My 990 Pro 4TB rarely gets above 40c. Unless I am copying large files between nvmes.
Bare drive without heatsink easily throttles.
In fact you don't even need gen4, virtually every bare gen3 drive can temperature throttle just by copying large files to it.
No. I ran a gen 3 drive and it got only just warm without a heatsink. However, it was a slow DRAM-less drive, the
WD SN550.
As for my 990 Pro 4 TB, stuck inside an external USB 4 enclosure, it idles at 40-41C and with large file transfers, it stays well below 50C.
However, that USB 4 enclosure is designed as a giant heatsink, and is made out of 250 g of aluminum. Here are some pics showing the depth of the fins of the enclosure.
Also, even though the 990 Pro 4 TB is a single-sided SSD. I put thermal pads on both sides of the drive. When I had a thermal pad on only the NAND/controller side, it would peak around 55C or so. With a thermal pad on both sides, it now peaks below 50C.
Anyhow, since we're already at PCIe 4.0 speeds, I think the manufacturers are generally chasing the wrong target. Sure, the enthusiasts might want super fast speeds, but the mainstream needs cooler drives. We should not have to resort to only DRAM-less solutions for cool drives. It would be nice to see DRAM-endowed drives which don't run so hot and which don't require these types of heatsinks.
I wish I could buy something like an SK Hynix P31 Gold in 4 TB and 8 TB sizes.