Adrian Kumar

Run a similar mini ITX build with the M.2 under the GPU and kept the skinny board shield. For gaming and cutting short clips the drive barely moves off idle temps and during a big Steam download or a long export it ramps for a couple minutes then settles, still no throttling. I tried a chunky third party sink and it stole GPU clearance while shaving maybe two degrees, not worth it. If you want a higher end option that stays manageable in small cases, Samsung 990 PRO 1TB has been easy to cool for me. With the flat shield and a fresh 1 mm pad it sits around the 50s to 60s C in games and short bursts may touch the 70s C which is fine, so I would keep the stock plate and focus on a clean airflow path across the board.