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Ramsinks on heatspreader - will this work good?

ShadowFlare

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I just recently installed a Zalman VF700-Cu on my most recently bought X800 GTO2 card, but I kept the heatspreader installed on the back by putting some nuts on the screws to keep them on. I'm looking for an opinion on something about it. Would putting the ramsinks on the heatspreader cool the video memory even better than just the heatspreader or ramsinks alone? Has anyone here ever attempted such a thing on their card?
 
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if it increases the surface area of the thing being cooled it will help.. its all about surface area and amount of air passing over it.. increase either and u improve the cooling..

nothing magic here the theory is pretty simple..

the so called heat spreaders on system ram for example do pretty much bugger all.. mainly cos they dont increase the surface area of the things being cooled by enough..

trog
 

ShadowFlare

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Processor Athlon 64 Venice 3200+ 2.0 GHz, max 2.6 GHz with Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu
Motherboard EpoX 9NPA+Ultra nForce4 Ultra with Zalman ZM-NB47J
Cooling All Zalman heatsinks (CNPS7000B-AlCu, ZM-NB47J, VF700-Cu)
Memory 1 GB (2x512 MB) DDR400 Corsair XMS C2 series, max 233 MHz @ 2-3-2-9 1T
Video Card(s) Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 256 MB PCIe max 540/600, modded to 16 pipes
Storage Seagate 80GB SATA, Maxtor 160GB PATA, Maxtor 200GB PATA
Display(s) Dell 17" Trinitron CRT
Case Lian Li PC-60B Plus
Audio Device(s) Built-in Realtek chip
Power Supply Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX-VE, 485 watts, active PFC
Software Windows XP Pro SP2, Windows XP Pro x64, Windows Vista RC1 32-bit
That's kind of what I was thinking. So you think I should do it? It would actually simplify installation of the ramsinks, since I wouldn't have to put them exactly over the memory. It might look kind of unusual, but if it works then who cares. ;) BTW, I'm just talking about the 4 ramsinks I have remaining that would be for the memory chips on the back. The front chips don't really need anything besides the ramsinks since they get cooled by the GPU fan, making the ramsinks nice and cool.

On another one of these cards I have (which I'm going to sell), the brace plate for the Zalman VF700 got in the way of one of the places I installed the ramsinks and I ended up having to bend one of the fins to get it to fit.

After I put my card back in my system and test for the max stable overclock, I think I might try adding them on the back and then see how it affects my max overclock. On my previous X800 GTO2, changing from the heatspreader to the ramsinks seemed to have slightly decreased the max stable overclock, only by about 1 or 2 MHz, though. (using the Zalman VF700-AlCu with the ramsinks on the front and heatspreader on the back compared with using the ramsinks for all of the memory).
 
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is it easy to give us a photo of it?
 

ShadowFlare

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Sep 20, 2005
Messages
542 (0.08/day)
Processor Athlon 64 Venice 3200+ 2.0 GHz, max 2.6 GHz with Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu
Motherboard EpoX 9NPA+Ultra nForce4 Ultra with Zalman ZM-NB47J
Cooling All Zalman heatsinks (CNPS7000B-AlCu, ZM-NB47J, VF700-Cu)
Memory 1 GB (2x512 MB) DDR400 Corsair XMS C2 series, max 233 MHz @ 2-3-2-9 1T
Video Card(s) Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 256 MB PCIe max 540/600, modded to 16 pipes
Storage Seagate 80GB SATA, Maxtor 160GB PATA, Maxtor 200GB PATA
Display(s) Dell 17" Trinitron CRT
Case Lian Li PC-60B Plus
Audio Device(s) Built-in Realtek chip
Power Supply Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX-VE, 485 watts, active PFC
Software Windows XP Pro SP2, Windows XP Pro x64, Windows Vista RC1 32-bit
My max memory overclock seems to have gone up after installing the Zalman VF700-Cu (with Arctic Silver Ceramique) and the ramsinks on the front memory chips; it's now higher than my previous card. However, even though my GPU temperature is lower (not sure how much lower), my max overclock has gone down...

BTW, I did take pictures of the card before and after I replaced the cooling and also after having removed the thermal compound. If you want to see them, I can post some.
 
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chips vary a bit.. no two will perform exactly the same.. comparing one card with another card isnt a valid test.. roughly yes but not exactly..

trog
 

ShadowFlare

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Processor Athlon 64 Venice 3200+ 2.0 GHz, max 2.6 GHz with Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu
Motherboard EpoX 9NPA+Ultra nForce4 Ultra with Zalman ZM-NB47J
Cooling All Zalman heatsinks (CNPS7000B-AlCu, ZM-NB47J, VF700-Cu)
Memory 1 GB (2x512 MB) DDR400 Corsair XMS C2 series, max 233 MHz @ 2-3-2-9 1T
Video Card(s) Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 256 MB PCIe max 540/600, modded to 16 pipes
Storage Seagate 80GB SATA, Maxtor 160GB PATA, Maxtor 200GB PATA
Display(s) Dell 17" Trinitron CRT
Case Lian Li PC-60B Plus
Audio Device(s) Built-in Realtek chip
Power Supply Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX-VE, 485 watts, active PFC
Software Windows XP Pro SP2, Windows XP Pro x64, Windows Vista RC1 32-bit
trog100 said:
chips vary a bit.. no two will perform exactly the same.. comparing one card with another card isnt a valid test.. roughly yes but not exactly..

trog
Oh, I was only comparing memory overclocks on the two different cards, not GPU overclocks. The max memory clock speeds were around the same on both cards, but the max GPU clock speeds were different. The one of the two cards I'm using now is clearly superior.

Anyway, what I was saying is that on the one I now use my max GPU overclock went down when I installed the Zalman VF700-Cu on it even though the temperature went down at least a little. It could just be that I tried overclocking too soon after applying the thermal compound. I tried overclocking it the first time I used it after installing the new heatsink/fan. That was yesterday; I tried it today and it actually seems to be working at least as well as it did before I installed the VF700-Cu. I haven't had it crash at all today when testing for the max stable overclock.
 
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I used the little "sticky" 3M compound thermal adhesive ramsinks on a C3D X800 GTO - no heat spreader though, but it got me rock stable to 550 - previously it was only 440.

From what i've seen on heat spreaders, the thermal compound is thick and gooey, or almost faom-like... I imagine there is some thermal resistance there :) but I'm sure anyadditional thermal wicking will help.
 
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