This water-cooled SSD from XPG is one of the coolest things I've seen at Computex

An XPG watercooled SSD at Computex 2023
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

If one thing is clear from Computex 2023, its that PCIe 5.0 SSDs are finally making it to market, and that water cooling is going to touch every part of our PC builds in the future, as evidenced by the two coming together in this awesome water-cooled SSD prototype shown off by XPG.

The PCIe 5.0 SSD, called the XPG Project NeonStorm, is a PCIe 5.0 x4 SSD with a read/write performance of 14,000 MB/s and 12,000 MB/s, respectively. That's great in itself, but the real appeal of this SSD is the extruded water cooler. To be clear, this isn't a pumped cooler as you get with the AIO coolers for the best processors and best graphics cards.

In this case, the water surrounds an aluminum structure with front and rear fans blowing air to carry away heat, but this is the first time I've seen one ready-made like this for sale as a complete unit and not a block that you can integrate into a cooling loop like the Hydro X Series XM2 M.2 SSD Water Block from Corsair.

The XPG NeonStorm is much more like the Asus Matrix GeForce RTX 4090, or the MSI Suprim RTX 4090 with an AIO cooler, which comes with a self-contained water-cooling solution. This is a great middle-ground for people who want to get the benefits of water cooling without having to go through the expense of designing a full custom water loop system for their PCs, which can get very expensive, very quickly.

Performance equals heat, so new cooling solutions are needed

As we get better and faster-performing PC components like SSDs, graphics cards, processors, and even RAM, the power requirements for these components are only trending up (though there are some notable exceptions for individual parts).

And, as any electrical engineer will tell you, more power means more heat, and running parts too hot will absolutely degrade both your performance and the part itself, so passive cooling and even fans are increasingly insufficient for the tasks.

The obvious solution is water cooling, which has been shown to dramatically improve thermals on processors, so it's natural to expect this to make its way down to subsidiary components as well. It likely won't be too much longer before all four of the major PC components are going to be water-cooled, but on the plus side, it will make for some very interesting configurations and generally improved performance. 

John Loeffler
Components Editor

John (He/Him) is the Components Editor here at TechRadar and he is also a programmer, gamer, activist, and Brooklyn College alum currently living in Brooklyn, NY.

Named by the CTA as a CES 2020 Media Trailblazer for his science and technology reporting, John specializes in all areas of computer science, including industry news, hardware reviews, PC gaming, as well as general science writing and the social impact of the tech industry.

You can find him online on Bluesky @johnloeffler.bsky.social

Read more
Micron PCIe 6.x SSD
Micron just demoed the world's fastest SSD with PCIe 6.x tech, a sequential read speed of 27GB/s, and yes, it's just a prototype for now
Motherboard close up on PCIe slots
What is PCIe 5.0? The latest component bandwidth standard explained
T-FORCE GE PRO PCIe 5.0 SSD
I can't wait to test the world's first 8TB PCIe 5.0 SSD, and I'm sure this one won't be too expensive
Samsung 9100 Pro SSD
Finally, Samsung's first PCIe 5.0 SSD that you can actually buy is here; after a nearly two-year wait, meet the 9100 Pro
Nvidia Orin Nano and Solidigm D5-P5336
World's first 122.88TB SSD gets 'reviewed' with two very odd bedfellows: the controversial DeepSeek and Nvidia's Jetson Orin AI SBC
Anker USB-C cable
I am so looking forward to get rid of my slow USB 3.2 portable SSDs thanks to these faster USB 4 models
Latest in Storage & Backup
SAMSUNG T7 Portable SSD in gray on magenta pink background with price cut text on it
This spacious 2TB Samsung Portable SSD drops to its lowest price in over a year
SanDisk portable SSD on a blue background
Get a 2TB portable SSD for less than $0.07 per GB in this limited-time deal at Amazon
An Orico O7000 SSD on a table with its retail packaging
Orico O7000 SSD review: high-end PCIe 4.0 storage without the frills
A PC Gamer looking happy sat in front of their desktop monitor
Looking at buying an SSD? Hold fire for now – prices are predicted to drop (and on top of that, Black Friday is on the horizon)
External hard drive
How to fix an external hard drive that's not showing up
Staples Task Chair in a home office
This budget office chair gets a massive discount, dropping below $50
Latest in News
Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses
Samsung's rumored smart specs may be launching before the end of 2025
Apple iPhone 16 Review
The latest iPhone 18 leak hints at a major chipset upgrade for all four models
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Monday, March 24 (game #1155)
NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background
NYT Strands hints and answers for Monday, March 24 (game #386)
NYT Connections homescreen on a phone, on a purple background
NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, March 24 (game #652)
Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand
Quordle hints and answers for Sunday, March 23 (game #1154)