Nvidia Graphics Card: Unknown (to me) component

Hi.
I guess I'm outdated. I was modding an eVGA GeForce 6600GT.
Got one/two question:

What is the chip underneath the heatsink? and what does it do? I'm sure that is not the GPU. lol
The green pcb is a long rectangle and the core is a very elongated rectangle. (not like the GPU's square-ish rectangle)

*interesting* I took off that heatsink and I see that it's not thermal paste in between the core and the heatsink it is a sticky thermal pad. (the GPU/heatsink uses thermal paste)

*interesting 2* It gets warm and it is an component that bottlenecks overclocking if it gets too warm even when the GPU is nice and cool.

*interesting 3* It seems like the thermal probe is located there because the temperature graph shows a similar change in temperature (compared to before-mod) even when I have a big heatsink on the GPU (and it was significantly colder than that black heatsink; I touched it to compare the temp) while doing benchmarking. (the thermal probe might not actually be there; I'm just guessing) [maybe the GPU's heatsink is not firmly pressed onto the GPU which caused a big increase in temp even if the heatsink felt cool.]


For those who have a 6600GT and see that there is no temp monitoring function on their card, check out this page to enable it: http://www.ocia.net/articles/tempmonitoring/page1.shtml


And here's a random pic:

Ram

Trombe said:

Ram

Click to expand...

wrong.

Its the HSI Bridge Chip. I'm guessin that 6600GT is AGP (looks like it). the 6600 is a PCI-E native card (meaning its made to run PCI-E, unlike the 6800 series). That bridge chip transforms the card from PCI-E-->AGP. the 6800 series is AGP native, so that there is a bridge chip on the PCI-E models. If you need more information, consumer9000 knows a lot about the nVidia cards (and vid cards in general)

Throw another vote for the HSI Bridge on the fire

Originally I thought it was RAM too, but then noticed the 4 BGA chips that were sticking out
JigPu

I believe that HSI Bridge thing is right also, I remember reading something about what it was when that card came out.

It's the bridge. Can find that out anywhere you look for a review on AGP 6600 cards.

yea, its the agp bridge. Anyone know of a place that sells upgraded heatsinks for it? My stocker is horrible.

Just get a normal heatsink and cut part of it off. Or two Zalman northbridge chipset heatsinks might fit...

tytlyf said:

yea, its the agp bridge. Anyone know of a place that sells upgraded heatsinks for it? My stocker is horrible.

Click to expand...

STASISThermal makes one. consumer9000 from the forums works there.

their sinks are a tad expensive, but I say, for a premium, you have to pay.

http://stasisthermal.com/sess/utn;jsessionid=1542c1a2bb32c31/shopdata/index.shopscript


Here's the HSI Chip cooler:
http://stasisthermal.com/sess/utn;jsessionid=1542c1a2bb32c31/shopdata/index.shopscript

I will explain. That is what is known as an HSI bridge chip. What it does is it converts the much faster bus of the PCI-E graphics card into the slower AGP signal.

This allows a card that would not nativly run on AGP to be able to do so without an issue. You will find this device on many cards. Each has their own design and serves a different purpose.

Think of the HSI bridge chip as your gfx card's southbridge

I see. Thanks very much for the very detailed and quick responses. :-D
No wonder I'm not familiar with it. PCI-E era...

heyy, sent. takin my spotlight

LOL.
I mean, thanks everyone, including SolidxSnake.
I did read and learned from your detailed reply too. :-D

Luie said:

LOL.
I mean, thanks everyone, including SolidxSnake.
I did read and learned from your detailed reply too. :-D

Click to expand...

LOL i was just joking haha