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Water Cooling 7800GTX

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MasterG

Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
Location
Dallas, TX
So far I have planned to get a Danger Den MAZE4 Acetal GPU water block. I'm looking at the Swiftech RAM Sinks but I'm a little worried they will be too tall and I wont be able to put them on the RAM sitting below the fittings on the water block. What should I do about this?

Also, I heard that it is a bad idea to use Artic Alumina Adhesive and instead I should use thermal tape. What is a good brand to use and where could I find it? Thanks.
 
Your assumption is correct about the ramsinks not being able to fit with the Maze4 block. You'd have to dremel a couple ramsinks a bit to get em' to fit under the fittings. However, if went with the Swifty's MCW55 block, there shouldn't be any clearance issues.....at least that's what it says on Swiftech's website.

As far as thermal tape goes, these Akasa ShinEtsu Thermal Interface Pads should work pretty well.
 
Strange, I have the Maze 4 with the Zalman Heatsink's and all 8 of them fit just fine - plenty of clearance.

The heatsinks I got comes with two sets of 4, one set is low profile, which is used on the same side as the waterblock, and the higher profile one is used on top.
 
M Powered said:
Strange, I have the Maze 4 with the Zalman Heatsink's and all 8 of them fit just fine - plenty of clearance.

I'm sure they do, but he had expressed interest in Swiftech's ramsinks. But what you have is a viable option.
 
A word of warning. The Swiftech Ramsinks have thermal tape on them already, but the adhesive is horrible. 4 of them wont stick to anything, even though I cleaned the surface of the chips with alchy first. You'll be happy to have replacement thermal tape!
 
A word of warning about the Swiftech MC14 ram sinks. They do not have a quality flat base like Swiftech heat sinks and water blocks. I discovered when applying mine that they have a concave base. I used some small bar clamps to apply pressure to each ram sink individually for a full half hour per ram sink. Even after doing more than could be reasonably expected, the ram sinks still felt loose. I removed one and on its base I saw that the adhesive had only made contact with the ram around part of the outer edge. It was clear the adhesive had made contact with the ram but most of the center was undisturbed and had not made contact.

Illustration:
mc14bad.png


I would remove the stock thermal tape and use an adhesive thermal pad or a thermal epoxy. I think the design is superior to the fin design of other ram sinks and would still use them in the future, but would be smarter about it.
 
I really like the OCZ copper ramsinks. They stay on really tight and they do a really good job. I had to cut the top of the fins off of one to fit it under my maze4 but besides that they're perfect.
 
Great, I appreciate the responses. I'm leaning toward the Zalmans because I really dont feel like modifying anything to get it to fit. I think I'll just use the Akasa adhesive.

No comments about the Artic Alumina. Would this technically be better than thermal tape? I'm not horribly concerned about selling this card in the future so I don't care about removing the heatsinks. Ideas?
 
Im also looking for some ramsinks to fit on my 7800GTX with my Low-Profile MAZE4. I need some that will fit between 2 PCi slots with enough cleanrance. Suggestions?
 
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