Question Can I do without a heatsink on a 3.0 pci slot/mobo? i'm going to upgrade to 4.0 next year, but have an older board now. it's an M.2 drive.

[LetsPlayThisBro]

I asked this on the product page of Amazon for the M.2 I bought and had hoped Sabrent would have answered, as it stands I've gotten two answers from others, one saying you MUST have a heatsink, the other says they have 2 M.2 drives on PCI-3 slots and have no problems without the heatsink. As it stands I can't put the heatsink on because I have a massive heatsink on my CPU which wouldn't allow the M.2 heatsink to be on at the same time.

So I'm curious the consensus here before I go ahead with it. Thanks in advance.

 

[mdd1963]

Most existing M.2 NVME PCI-e 3.0 drives really don't need heatisnks, and, the ones that had them from the box were largely for cosmetic purposes, with some doing better under massive writing tests with the decorative sinks actually removed...

 

[LetsPlayThisBro]

Most existing M.2 NVME PCI-e 3.0 drives really don't need heatisnks, and, the ones that had them from the box were largely for cosmetic purposes, with some doing better under massive writing tests with the decorative sinks actually removed...

Thing is this is a PCI-e 4 drive, but I'll be installing it on a mobo with only a 3.0 capacity. I know I'm writing this in a confusing way. I wanted this drive because I'll eventually upgrade to a new mobo where I can use the PCI-e 4.0 capability and at that point I will look for a mobo that will allow the heatsink to be installed with my CPU heatsink at the same time.