Ramsinks for 9800 Pro

phaxmohdem

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Aug 18, 2004
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I just flashed the BIOS of my lan party rigs 9800Pro tonight to an XT. AFter the flash, lots of artifacting occured in all my games and the 3Dmark benches. After tweaking the clockspeeds a bit, I discovered that it is the RAM causing the failure (Clocked just the RAM down a bit and all artifacting is gone.)

Unfortunately I lost 5 of the 8 Ramsinks that came with my Zalman GPU cooler, so I am wondering if you have any suggestions. I found these two on Newegg... does anyone have any experience with either kit?

Link to Newegg

Thanks
 

Fardringle

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Oct 23, 2000
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I haven't personally used either of those, but SVC has the same Vantec ram sinks for $3.50 less and the OCZ for $.89 less. SVC also has some other sets that are dramatically less expensive (Coolermaster SAC-P01 for $1.99 for example) that seem to work pretty well based on the reviews I have seen. Shipping cost for me for one set of any type of ram sink to zip code 84120 (business address) is $4.02 compared to NewEgg's shipping cost of $4.99 for the Vantec and $4.37 for the OCZ so the price is actually even a bit better when you figure in shipping...


http://www.svc.com/memmodheatsp.html
 

Munky

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Feb 5, 2005
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For some reason the newegg links dont work for me lately, I but also replaced the ramsinks for my zalman vf700 since I reused the cooler on various cards. For my current card I bought the zalman ramsinks pack. I forgot the number, but it's the 8-pack of blue ramsinks, 4 bigger ones and 4 smaller ones. The smaller ones are just like the ones included with the cooler, but the bigger ones dont ft under the cooler, so I placed the on the back of the card.

From my experience with the 9800p, the ramsinks included with the cooler took care of all artifacting problems after I flashed the bios to XT. So I'm guessing any sinks similar to the ones included with the zalman will help cool those mem chips and get rid of artifacts.
 

phaxmohdem

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Aug 18, 2004
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Yeah, I'm hoping so, right now the mem is clocked at 350MHz which is still above stock for a 9800 Pro. Wierd thing is that before I flashed the BIOS, I overclocked the card and ram to XT speeds, and never saw the artifacting. Wierdness.

Thanks for the site suggestion Fardringle. They have some good stuff there and great prices. And any Electronics outlet that sells Bawls as well is OK by me ;) Anyone know a cheap place to get some of that arctic silver adhesive craziness? Newegg wants about $16 shipped for it.
 

Fardringle

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Most ramsink sets come with thermal adhesive already applied so you don't need to mess with Arctic Silver thermal epoxy...
 

phaxmohdem

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Yeah I know, I was reading some reviews on Newegg about them falling off, and in my own past experience I've had some crappy thermal tape cause ramsinks and even a Vid card heatsink to fall off on me, so I just want to do it up right is all.
 

Fardringle

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Oct 23, 2000
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Fair enough.

I haven't had any dealings with any of the vendors on this list so I can't give a personal recommendation, but it looks like a lot of places have AS thermal adhesive for under or around $10:

http://froogle.google.com/froogle_clust...h+Froogle&lmode=&addr=&scoring=p&hl=en


edit: I just noticed SVC is on that list. They have the best price available, and if you're getting the RAM sinks from them already you should be able to save on some shipping by combining the purchase...
 

phaxmohdem

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Aug 18, 2004
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Wow! You da man Fardringle. I just put in my order to SVC for the Epoxy, and the IceBurq copper ramsinks. Total with shipping came to $23.29 (priority mail) Newegg for the EXACT same thing wanted $35.46 shipped (UPS 3 day) Savings of $12.17.

Thanks for the tips.