Graugear G-M2HS06 NVMe SSD heatsink review

Pros

• Moderate height of 34mm
• Strong performance

Cons

• Moderate price of $19.95 USD

Graugear is a company that I hadn’t heard of prior to testing SSD heatsinks. Based out of Germany, they produce a variety of peripherals including USB hubs, storage adapters, and SSD heatsinks.

Today’s review will cover their G-M2HS06 SSD heatsink. These heatsinks really could use better names. This model features direct touch heatpipes and two heatsinks to effectively cool the most demanding NVMe SSDs of today and tomorrow.

Packaging

The G-M2HS06 arrives in a small package similar in size to most other units like this on the market. The inside has molded cardboard and plastic coverings to protect the inner contents.

Included in the box are:

• User Manual
• Screwdriver and screws
• Thermal pads of multiple thickness sizes
• Heatsink

Features of the G-M2HS06

Direct Touch Copper Heatpipes

The G-M2HS06 features two sets of direct touch heatpipes. There’s actually 4 pieces of copper heatpipes in total.

Double Heatsinks

There are two heatsinks, one making direct contact with the SSD and the other suspended above the first heatsink hanging from the copper heatpipes.

The installation of this heatsink is the same as (almost) every other heatsink on the market, so I’m not going to bother going over those steps in detail. If you’re reading this review, you already know how to setup one of these units.

Dual sided SSD support, Two sets of thermal pads

It’s worth pointing out this heatsink is designed to help cool both top and bottom sides of a SSD – some units only effectively cool NVMe SSDs on the top. Graugear also includes two sizes of thermal pads to provide the best fit for your storage drive.

Pictures of the installed unit

Here’s two photos showing the unit installed in one of my computers.

Testing Configuration

CPU: Intel i7-13700K
Motherboard: MSI Z690 A Pro DDR4
Computer Case: BeQuiet Silent Base 802, System fans set to low
SSD: TeamGroup T-Force Z540 PCI-e 5 SSD, limited to PCI-e 4 speeds

While the SSD being used is capable of PCI-e 5 speeds, the motherboard is not. This might reduce the total potential heat output, but in my limited testing thus far PCI-e 4 hasn’t prevented testing from getting the drive hot.

Thermal Performance & Comparison Results

To test the performance of the heatsinks cooling ability, I’ve run a custom IOMeter script which takes 30 minutes to complete testing. This script is designed to cause the drive, and especially it’s controller, to create as much heat as possible. You might consider it a “Furmark” of SSD testing, it’s a power virus designed for the purpose of testing NVMe cooling so that these reviews are “futureproof” and can still be used for purchasing decisions even when PCI-e 6 SSDs are burning holes in m.2 slots. (I’m joking. They won’t really get that hot… will they?)

The thermal performance of Graugear’s G-M2HS06 is excellent, amongst the best I’ve seen yet, reaching only 57C when the ambient temperature was 23C.

I’ve color coded the results to give y’all a better idea of how I rank these heatsinks. Users of PCI-e 5 drives are advised to use a heatsink with results colored in green or blue if they intend to run storage intensive workloads.

At the bottom in grey are units which failed my testing, reaching the SSD’s peak temp and throttling. These are the only units which I’m not able to maintain this SSD’s peak performance in PCI-e 4. The units in red technically passed testing, but only because I restricted the test to PCI-e 4 speeds – they fail these tests in a PCI-e 5 platform.

What this means is that unless you’re going to run intense workloads using PCI-e 5, you’ll be fine with anything better than the worst performing heatsinks on the market. But if you want the a futureproof NVMe heatsink that will provide the best thermal performance, you’ll want to purchase a heatsink that falls in my green or blue results.

Here are the performance results of the failing heatsinks, for consideration.

Value Comparison

At $20 USD, Graugear’s G-M2H06 is priced similarly to most other high end heatsinks which are typically priced between $18-$25 USD. It’s performance per dollar is about average for this type of product.

Conclusion

Graugear’s G-M2H06 provides effective NVMe SSD cooling in a moderately sized package that shouldn’t interfere with most air coolers. It is one of the only 7 heatsinks I’ve tested capable of keeping Teamgroup’s Z540 SSD under 60C while undergoing stress testing.