vmod'd 7900GT / Can adding heat sink to chipset on *back* of card help?

[leojharris]

i've done the 1.5 vmod for my 7900GT and the results were seriously good.

i didn't do the vmem mod but i remember a certain review that said their is a grouping of chips on the back of the card (opposite of the GPU core side) which tend to get *very* hot when overclocking the memory.

what i'm wondering, and considering a non-vmem modd'd scenario ... would adding a heatsink over all of these chips possibly enhance temps or let me get a bit higher mem overclock?

i'm primarily interested in lowering temps in the interest of prolonging the length of this card; i intend to have it for at least a year more ... maybe two.

here's an image showing the particular chips i've heard overheat easily; i'm not *positive* this is the set of chips on the back of the card, but i'm pretty sure these are the ones:

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(the above 7900GT not my card; image borrowed from this thread at OCFORUMS.)

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i've got a stock intel northbridge cooler left over from an old computer that i'm thinking of sticking on this chipset, using either thermal tape or thermal adhesive ...

any thoughts on the relative (or lack thereof) benefits of such measures?

here's the heatsink i'm thinking about placing over those chips:

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any thoughts?

 

[WonderingSoul]

Yes that is the correct grouping. You could have just found this out by touching the ICs with your finger when the card is on Those ICs I believe are bound to the GPU not vmem. But either way sinking them is a grand idea otherwise with a 1.5v mod.

I just put some extra Zalman BGA sinks on mine. They aren't necessary to sink them, but, it's wise to. I think the only point of sinking them are just to increase the longevity of the card.

 

[leojharris]

i tried that SB sink and it was too big ... edge of it hit my DDR2 chips. going to get some smaller sinks and try. did you put sinks over all or just the larger of the grouping?

 

[leojharris]

I just put some extra Zalman BGA sinks on mine. They aren't necessary to sink them, but, it's wise to. I think the only point of sinking them are just to increase the longevity of the card.

as i was saying, that old SB sink had to much overhang and so i hacked it (literally) into smaller, cuter heatsinks to place on each chip individually:

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i'll use which ever piece works best for each chip.

should i use thermal tape or thermal adhesive? ... don't plan to ever remove them so i'm leaning towards adhesive ...

 

[WonderingSoul]

I used two sinks on these three ICs