The Alphacool Eisblock HDX-3 water block offers outstanding cooling for your M.2 SSD. Continuous, substantial data transfer can dramatically lower the performance of an M.2 SSD without cooling, potentially reducing performance to as little as 10% of its actual capability. Transferring large amounts of data heats up the memory controller and chips until a safety mechanism activates, severely throttling the SSD’s performance. This issue can be mitigated by actively cooling the SSD. After developing the HDX M.2 water block for motherboards with M.2 slots and the passively-cooled HDX-2 PCIe water block, Alphacool has advanced further with the Eisblock HDX-3 to provide a water cooling solution to this problem.

The M.2 SSD is secured onto a PCIe card and then mounted onto the water block. The water block is constructed from nickel-plated copper with a screwed-on acetal lid. Water flows over the entire SSD within the block, ensuring optimal heat transfer away from the M.2 SSD. Using G1/4” connectors, the water block can be connected to any standard water cooling loop.

The PCIe card is inserted into a 4xPCIe slot and secured to the case. It allows data to be transferred at speeds of up to 3900 MB/s, which is significantly faster than most SSDs can utilize. This represents a 600% improvement over conventional 2.5” SATA-SSDs, whose maximum bandwidth is 640 MB/s. Even compared to motherboard slots, the plug-in card combined with the water block offers substantially higher transfer rates. M.2 SSDs on motherboards are often connected to a 2xPCIe slot, which halves the maximum data transfer rate. Additionally, it is challenging to adequately cool an M.2 SSD on a motherboard, as the graphics card is typically mounted directly above or below it, generating significant heat in the surrounding area.

With the Alphacool Eisblock HDX-3, you can avoid these issues and achieve optimal performance from your M.2 SSD.