TechPowerUp
With its 200-series chipset motherboards, MSI introduced its exclusive M.2 Shield accessory on some of its more premium products. This aluminium heatspreader with a thermal pad, according to its makers, is designed to lower temperatures on M.2 SSDs, and reduce thermal throttling of performance. Tests by Gamers Nexus claim that far from reducing throttling, the M.2 Shield creates a "heat trap" that throttles performance further.

The M.2 Shield accessory was tested by Gamers Nexus using a Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe M.2 drive, on an MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. Driven by a Marvell 88SS9293 controller, the drive is known to heat up and lose performance to overheating. The data presented by the publication is Delta T (temperatures subtracting ambient temperature). MSI on its part, stands by the efficacy of the M.2 Shield accessory, and is sharing testing methods and data of its own with media sites. Tests by other publications such as Bit-Tech and KitGuru show positive results for the M.2 Shield.