What is Thermal Throttling?

When it comes to external drives, NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) SSD (Solid State Drives) are some of the fastest drives on the market. If you’re a gamer, you know how incredibly fast load times can be with an NVMe SSD installed in your console or PC. Now, with great speed comes great power, and great power brings great heat. If you noticed, the performance of SSDs have been increasing while the size of the device is shrinking. With that compact size, there is less room to dissipate the heat from the card. Once the heat gets to a certain threshold, thermal throttling starts to happen.

Is it getting hot in here?

Before a card overheats, a thermal sensor inside the card (much like a thermometer) alerts the drive that the increase in performance is causing the card to overheat. Once the card is alerted, it begins to throttle the performance of the drive. The card will begin to lower your data speeds in order to lower the temperature. Each card has its own threshold of when that throttling can begin. It is incredibly important to find that out when buying an SSD card. Lucky, if you don’t want to worry about data throttling, there are cards available that don’t throttle — at all.

But, I don’t want to be throttled

No one wants their game to be hindered, especially when you’re fully immersed. The great news is that WD already has a solution for professionals out there that need more performance without getting throttled.

WD Black SN750 2TB NVMe M.2

read speed: 3400MB/s

write speed 2900MB/s

This is the WD Black SN750 2TB NVMe M.2. What makes this card incredibly outstanding are the read and write speeds. You get top-tier performance for gaming and a huge boost in your system’s overall responsiveness. At the time of writing this, this specific NVMe card is designed for computer use only, as console manufacturers have a specific combability list. The big draw of this card is the Heatsink and design! Remember, when I talked about how no one really wants their performance throttled? Well, WD has created a card with a built-in Heatsink to cool down the card in real time as you play your favorite games. This card is perfect for those always wanting to get the best performance.

WD BLACK SN750 1TB PCIe 3.0 x 4 M.2

read speed: 3,470 MB/s

write speed: 3,000MB/s

If you want an even faster card, then you’ll want to check out the WD BLACK SN750 1TB PCIe 3.0 x 4 M.2. This card has a PCIe Gen3 interface which increases the read and write times further. If your motherboard is compatible with PCIe Gen 3, then I would strongly recommend this one so you’re getting the fastest performance out of your motherboard. This also has built-in Heatsink, which will cool your card during those more intense games.

Both of these cards are designed for the high performer in you! If you’ve felt your games slow down or your load times increase, it might be time to upgrade your card.

How do you use your card?

When looking for an NVMe SSD card, you want to know what you’ll be using it for and where. Do you typically use your computer in a hot location where your devices tend to overheat? Do you love playing games on high settings and performance is incredibly important for you? Once you narrow down how you’ll use your card, it will be easier to find the right one. Both of the WD cards are perfect for those looking to up their performance without worrying about thermal throttling.