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do ramsinks actually help?

zephyrprime

zephyrprime

Diamond Member
I ordered a galaxy 8800GT earlier this week.

image

This particular card has no ramsinks. However, it's unique heatsink does blow air onto the ram chips. I was wondering if it would make a difference to add ramsinks to this card? Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?
 
Actually they do...mainly when overclocking though...

Edit: You should be fine though. From the picture it looks like it would be pretty tough to add some ramsinks depending on how close that cooler comes to the chips. What is the memory clocked at on that card?
 
Originally posted by: Sentry2
Actually they do...mainly when overclocking though...

Edit: You should be fine though. From the picture it looks like it would be pretty tough to add some ramsinks depending on how close that cooler comes to the chips. What is the memory clocked at on that card?
Click to expand...

He should have enough space, but like everyone else said here, ramsinks are mostly for show. With or without them you reach roughly the same clocks on the ram. A fan that blows air over the memory chips is more efficient then the ramsinks.
 
Hmmm.... I guess it depends on the card then. I've had a ramsink fall off of a 7800GTX 512 and it killed that ram chip. I've also had one fall off of a VR on a 8800GTS 512 before and it would lock up in games until I opened my case and figured it out. It probably depends on the quality of ramsink and what it's made from. I'm just saying that in my case they've always helped me.
 
Originally posted by: Sentry2
Hmmm.... I guess it depends on the card then. I've had a ramsink fall off of a 7800GTX 512 and it killed that ram chip. I've also had one fall off of a VR on a 8800GTS 512 before and it would lock up in games until I opened my case and figured it out. It probably depends on the quality of ramsink and what it's made from. I'm just saying that in my case they've always helped me.
Click to expand...

How did you actually knew that ram chip died on the 7800 GTX, and it wasn't another chip or some power regulator?

My 7600 GT's ram overclocked better without ramsinks then with them on. It came as a surprise that after installing a copper revoltec cooler, with some aluminium ramsinks, the memory couldn't reach 1600 mhz anymore. Maybe they were bad quality, like you've said, but it gave me the opposite effect of what you've encountered.
 
Aluminum ramsinks suck. Their quality is usually pretty sub par. They only benefit they have (over copper heatsinks) is their light weight. Decent copper heatsinks are the only way to go.

I had red lines showing up on part of my screen while on the desktop and in games. Games would usually lock up. I had to send a screen shot to eVGA tech support and he said it was a ram chip.

I'm sure it wasn't a VR just for the fact I could get to the windows desktop without it locking up.

You'll see people debate this all the time but I think it just comes down to what card you're running, quality of the ramsinks, and quality of the thermal tape used on the ramsinks.
 
I have ramsinks with my Thermaltake Duorb on my X1950GT@pro speeds and it's never done anything I've ever noticed, never even gets warm to the touch.
 
I have applied after market cooling and ramsinks to I don't know how many video cards now...general consensus- yes it does OC a little better in most instances, depends on how crappy the stock cooling was though at removing the heat. You'll want quality sinks to make the difference....thinking along the lines of the Ezotech and Swiftech forged copper ones.
 
eh i bought a zalman VGA ram sink kit about 2 years ago and seeming all the newer cards have ram sinks only on one side I've been slapping 4 sinks on cards as I get them in. I haven't noticed a performance difference but there has been no loss either. They do look cool but as far as I can see they don't do much of anything, perhaps for serious overclocking they would be nice but I use a zalman GPU cooler and it blows air on the ram sinks as it is.

They don't do any harm but they don't do much good either, if you want to pay the 9 dollars for something that looks kind of cool than by all means.
 
Hmm...it seems like the concensus is that they do a whole lot. I will forgo them on my new card then. Thanks!

ps. I think it would help if they made the base of the ramsinks thinner. On a big cpu cooler, you need thick base to transport heat horizontally to more heatsink fins but since ramsinks are the same width as the ic's that they cover, a thick base would actually only add useless insulation.
 
Originally posted by: zephyrprime
Hmm...it seems like the concensus is that they do a whole lot. I will forgo them on my new card then. Thanks!

ps. I think it would help if they made the base of the ramsinks thinner. On a big cpu cooler, you need thick base to transport heat horizontally to more heatsink fins but since ramsinks are the same width as the ic's that they cover, a thick base would actually only add useless insulation.
Click to expand...

Metal is not insulation. Heat dissipation is 2 things, mass and surface area. More mass means more thermal energy can be absorbed before it being heat soaked and more surface area means more heat can be transported off. Both affect the ability of the cooler positively.
 
I guess that the glue used on these heatsinks makes a big difference in their ability to take the heat away from the chips.
 
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