7900GT ramsinks - thermal tape or AS5 Adhesive?

[leojharris]

i just installed an iceberq 6 vga cooler
on a 7900GT; it came with 8 copper ram
sinks that i affixed to the memory blocks
on the card using the provided thermal tape.

so far, with a 7900GT voltmodded to 1.5
and running at 700/852, load temps hit
about 62c with an ambient temp of
around 23c.

would i be better off removing the copper
ramsinks and reseating them with AS5
thermal adhesive?

would there be a temp difference worth the
effort of re doing everything?

here's a link to my original findings after
installing the iceberq 6:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=486509

[raevien]

Review that compares arctic silver adhesive to thermal tape over at overclocker cafe:

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/other_misc/Artic%20Silver%20Adhesive/artic%20silver.html

The thermal tape is junk, if you want some better adhesive will help you out.

[leojharris]

Review that compares arctic silver adhesive to thermal tape over at overclocker cafe:

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/other_misc/Artic%20Silver%20Adhesive/artic%20silver.html

The thermal tape is junk, if you want some better adhesive will help you out.

great article. thanks for the tip.

now i just gotta start scraping off some pads.

[AsusLover]

Just remember not to add to much adhesive when attaching the ramsinks....also i would recommend cleaning the pads off with some Artic Clean :)

[OnDborder]

No kidding. Thanks for the link to that review.. I've wondered about this before, too.

[WonderingSoul]

I read somewhere here that adding cooling to ramsinks doesn't add much performance gain, just adds longevity... My ramsinks are held on just with very thin 3M double sided tape :eek:

[metloaf]

From personal experiance, get rid of the thermal tape and use AS5, much better. As far as ram sinks, I got some initally for my X1900 but I found that they did not make any difference in temps or OCing, so I have been running the ram "naked" and it has worked out well. :thup:

[ziggo0]

I forget who but someone in the classies sells some very NICE thermal tape...worked wonders for my 6800GT with the RAM at 1.240.

Edit: By the way, would you be happening to use the stock heatsink for that 7900GT? I was more or less refering to using RAM Sinks about the tape mentioned above. ALSO...when my buddy got his 7900GT, I emediently took off the Stock HSF, Applied AS5 to the core and my own mix of creamiq RAM and stuck it back on...but the Stock HSF doesn't make contact with the RAM without the pads so...he is just using the RAM for now.

[raevien]

I read somewhere here that adding cooling to ramsinks doesn't add much performance gain, just adds longevity... My ramsinks are held on just with very thin 3M double sided tape :eek:

My x700 pro stock cooler didn't have any ram cooling, I was able to get the ram to 460 or so. after adding ram sinks the ram can do 530 just fine. It probably depends largely on the ram what effect cooling it will have.

[leojharris]

I forget who but someone in the classies sells some very NICE thermal tape...worked wonders for my 6800GT with the RAM at 1.240.

Edit: By the way, would you be happening to use the stock heatsink for that 7900GT? I was more or less refering to using RAM Sinks about the tape mentioned above. ALSO...when my buddy got his 7900GT, I emediently took off the Stock HSF, Applied AS5 to the core and my own mix of creamiq RAM and stuck it back on...but the Stock HSF doesn't make contact with the RAM without the pads so...he is just using the RAM for now.

i upgraded to an aftermarket heatsink (http://resume.jbhfile.com/temp/chris/machine.html) once i did the 1.5 volt mod.

just decided to leave the ram sinks on for now; i'm happy with temps and all.

[WonderingSoul]

My x700 pro stock cooler didn't have any ram cooling, I was able to get the ram to 460 or so. after adding ram sinks the ram can do 530 just fine. It probably depends largely on the ram what effect cooling it will have.

Yeah I figured an improvement will be obtained. But with 7900GTs most ram I have seen has topped out at 800, atleast the early cards like mine do :(

[ViperJohn]

Review that compares arctic silver adhesive to thermal tape over at overclocker cafe:

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/other_misc/Artic%20Silver%20Adhesive/artic%20silver.html

The thermal tape is junk, if you want some better adhesive will help you out.

Thermal tape, commonly known as Frag Tape, is garbage. High end self adhesive thermal interface material can achieve thermal interfaces that perform within 1C or epoxy thermal adhesives but those TIM's are not cheap and the installation procedures must be followed to the letter. Flatness of the heatsink base is a critical factor with TIM's too.

That test at OC Cafe is over 5 years old and is about as valid today as a dead cat. The delta T's between naked and good, properly install ramsinks will be far higher today on high end cards.

Lastly silver bearing thermal epoxies or compounds should never be used on memory chips. They are capacitive (not conductive) by nature and if any squeeze out gets where it should not be your SOL. At the operating speeds memory is running at today youwill have an instantly corrupted display.

Viper

[leojharris]

Thermal tape, commonly known as Frag Tape, is garbage. High end self adhesive thermal interface material can achieve thermal interfaces that perform within 1C or epoxy thermal adhesives but those TIM's are not cheap and the installation procedures must be followed to the letter. Flatness of the heatsink base is a critical factor with TIM's too.

so what's the best TIM and where can i buy some?