don't you have one on the mobo ? https://www.alphacool.com/shop/neue-produkte/20838/alphacool-hdx-m.2-ssd-m01-80mm-schwarz
Ive used the Ek one above and it worked great on my 970pro....but this worked better https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/133090527848?hash=item1efcd04a68:g:hAAAAOSwVXpdCvRY
I have been using this one on my Sabrent Rocket Plus + nvme 4.0 and it has stopped trhottling finally - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FX7JZ7H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Or better yet water cooling - https://www.newegg.com/corsair-cx-9029002-ww-water-blocks/p/N82E16835181231
@chispy what temps are you getting for it to throttle, my 1tb rocket plus never goes above 50c under normal gaming conditions cooled by my Msi x570 Unify heatsink in top slot, I get 69c max running crystal diskmark and that's on the write part of the test....read sits around 60c.
you don't need water cooling,a fan or a tower heatsink for a nvme drive lol K.I.S.S. a good pad+good heatsink will do
with the heatsink on my asrock z590 oc formula it goes to 82c running as ssd benchmark and pcm10 , running on my High point 7505 raid card 4x 2tb sabrent plus in raid0 it reaches 90c+ , hence the crazy cooling for benchmarks. I have not tested water cooling yet but it does help as per the other friends running pcm10 and as ssd in hwbot for benchmarking purposes. Agree for a normal set up , but i'm not running normal my set up my friend. i'm running 4x 2tb Sabrent Plus on a pcix 4.0 raid card on raid0 and it gets toasty , hence i need water cooling for it. i already have the 4 corsair water cooling heatsinks for the crazy set up , bare in mind i'm in the search for maximum performance for benchmarks purposes and not daily use.
Might seem silly but have you ensured you've taken the plastic film off the heat spreader? I have a rocket 4 and I actually didn't realise it even had a plastic film on. When I first installed the drive in my computer under the motherboards cover, the drive ran really really hot 80°c just at idle - took the drive out to inspect and later realised the drive had an incredibly thin plastic film over the copper heatspreader - took the film off and afterwards the temps are down in the 40s
Doesn't your motherboard have one? Else just get one of the cheap ones suggested and be sure to remove that sticker on the 980 Pro as well so that the pad get's proper contact. If the airflow in your case is to restricted you might want to get one of the active options or get better fans/case. Although it should be fine running it as is, throttles first at 85C, you need a really bad vented case to get there.
you only need to cool the controller nand likes being hot when written to but the controller does not cool that and you'll be fine