Think gen4 drives tend to generally run hot, so would recommend to use the heatsink that it came with or use the mobo one.
Gen 3 too. My 970 Evo Plus 1TB hits 76 degrees when under loads.
I did a lot of researching into the use of NVMe heatsinks and came to the conclusion that it is not necessary at all unless you have very poor cooling (as in no cooling) in the PC case.
Samsung even replied to members who asked them about it on their community forums:
29-05-2020 01:15 AM in
Computers & IT
I received this info from Samsung Support when I qqueried my high temps:
A high drive temperature does not necessarily mean that the drive is faulty, especially if it is within the recommended temperature when used.
Please note that Samsung does not manufacture nor recommend the use of a third-party radiator or heatsink on its SSDs, since it is not necessary.
This is because the 970 EVO Plus has advanced thermal control solutions that enhance performance with reduced heat risk. Dynamic Thermal Guard (DTG) technology proactively prevents overheating, and a heat spreader with an integrated thin copper film dissipates heat more efficiently. Additionally, a nickel coating on the Phoenix controller also helps to dissipate heat faster during heavy workload use in order to ensure the high levels of quality and reliability.
You, therefore, do not need a radiator specifically for your SSD 970 EVO Plus.
Please be informed as well that using a heatsink on your SSD will require the peeling of the label on the drive. Removing the label on your drive will automatically void the drive’s warranty and warranty service will no longer be possible.
Also many comparisons have shown a hotter drive within normal operational temps performs slightly better than a cooler drive due to how flash storage behaves.
Also also, worth noting that when manufacturers state operational temperatures of a drive, they refer to the ambient operational temp the drive is used in, so using the Samsung as an example, they state an operational temp of 0-70 degrees which means the drive can be used in an environment up to 70 degrees, so the thermal threshold of the drive is actually considerably higher anyway and a drive idling what might be considered "hot" at say 60 degrees is in fact perfectly fine. The life will almost certainly still be several years or more.
I chose this 970 Evo Plus because it's been out a while and I've yet to read any failure issues with it, even though it runs what is considered "hot" - But this sort of hot is actually normal running conditions. My SATA SSD an all HDDs in the case are at the 32 degree mark idle for comparison and this is my first NVMe so wasn't sure what the juice is with temps on these things so did some digging to come to this conclusion.