3 ms·
One of the issues with M.2 in desktop PCs is how buried from the airflow they are, and often they're literally on the exhaust side of the GPU (many GPUs exhaust
by formerly_proven 3y ago
One of the issues with M.2 in desktop PCs is how buried from the airflow they are, and often they're literally on the exhaust side of the GPU (many GPUs exhaust on both long edges, and many motherboards just so happen to have an M.2 slot under the PEG) or in the air-flow dead-zone between PEG and CPU cooler.
Overall the AT(X) form factor, with extension cards slotting in at a 90° angle, just doesn't work all that well for efficient heat removal. DHE takes away I/O slot space and requires high static pressures (so high fan RPMs), it works for headless servers, but that's about it. The old-fashioned way of a backplane and orthogonal airflow does work much better for stuff like this; but it also requires a card cage and is not very flexible in terms of card dimensions. The one saving grace of ATX is that cards and their cooling solutions can grow in length and height, GPUs are much taller than a normal full-height card, and many are much longer than a full-length card is supposed to be as well.
- jackmott42 3y agoThis isn't really an issue because everyone's M.2 is working fine. You have to construct absurd scenarios to cause problems. Use a case with bad airflow, a hot GPU, and a workload that is pushing the gpu and m.2 and cpu to their limits indefinitely, which isn't a real life thing. and if it IS a real life thing because you have some special use case, you use a case with good airflow.
- zamadatix 3y agoI think this depends on what the definition of fine and problems is. IMO most don't even notice when their drive throttles due to thermals so it's probably fine that the drives get hot. At the same time, as newer drives keep drawing more and more power, this is going to start to push the limits of "well why did I buy the fast drive in the first place" if they didn't come with these ever increasing cooling solutions as well.
- alberth 3y ago> ”Overall the AT(X) form factor, with extension cards slotting in at a 90° angle, just doesn't work all that well for efficient heat removal.” To give an example of this, here’s a server from a huge cloud provider for a brand new AMD 7700 on an ATX board. Those 90° angles make for horrible airflow. https://twitter.com/PetrCZE01/status/1637122488025923585 https://twitter.com/PetrCZE01/status/1637122488025923585
- mordae 3y agoYeah, but X470D4U and similar boards are so overpriced one can somewhat relate to people using gaming boards for servers. Especially since a lot of them route ECC pins nowadays. I sure wasn't happy paying extra just to have a different board layout with mostly the same components. Well, there's IPMI at least. Still not worth the price tag.
- dx034 3y agoIt should be clear that this was only shot for marketing purposes. I don't think they actually run cables like that, but it probably looked better to have cables visible in the picture.
- alberth 3y agoDo you know this for a fact? Or are you speculating.
- ilyt 3y agoThat look more like "you put powersupply on wrong side". But yeah, most servers have risers that flip the cards to be parallel to the board.
- hgsgm 3y agoThat looks like a ribbon cable blocking the fan?
- CrimsonRain 3y agoAll of it doesn't matter because SSDs like being hot.
- Asooka 3y agoI'm water cooling both the CPU and GPU in my PC and have found out that leads to virtually no airflow over the m.2 slot. For now I've simply placed a fan aimed directly at the slot on top of the GPU and that keeps the SSD at a 50 to 60C. I am considering installing a water block on the SSD when I do maintenance next.
- numpad0 3y agoPeople are buying gaming branded PEG propping sticks and sustainer wires because high end PEGs are sagging, and neither the case nor the card support that front slot for full length cards. It’s well past the time for a card cage spec as far as I can see from the user perspective.