The performance of modern high-end SSDs is highly dependent on their cooling since controllers tend to slow down when they overheat under high loads. Normally, SSD manufacturers equip their products with heatsinks that can do the job well, assuming the drives are not installed adjacent to a high-performance graphics card and that there is sufficient airflow inside the houses. Fanless systems by definition are not equipped with fans, but instead rely on the air naturally brought from outside. Therefore, high-end SSDs can easily overheat, causing performance losses.
Atlast !, specialist in the field of fanless PCs, recently announced (as reported by FanlessTech) that it now equips its Sigao Model B desktop with a special cooling solution that uses heatpipe to cool the motherboard chipset and an M.2 2280 SSD. The solution basically employs a specially machined aluminum plate that covers the chipset and SSD. In addition, the Sigao Model B now houses an ASUS B560 Mini-ITX motherboard on which up to a 10-core Intel Core i9-10900T "Comet Lake" or a "Rocket Lake" Core i9-11900T can be installed. 8 core.
According to a test conducted by the manufacturer, the device, with its rather small dimensions, works quite well. At an ambient temperature of 21 ° C, the Samsung 980 Pro SSD remained idle at 36 ° C. After a few minutes of running an intense 1GB / s read / write test, the temperature increased by 3 ° C. Also, after using the drive for two hours with a heavy load consistently, its temperature is rise only up to 45 ° C, which is well below the warning levels for which there is a decrease in performance. Unfortunately, Atlast! did not reveal the temperatures reached by the component when using only its graphene-based heatsink.
It is necessary to point out that, as the ASUS B560I motherboard used by Atlast! supports two M.2-2280 SSDs, the new Sigao Model B can be equipped with two drives. Finally, the second SSD located on the underside of the motherboard is also thermally connected to the case for its cooling.
If you like mini PCs, on Amazon you can find the Intel NUC with iu-10710U at an attractive price .