Are subZero Cryo thermal pads good for ssd?

I am looking for a thermal pad for my ssd in my Asus Proart Studiobook Pro 16 laptop, I have found ones called subZero Cryo pads, that show as 21.8 w/mk which seems way higher than most.

Had anyone used them and know if they are as good as they seem?

They are dearer than a lot of others as well.

Regards

James

james_uk said:

, that show as 21.8 w/mk which seems way higher than most.

Click to expand...

In the real world, going for one of the highest available W/mK ratings does not always result in better cooling; the cooling can actually even be worse with exorbitant pricings and be too impractical to use because the pads can be too easily deformed and/or crumbled. Noctua doesn't even specify a W/mK rating for the thermal pastes that they make because the company simply refuses to play the numbers game: Why doesn’t Noctua specify thermal conductivity or thermal resistance of NT-H1 and NT-H2?

james_uk said:

Had anyone used them and know if they are as good as they seem?

Click to expand...

I don't think so, no. Despite their 21.8 W/mK rating probably these will perform worse than the 17.0 W/mK Fujipoly / mod/smart Ultra Extreme XR-m thermal pads, but the latter ones also are soft and fragile, expensive, and they can be hard to find. Either way, I would try Arctic MX-6 thermal paste as opposed to going for those overpriced thermal pads.

Same response to your post at

Which type of SSD, the SATA or the NVMe M.2? Usually there's not much space in a Notebook/Laptop to add more things in them.

hdmi said:

Either way, I would try Arctic MX-6 thermal paste as opposed to going for those overpriced thermal pads.

Click to expand...

But he says (see Berton's post above) he's trying to cool an M.2 NVMe, and I don't think paste is a good idea in that case. I'm assuming he's going to use some kind of a mounting case for his M.2, and he wants a layer of good quality thermal conduction between the disk and the cover.

Is that right, James?

There are plenty of Thermal Pads reasonably priced roughly around 9W/mK to 12W/mK.
I would just forget about expensive ones quoting higher numbers.

You need to look at your SSD and the heatsink/cooling plate. Most M.2 NVMe SSDs have a slightly varying height of chips, also the distance from those to the heatsink/plate when assembled.

A softer thicker pad may do for the whole SSD, but a harder type pad may require two thicknesses like say 1mm and 1.5mm.
Getting this as good as you can is much more useful than overpriced pads quoting much higher thermal conductivity.

I see in that particular Laptop the pad is between the SSDs and the bottom plate.

I dont think my laptop has a plate or heatsink thats over the thermal pad, i think its just stuck on

james_uk said:

I dont think my laptop has a plate or heatsink thats over the thermal pad, i think its just stuck on

Click to expand...

You mean there's just a thermal pad between the NVMe and the air? If so, why the thermal pad? Thermal pads and thermal pastes are intended to conduct heat from a heat source to a radiator of some kind, not just air. If there's nothing to conduct the heat TO, then you'd just be putting a blanket on the NVMe.

Hi, well asus put one on their original ssd so just assumed it would be right to replace it.

I have a feeling it maybe just touched the back plate to may conduct the heat (not sure)
theres a vid on youtube showing an upgrade to the same system, and it shows outlines of where the ssd line up on the rear case, the link if you wish to look at about time 6:37 and you can see the outline on rear casing at 8:25

Asus Proart studiobook 16

james_uk said:

I have a feeling it maybe just touched the back plate to may conduct the heat (not sure)

Click to expand...

Yep. He talks about the plate being aluminum (aluminium). The object, then, is to have a thermal pad thick enough to contact the back plate, so that the back plate can take and dissipate the heat. Are you adding a second NVMe M.2 drive, as he shows in the vid? If so, and if the first drive has a pad, you can do what he shows in the vid: see how thick the pad is on the original, and use that thickness for your new pad. Maybe even a touch thicker, if possible, because the original pad has been squashed a bit by its contact with the aluminum plate since the computer was built..

