Heatspreaders on RAM, use Thermal tape or AS3?

strokeside · Aug 27, 2003

I just got heat spreaders for my RAM, and they come with adhesive thermal tape which you use to stick them on with, and clamps to clamp them in place (they are the ThermalTake ones).

Seeing as the spreaders already have clamps to hold them in place, could I use Arctic Silver 3 instead of the tape, and would it improve my performance any?

Just lookin for any way to get more.
s.

vonkaar · Aug 27, 2003

IMHO, ram doesn't put out enough heat for you to notice any difference between the tape and a high-end TIM. I'm sure that there *is* a lower temperature with AS3 over tape, but I doubt you would see it... probably something like 0.05°C.

Kino · Aug 27, 2003

i would stick to the thermal tape, you dont NEED ASIII for ram, its just overkill

Bull · Aug 27, 2003

I would definitely not use AS3 for your ram. There is too much of a chance to get it on the traces. Maybe if you had some non conductive paste it might help. I would try the tape first and then if you think that it needs more cooling then try a non conductive paste but I think that it might be overkill. JMO

Mizzery · Aug 27, 2003

The other thing about using any thermal paste on ram, is your assuming that all the ram chips are the same height. Using a paste that you spread as thin as as3 will probabally leave poor contact on some of the chips cause i'm sure there are small diffs in their height.

Sterculus · Aug 28, 2003

The tape should work just fine. As everyone else has said, the risks of using the ASIII on the RAM are not worth what marginal benefits it would net you.

Janissary · Aug 28, 2003

I wonder if ramsinks are any good, the ram chips don't have their cores exposed so that they would dissipate their heat directly to a ramsink. Ramchips are coated with an insulating material, applying additional tape would make the heat transfer horrible, and as Mizzery said there are lots of chips soldered on a memory stick and I don't think that they are even in height so some of the single memory chips would never have contact to the sink.
I am sure that a fan directly blowing on the bare chips would be far more efficient then any ramsink.

lyle · Aug 28, 2003

Crucial doesn't put heatspreaders on their RAM, and it seems to me that it performs pretty well without them.

slater3333uk · Aug 28, 2003

I agree that heat spreders are totaly worthless and in theory could attualy make ram run hotter than just blowing air over the bare chips.

The only reason that ram manufactures such as corsair use them are to make the sticks "look" faster! They do nothing towards attualy making the ram run any faster or eaven cooler there just there to make the chips look better than the other brand!

They could attualy act as a insulator!!

If you was running ram at a super o/c with lots of volts then a much better solution would be individual hsinks on each chip glued with thermal epoxy. But that wont work if you have more than one stick so you might as well stick with the bare chips and a large fan!

Yodums · Aug 28, 2003

I prefer airflow over those heatspreaders. They seem to be more of an eye candy thing than performance. Yes, they do seem restrictive. From what I've read a long time ago, they only provided a degree difference from just nothing, so I don't think the 20.00 that goes into them would be worth it and the risk if you plan to use AS3 which is reallllllly risky considering one lil trace of AS3 that goes into the lead would screw up a good stick.

Trust me, depend on air moving over the ram than ramsinks.

Tc3 Toad · Aug 28, 2003

Dont you cool better with more surface area???

lets say you have a stick of 512mb of ram it has 16 chips that are 2.2cm x 1cm now miltiply that by 16 and you have 35.2cm squared. With a heat speader you have 13.3cm x 2.8cm x 2 =78.48 cm squared of heat dissapation. I think it would cool better.

my .02 cents

Kino · Aug 29, 2003

true that, BUT!!!
what use for the heatspreaders if heat transfer from the ram chips to the heatspeaders sucks?

my 2 cents

Tc3 Toad · Aug 29, 2003

It depends what kind of heatspreders you have. I had one that was bad and it got so hot that it changed color. The one i have now Thermaltake, works great.

Wiggins · Sep 11, 2003

I bought some copper heat spreaders for my ram strictly 'cause it makes it look good when you see it through the side case window...I would like to believe it absorbs heat though...the ram performs no better or worse with or without them...

they sure look pretty though....

Mizzery · Sep 11, 2003

I have little copper sinks, and I'm betting that if i epoxied one individually to each chip i may see some performance, but ram chips won't get all that warm as long as you keep air moving over them. This is why i like side panel fans. They help not only the cpu (for air cooled units) but the nb, ram, mofsets everything, cause they blow cooler air all over the board. Heatspreaders have never impressed me because the increase in surface area is hindered by the additional thermal interfaces (ram to tape, tape to metal)

Heatspreaders on RAM, use Thermal tape or AS3?

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