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DDR Heat Spreaders
- Thread starter LIVAN
- Start date
PliotronX
Diamond Member
I would only pay extra if the thermal adhesive was Chomeric made, but all of the speaders I know of use 3M stuff, so you're gold with the cheapies.
We can argue their usefullness till the cows come home, but when my BH-5 has 3v running through it at just idle, it gets to 36ºC on the surface of the chips and the ambient temps are about 25ºC. Like Mosfets and most other SMD's, the memory chips' primary route of heat dissipation is through their tin plated copper legs and into the copper layers of the PCB where it meets more surface area to convect into the air. So in theory heatspreaders can aid in heat dissipation, but only if there is adequate airflow throughout the case (or spotcooling with an L1A like I am 😀). I don't think they help as much as manufacturers would like you to believe though 😉
We can argue their usefullness till the cows come home, but when my BH-5 has 3v running through it at just idle, it gets to 36ºC on the surface of the chips and the ambient temps are about 25ºC. Like Mosfets and most other SMD's, the memory chips' primary route of heat dissipation is through their tin plated copper legs and into the copper layers of the PCB where it meets more surface area to convect into the air. So in theory heatspreaders can aid in heat dissipation, but only if there is adequate airflow throughout the case (or spotcooling with an L1A like I am 😀). I don't think they help as much as manufacturers would like you to believe though 😉
PliotronX
Diamond Member
Well, copper is a more dense metal and its thermal conduction is close to silver. There is a rule of thumb that's been going around for ages but I cannot confirm it, that aluminum performs convection better than copper, and that that is the reason for the hybrid designs of heatsinks where the copper base absorbs the heat more quickly then the aluminum releases it into the air. There is a contradiction though, and I think the real reason for the hybrid designs is that copper is a lot more difficult to mill and work with than aluminum.
Sorry to bore you, all in all I think if you want to save as much cash as possible, the aluminum is fine but copper is a superior metal thermally-wise. They will probably perform extremely closely in an already small margin 🙂
Sorry to bore you, all in all I think if you want to save as much cash as possible, the aluminum is fine but copper is a superior metal thermally-wise. They will probably perform extremely closely in an already small margin 🙂
Jeff7
Lifer
I was going to say, those things can get pretty toasty.
Nick, the question seemed more to say, why pay $15 for a heat spreader, when you can get the same thing elsewhere for only $4. If they actually do anything...well, there's much debate there. They would be much more useful if there was actually enough space between the RAM slots for real heatsinks not just spreaders.
I too also wonder why more companies would add to their products expense with a feature that does nothing.
Cheetah8799
Diamond Member
nick1985. no offence, but prove it! I think maybe they help a little, but not much. If you want people to believe you, then post some links to actual studies or research that back up your argument.
It's unlikely that heat spreaders do much for DIMMs.
They were originally seen on RIMMs (Rambus memory). They were essential for RIMMS, because when memory was accessed only one chip would become active at a time, and that one chip would produce more heat than a whole DIMM. Without a heatsink or spreader that chip would burn out. The spreader was all that was needed - by spreading the heat out over the whole module, satisfactory temperatures could easily be reached.
On DIMMs - all the memory chips become active at the same time, with each chip producing only a relatively small heat load. Adding a simple heatspreader would do very little, as the heat is already spread across the whole module. In fact, adding a spreader could worsen temperature because they can restrict natural air flow and the thermal interface between chip and spreader may not be ideal.
If you could actually attach small heatsinks to the RAM, then that would be different.
They were originally seen on RIMMs (Rambus memory). They were essential for RIMMS, because when memory was accessed only one chip would become active at a time, and that one chip would produce more heat than a whole DIMM. Without a heatsink or spreader that chip would burn out. The spreader was all that was needed - by spreading the heat out over the whole module, satisfactory temperatures could easily be reached.
On DIMMs - all the memory chips become active at the same time, with each chip producing only a relatively small heat load. Adding a simple heatspreader would do very little, as the heat is already spread across the whole module. In fact, adding a spreader could worsen temperature because they can restrict natural air flow and the thermal interface between chip and spreader may not be ideal.
If you could actually attach small heatsinks to the RAM, then that would be different.
If nothing else, buy them because it makes your case look better (if you have a window or such). My blue HyperX heatspreaders on my black Abit board with some UV light (I know the spreaders aren't UV reactive, but they still reflect the light) makes my system look really awesome.
SneakyStuff
Diamond Member
I'm agreeing with nick here, they don't do a darn thing in MOST cases, and here's why. Most cases don't have adequate airflow to begin with (We're talking about 1 exhaust fan, and possibly 1 intake fan), the only thing RAMsinks do is spread the heat over the entire stick of memory, you need good airflow for the heat tob e carried away, that is the only instance RAMsinks would help someone with hot RAM. Besides, they're horribly overpriced on newegg.
Whether you have "adequate" case air flow or not, if the heatspreaders get warm, they ARE dissipating heat. Granted, it may not be much heat, but since the air temp. within the case is cooler than the heatspreaders, heat is being dissipated. I'm still going to tell the guy to spend the $4 to get the copper heatspreader....I mean, what is $4? I wouldn't buy a DDR stick if it didn't have a heatspreader, not that I would be concerned about heat, but it also looks better and even protects the RAM.
SneakyStuff
Diamond Member
Protects it from what? Did you know that in some cases, dust can build up inside these heat spreaders? Then you really have problems. I've got 2 sticks of PC3200 with no heatspreaders, and no stability problems either 🙂
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