As we found out in our testing, overheating can seriously affect NVMe SSDs, particularly with the PCIe 5.0 drives, which we saw hitting temperatures as high as 85C. By that point, thermal throttling kicks in, significantly reducing the SSD’s performance, and consistently extreme temperatures may not be healthy for it. You’re definitely going to need some form of passive or active cooling for your SSD in a high-end rig. Whether you pay out for an NVMe SSD with an integrated heatsink, rely on your motherboard’s supplied heat shield or invest in a third-party solution, NVMe SSD cooling should now be considered essential, rather than optional.