Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
I keep reading about how people are purchasing aftermarket heatsink-and-fan units and using them to replace their video cards' stock fans, then overclocking.
How hard is it to do this? Is there any risk of permanently damaging your video card? Do the stock fans come off easily, and do you have to scrape off thermal paste? Do people normally add their own thermal paste (Arctic Silver) to the GPU? Do you also add thermal paste to memory units?
1) It can be easy, can be hard. Bit of luck of the draw, choice of graphics card and choice of aftermarket solution
2) Yes, permenant damage is quite possible.
3) Stock fans are a mixture. Depends on graphics card brand and model.... Cleaning off the thermalpaste is the best thing to do.
4) I dont think most people use Arctic Silver (AS) on their GPU for the simple reason that it is more dangerous (capacitive, conductive.. something like that). I think most people would use the Thermal Paste supplied with the aftermarket solution.
5) Depends on the aftermarket cooler. The Zalman VF700 Cu and Al-Cu come with little memory heatsinks (aka. ramsinks) with pre-applied thermal tape so its a case of peeling off the backing tape and popping the ramsink on the ram module.
Best thing to do is list your card name, brand and model... whether you want a 1 slot or 2 slot solution and people will give you ideas of what is easy to install or will provide the best performance for you.
I installed a Zalman VF700 Cu on my Sapphire 128mb Radeon 9800 Pro. It was easy to do overall. The hardest part was nipping the push pins on the Sapphire Stock cooler to remove the stock heatsink.
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