Adding water cooling to an SSD is certainly a rare occurrence, but it’s not unheard of. To that end, Alphacool isn’t breaking new ground with its new full-cover water block for the Intel Optane SSD 900P, but if there is an SSD that deserves to be water cooled, it’s this one. When we reviewed it, we found that the 900P delivered some stunningly epic levels of performance.
Alphacools calls its new block the HDX - Intel Optane SSD900P. In essence, it’s just like a full-cover water block for a graphics card that’s been scaled to fit the smaller surface of the 900P. The main block is composed of nickel-coated copper, and the top plate is transparent plexi. Water enters and exits through two standard G1/4-threaded connections on the block’s side.
We didn’t detect any throttling caused by temperatures when we tested the 900P (it comes with a beefy heatsink attached already), but we know practicality doesn’t always drive the will to water cool. If some are compelled to water-cool RAM and PSUs, then why should SSDs be left out?
The Alphacool HDX - Intel Optane SSD900P is available now in Europe at Alphacool’s website for a price equivalent to ~$85. Alphacool doesn’t do direct sales in North America, but we suspect it won’t be long before authorized distributors like Newegg bring the HDX to this side of the pond.
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mcconkeymike I get that some M.2 drives will thermal throttle, but dang really? I totally get water cooling the GPU, CPU, and the areas around the CPU, but the RAM, PSU, and now the M.2??? This is getting weird.Reply -
stdragon Reply20922018 said:I get that some M.2 drives will thermal throttle, but dang really? I totally get water cooling the GPU, CPU, and the areas around the CPU, but the RAM, PSU, and now the M.2??? This is getting weird.
It's not an M.2 drive, rather a PCIe card.
That said, with having an endurance rating of 10 DWPD, you'd have to be performing some serious video editing to find a need to cool off this puppy. I just don't see burst writing being enough to heat-soak an aluminum heat spreader. This is a water cooling solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. -
Eliad Buchnik Reply20922502 said:20922018 said:I get that some M.2 drives will thermal throttle, but dang really? I totally get water cooling the GPU, CPU, and the areas around the CPU, but the RAM, PSU, and now the M.2??? This is getting weird.
It's not an M.2 drive, rather a PCIe card.
That said, with having an endurance rating of 10 DWPD, you'd have to be performing some serious video editing to find a need to cool off this puppy. I just don't see burst writing being enough to heat-soak an aluminum heat spreader. This is a water cooling solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
an optane drive would consume somewhere between 10-20 Watts of power , the normal stock heat spreader is more than enough for this kind of TDP , there also a M.2 water cooling block but it is as useful as this block
but foe people with M.2 that do suffer from thermal throttling (almost every Nvme M.2 drive out there) few companies sell heat-sink that you can put on which will solve the thermal throttling issues. -
Brian_R170 Has anyone ever detected that a 900P was thermal throttling where it would actually benefit from better cooling?Reply