a 256GB NVMe drive and a sata ssd together. I creates a single drive where the most accessed data if places on the fastest drive. It will mean the your most often played games will load as fast as practical.

[InfinityJosh]

Originally posted by Omega:

Originally posted by tacoshy:

Actually it's true. Hardware to cold will not operate well, that's why hardcore OC team have a poor guys that has to monitor temps and either cool it with LN2 or heat up again with a gas burner (no joke)

We are talking about normal operating temps here. 20c-100c.

Computers run more efficient when hot. That is the reason some data centers have a high ambient temperature, it's to reduce power usage.

With SSDs there are some other thigns which it also affects like the wear on the drive and how prone it is to error.

AFAIK hot temperatures aren't a big deal for PC components.

[L37]

Originally posted by vadim:

Why do you think so?

It is kind of true. Not as simple as it sounds but in general - writing to flash causes less wear when its warm. But also staying warm it looses charge (=>stored data) faster. There is plenty of stuff you can find online about it, but general conclusion i made for myself after reading some of it - Cool the controller, it is just an arm SoC, it gets hot and getting hot is plain bad for it. But do not touch the flash itself - it will get warm naturally when a lot of writes happen and it is good, then it will cool down to near ambient when idle assuming there is some airflow and it is good too.
I generally try to stick small heatsink (one of those that were made some time ago for vram chips on cards that have no vram heatsinks) on to controller using sticky thermal pad or thermal glue when practical.

Originally posted by Omega:

...
Computers run more efficient when hot. That is the reason some data centers have a high ambient temperature, it's to reduce power usage.

Most silicon components are less efficient when hot. Increased leaks, incresed power draw, higher heat generation. Datacenters want higher temps for another reason - cooling datacenter as a whole is much more efficient this way, especially it can stay at ~ambient.

[N0REGARD4LIFE]

Originally posted by Chompman:

Originally posted by N0REGARD4LIFE:

I meant PCIE nvme if that makes a difference. I already have an SSD as my OS drive but it's only 120gb, I just wanted to speed up games that had longer load times that are on my HDD.

Your loading times on this and a normal ssd will be nearly identical in most cases however with such a small ssd you may as well load your games on it if it has the space.

Otherwise the amount of heat it produces will be minimal for gaming and as long as you have normal airflow it should not be an issue really.

That's great. As long as they are better than they are on my hard drives I'll be happy. Especially with destiny 2 and Witcher. Even if it's a slight improvement I will take it. I had planned on grabbing another sata 3 drive but I wanna keep my case free of clutter and more wires as I've got an SSD and 2 1TB hdds packed in my meshify C. PCIE nvme seemed the way to go.

[tacoshy]

itcher 1 and 2 has no improvement on a NVMe SSD. Witcher 3 can have more stable FPS if you have low ammoutns of RAM and have the OS on the NVMe SSD. But Witcher 3 doesnt have so many savepoints that maybe a loading point drop from 2 seconds to 1.9 seconds will make a difference.

[N0REGARD4LIFE]

Originally posted by tacoshy:

itcher 1 and 2 has no improvement on a NVMe SSD. Witcher 3 can have more stable FPS if you have low ammoutns of RAM and have the OS on the NVMe SSD. But Witcher 3 doesnt have so many savepoints that maybe a loading point drop from 2 seconds to 1.9 seconds will make a difference.

What about destiny 2?