I've been looking into ways to get cooler operating temps out of my nvme during gaming. I've read and heard that they are supposed to be safe up into the ~70c range but that just seems a bit high for my comfort zone.
I was able to add an
aftermarket heatsink (a little bit thicker than the stock Aorus one) along with a 40mm noctua fan that I painted black. I know its completely hidden from view but I just hate the way the noctua tan clashes with everything. I bent a tiny bracket out of aluminum that I screwed to the fan and then super glued to the motherboard wifi i/o.
I've been using Time Spy to test the system, which I know isn't the most accurate representation of system stress but it is a gpu heavy test (since I really only use this for gaming) and is a good way of seeing results right away.
With the new heatsink and fan installed I did a few Time Spy runs I was getting noticable decreases in temps on cpu, gpu, and nvme. After seeing this I decided to try a 4.1 ghz OC on my cpu. (this was the OC I ran on it prior to tearing my old system apart to build this sleeper, which I haven't been able to do due to drastic system temp increases.)
After fan install, before OC:
After OC:
For reference, the max temps I was getting BEFORE the fan install were (see max):
cpu: 68c nvme: 58c gpu: 54c
And here are the temps during the OC run (see max):
cpu: 78c nvme: 48c gpu: 49c
5c drop on gpu temps and
10c DROP ON NVME TEMPS!!!
I wasn't sure where the weird 78c spike came from on the CPU because I thought I was watching the temps carefully and I didnt see anything reach even 70.
So, I decided to do a Cinebench run with the OC to see if I could replicate it.
As you can see here the highest it hit was 71c. I'll have to look at it again when I have some more time but I am super stoked that adding a simple 40mm fan was able to drop temps and allow me to OC my cpu again.
I'm guessing that the fan not only helps blow air over the nvme but also somewhat towards the exhaust, keeping hot air from sitting stagnant under the backside of the gpu die and around the cpu.
