Artic Silver 5 applied to BFG 6800 GT OC GPU

Nasty thermal pads on the memory, nasty paste on the GPU

Well, I actually left the pads on, because the memory chips are a few millimeters below the gpu from where the heatsink sits, so the pads are almost like filler...



The GPU is pretty with that crap removed

Results? A few degrees cooler idle, haven't had much opportunity to test it yet....

I did the exact same thing w/ my BFG 6800GT OC, and i also ahve the new cooler. It worked wonders. For me, 20C lower full load temps, but same idle temps. GL!

Did you take the pads off the memory? I didn't because it seemed to me that the heatsink would no longer have contact with the memory if I did.

Would that be a bad thing? Does the memory even get hot?

I don't think the memory chips even heat up much. I'm curious to see your results with that stock HS and Arctic Paste, let us know how it goes!

I'm happy with my temps and overclock on mine, so i'm not touching it for now, plus with a lifetime warranty, i'm not worried about it. But still interested to hear what some nice paste, applied properly, will do for it.

Thanks for posting this. I REALLY need to do this same thing. I didn't want to do it at first, because I wasn't sure what state the thermal pads on the memory would be in after removing the heatsink. I felt the top side of the card where the ram is when benchmarking with the ram at 1.04 and it was pretty damn hot. I honestly don't think that those super thick thermal pads are transferring much heat away from the RAM.

I personally DON'T think this 2 fan cooler on the BFGs is very good at all. Mine has a persistent small rattling sound from the fan bearings. I just hate tiny fans... they're too loud for the amount of air they move and they almost always get louder and louder as their tiny bearings wear out.

Bottom line: A *much* better 6800 cooling solution is needed. I read that artic cooling will have a vga silencer for 6800s "eventually" The dangerden 6800 waterblock looks like a bad performer from what I've read. Just looking at the thing conjurs notions of massive cooling system bottlenecks in my head.

Kosmic: it was very easy, just a little resistance removing it when you 'break the seal' of the old paste.

The thing I don't like is that if you were to take the pads off the memory (I didn't), you would most likely have a gap between the memory and the HS. Maybe that would be good because people say the ram doesn't get that hot anyhow and it wouldn't be 'heat-polluting' the GPU, but on the other hand the ram might overheat. Who knows :

Oh, there are other holes in the PCB, so I bet the stock HSF would bolt right on...only problem is where to get it...probably nowhere.

As you can see in the pics, they put paste on the thermal pad as well! It's either paste or pad materal, but to me it looks like paste on top of the pad.

actually, the RAM does get quite hot. i made some custom heatsinks for my BFG 6800 GT, and they get very hot. my overclocks are 427/1110 with nvidia autodetect, not that good.... and it watercooled. heres some pics:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=322193

no, it doesn't, the heat you're feeling is ONLY on the last two ram modules near the mosfet with the thin black heatsink

makes you wonder where the heat really comes from

feel the pcb board and you'll understand, its the mosfets

the first two ram modules and the front of the pcb doesn't get hot at all

and the PROOF:

see the ati x800 pro/xt

same ram, same voltage, NO RAMSINKS




_

Interesting theory. I was feeling the card a bit while 3dmarking and the mosfettes do get very hot. The far left RAM module (looking down at it while installed) didn't get very hot, but the other 3 did (feeling from the top) BUT it could be mosfetts nearby heating things up.

I'll try running mine with nothing on the ram once I get a waterblock on the core. I have a feeling the big thermal pads on the bfg aren't doing a damn thing, and might even be holding heat in.

fafnir said:

no, it doesn't, the heat you're feeling is ONLY on the last two ram modules near the mosfet with the thin black heatsink

makes you wonder where the heat really comes from

feel the pcb board and you'll understand, its the mosfets

the first two ram modules and the front of the pcb doesn't get hot at all

and the PROOF:

see the ati x800 pro/xt

same ram, same voltage, NO RAMSINKS




_

Click to expand...

i think you'll still *want* something on the ram, because the ram on the X800 does get quite hot

but its enough to prove that you might not *NEED* anything, especially anything BIG

and yes, the thermal pads ARE holding the heat in


especially the thermal pads on the mosfets, they MUST be removed

use some good-old fashion arctic silver once you lap the mosfet sink standoffs flat (protruding parts on the sides)

when you get to the above mentioned step, you'll understand what i'm talking about



and why you might *want* the ramsinks:


a car with airbags does make you *feel* safer, yes?



_

heh ya...but for now i'm going to watercool the core and just leave the ram naked with a side agp fan blowing on them to remove heat. if need be, i'll put some tweakmonsters on it, although i'm not sure i'll be able to with the waterblock hoses... not sure what the final outcome will be. I'd love to have a custom ramsink like liquid_cooled made, but I don't have the tools to make one.

In the end, naked has to be better than those thermal pads AND thermal grease smothering the ram. I don't know what you mean about lapping the mosfett sink standoff, but I'll probably understand once I have it pulled apart. Hopefully I'll have my parts to mount my mcw50 to the 6800 by wednesday. I'll post back in here with results on how the RAM is doing while running naked.