I recently submitted my order for a Minis Forum HX90 (specs) and being that I am looking to use it to replace my very hot Intel NUC that I had previously written about (it's back up to 100 C nominal now), and that I might also be offload all of the virtualisation duties as well from my Intel Core i7-6700K system and onto this new system instead. As such, I didn't know if said new system would support RAID0 with my two existing Samsung EVO 850 1 TB SATA 6 Gbps SSDs that are no longer currently deployed in a system, so I figured that I was going to get a 2 TB NVMe SSD just to be safe and I landed on this - an Intel 670p Series 2 TB NVMe 3.0 x4 SSD (specs).
Whilst browsing through YouTube, I stumbled my way upon a video where they were talking about NVMe SSD and putting heatsinks on them and how they would thermal throttle the performance if said NVMe SSD got too hot whilst it was being used/under load.
So, that got me thinking - should I start looking and seeing if I should be getting a NVMe SSD heatsink of my own for this drive?
So, I reached out to the customer support at Minis Forum (based out of Hong Kong, which is interesting because their first email back to me was written entirely in Traditional Chinese), so I asked them about a SSD heatsink (because some of the review units that they've sent to other tech YouTubers included a NVMe SSD with a heatsink pre-installed in the system) and they told me that the total height that the HX90 can take, INCLUDING the NVMe SSD is 7 mm.
So, ok. No problems, right? If I can find out what's the overall height of the Intel 670p Series 2 TB NVMe 3.0 x4 SSD, then I can figure out what's the maximum height of a heatsink the HX90 can accept, and then I can start to look into what are my purchasing options.
So, then I reached out to Intel's customer support, because of course, lo and behold, the overall height of the Intel 670p Series 2 TB NVMe 3.0 x4 SSD isn't listed on their spec page.
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| Huh. No overall physical dimensions listed on Intel's website. |
So I reached out to Intel's customer service and asked them this basic question and also told them that it was because the manufacturer of the computer has told me what the maximum height of the combined SSD and heatsink can be so that I can properly size and purchase said heatsink. Their customer service rep said that they understand why I was asking for this information and would need to do further research on this topic/matter and that they would get back to me. Okay. Not a big deal.
Well earlier today, I got an email from said customer service rep stating quote:
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| Why would Intel keep the overall physical dimensions of their product under a NDA? |
So, at this point, it seemed awfully suspicious.
I told them that I am not asking on behalf of the company where I work, and therefore; I have no idea if they have a signed NDA with Intel or not. (And frankly, that shouldn't matter because a customer should be able to ask for the overall physical dimensions of their product (and not the overall dimensions of the box/packaging that their product gets shipped in either).)
I then told them that I will just measure my drive when it arrives and that as such, I will not be signing a NDA in regards to this.
Well, about 3 hours later, my drive arrived.
So, for those that are interested in knowing, the overall physical dimensions of the Intel 670p Series 2 TB NVMe 3.0 x4 SSD are:
Overall length: 80.12 mm
Overall width: 22.05 mm
Overall height: 2.0525 mm (average of 2.09 mm, 2.06 mm, 1.97 mm, and 2.09 mm)
So, in case you're out trying to shop for a NVMe heatsink, and you're trying to use it for a small form factor (SFF) or ultra compact form factor (UCFF) build, now you know the height of the NVMe heatsink you can get.
