The fact that PCIe 5 SSDs have an integrated heatsink greatly limits the number of computers where they can be installed. A fact that, although apparently of little importance, can put the brakes on a long-distance race that has been going on for years, with units getting faster and faster for the simple fact of doing it.
One of the things that has surprised AMD’s Ryzen 7000 for laptops is the fact that its support for SSD drives does not include those that use the PCIe 5.0 interface to communicate data. The reason? Well, the fact that they all come with a passive heatsink or heatsink that prevents their placement in a laptop.
PCIe 5 SSDs with integrated heatsink bring an important limitation
The advent of M.2 SSDs with PCI Express 5.0 interface has brought with it the appearance of drives with passive heat sink. This is a metal cover designed to move the temperature of the unit to the outside. All of this would not be noteworthy if it were not for the fact that up to now these storage units had generally been sold bare, that is, with the board and chips without any type of cover.
This has caused a good part of the new generation units cannot be placed in many laptops or systems with limited space, such as the PS5 video game console, cannot use these units. Although it is true that at the moment these systems do not support M.2 SSDs with PCIe Gen 5, we must understand that the backward compatibility provided by said interface for internal components allows the new units to be used in the PCI Express of previous generations.
However, this raises a question about the future of the fastest solid-state storage zones, since this makes them exclusive to tower computers, where PCIe 5 SSDs with a heatsink are not limited by space and temperature. It is not a problem.
Its adoption will be limited
The big problem with each generation of M.2 SSDs is that we must be able to connect all the drives on the market and if we want to expand the bandwidth, we cannot change the motherboard connector to connect one more. width without sending to the fret millions of units available in the market. However, this has the disadvantage that energy consumption rises and with it the heat released by the unit.
This is something about which the entire industry has tiptoed to comment and it is necessary to highlight the fact that, for example, AMD itself, a company that has promoted the use of these units to the maximum for its Ryzen 7000 desktops in laptops, does not it does this by making the PCIe lanes that go to the solid state drive fourth generation and not fifth generation. This further highlights the problem that these require a dissipation unit that prevents their placement in many industrial designs.
And it is that increasing the height of a computer is not a trivial matter, especially due to the fact that an extra millimeter or two, although they seem like a trifle to us, can make an entire computer go through the design table again. On the other hand, let’s not forget that these units far exceed the power required today.