I am replacing the original but thought It best replacing the pad. I did contact asus and they did the pad they use it's 1.75mm which is a size I've found awkward to find, which is why I was asking about the cryo ones because they do one that size, I have read reviews saying its extremely soft though.
I was thinking of a 2mm would be ok, but if a 1.75 would already be touching the case, I worry the extra size may push on the ssd to much and potentially damage it? I know 0.25mm is extention small, I do wonder if 2mm would be ok grr i just feel like I could damage it.the size difference is that small you would think it would be ok.

Have a look at this page for ideas. Good price range and various thicknesses available.

Arctic MX-6 thermal paste has a fairly high viscosity (45,000 Poise). This prevents the leakage that otherwise could potentially result over time from pump-out, and, performance wise it is right up there with the very best (non liquid metal) thermal pastes there are. There are no cold plates in this laptop's chassis that I can see. It means you'd need to buy an aftermarket low profile M.2 heatsink. For cooling performance I would generally avoid using thermal pads that often come bundled with such heatsinks. The main "trick" would be to apply the MX-6 thermal paste thinly and evenly, and to get the rubber bands on, and to get them on in such a way that the heatsink doesn't start to wiggle/move in the process of getting them on. It takes to be a bit of a creative person to figure out how this can be best achieved. But then, it's a ProArt Studiobook, so...

From what I can see in the pictures on notebookcheck.net, there isn't a whole lot of spacing between this laptop's primary SSD and the bottom cover:



The secondary M.2 socket appears to have a lot more spacing there; it is visible in the bottom left corner of this picture:



So, to not block the airflow between the heatsink that is going to be put onto the SSD in the primary M.2 slot, you really want to avoid choosing the kind of heatsink that doesn't have the correct thickness. Something like this might be able to fit inside: Amazon.co.uk

Further, full copper on the inside of the heatsink is better than an aluminum alloy for sure, but 2mm thickness is still very thin so, chances will be that it won't be able to help much to lower the temperature of the SSD at all. I also don't know what is the exact make and model of the 1TB NVMe SSD that is inside your laptop, but I am guessing that Asus picked an energy efficient one so as to not have it generate too much additional heat and not start to tax the laptop's cooling system with it too much under heavy load. For all of the above reasons, I am inclined to think that adding a heatsink to it is not necessary. Whatever you do, always remember that pulling the copper foil or graphene sticker off of an M.2 SSD usually voids the warranty of the SSD.

Finally, if your plan is to add a secondary NVMe SSD, then there are a lot of additional things to probably want to take into consideration.

Following along from @hdmi's advice ("full copper on the inside of the heatsink is better than an aluminum alloy for sure") if you're going to do this, and if there's any clearance between the heat sink and the aluminum back plate (and there should be for the second M.2 NVMe), have a look at this:

Wisewiz said:

Following along from @hdmi's advice ("full copper on the inside of the heatsink is better than an aluminum alloy for sure") if you're going to do this, and if there's any clearance between the heat sink and the aluminum back plate (and there should be for the second M.2 NVMe), have a look at this:

Amazon.ca

Click to expand...

I am not sure if the bottom cover is aluminum. The notebookcheck.net review article claims that this laptop uses black plastic, but I am reasonably certain that the chassis is aluminum. Maybe the inside of the chassis has plastic parts added to it in some areas, I don't know. The guy in the YouTube video thinks the bottom cover is aluminum, and, in the comments section below the notebookcheck.net article someone else thought the same. Either way, seems like I was wrong about the secondary M.2 slot having enough spacing to be able to add an aftermarket heatsink between the laptop's bottom cover and the SSD and still have enough spacing left for this aftermarket heatsink to receive some airflow. The YouTube video shows that there is not.

hdmi said:

Either way, seems like I was wrong about the secondary M.2 slot having enough spacing to be able to add an aftermarket heatsink between the laptop's bottom cover and the SSD and still have enough spacing left for this aftermarket heatsink to receive some airflow. The YouTube video shows that there is not.

Click to expand...

Okay, so we're back to where OP began: can I put a thermal pad on an M.2 NVMe in this laptop, and if so what pad should I use?
My guess is that the aluminum sheet that comes down over the drives when the laptop is closed again is a sort of heat sink, and that OP just has to pick a pad to replace the original (on the original M.2) or to apply to the second M.2, for which he clearly has the slot on the Mobo. I think I've suggested enough pad solutions for him to choose from.