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RamSinks: Success Story

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jmcmike

Registered
Joined
Aug 15, 2002
Location
Newport News, VA
You're not going to believe this so save your "You're full of blah blah" for someone with less integrity than I. I'm telling the truth so deal with it OK?

Alright, so I got this 9800 Pro and up until tonight I was only able to get 348 out of the memory. Not very good considering that it is supposed to be rated for 350 right?

Jump to today. Just got in a set of aluminum ramsinks off eBay. I'm thinking that I won't get much out of the deal. After all, they're not the flowers or any other fancy (high priced) ramsinks. Also, I'm just going to use thermal tape (instead of epoxy) So I'm thinking maybe 3-7 MHz right?

Wrong and wonderfully so. 375 baby. No joke. You heard right. From 348 to 375. Yes, I do have a side case fan blowing over the card so take that into consideration, but that didn't do squat for me until I put on some ramsinks.

The sinks themselves aren't anything real special to look at. They are aluminum with three somewhat tall fins. I have them oriented so that the airflow from the fan blows through them.

So now I'm looking at RAM speeds higher than 9800 XT stock speeds. Oh yea, I'm a happy camper!
 
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I'm not sure how big a difference slapping RAMsinks on would make since the BGA memory is so cool to the touch, but with my memory already OCing horribly why not!! 30MHz only makes me wanna do it more :D

"Quality" of a RAMsink is worth very little IMO. Back when my 8500 was still kicking around, I used staplegun staples as RAMsinks (the perfect size!) and got one of the best memory OCs according to the video card sticky :cool:

JigPu
 
resoluteK said:
do you know which brand the ramsinks are (i.e., tweakmonster, ocz, ect)? just wondering, thanks
No brand per se. They were most likely cut from larger stock. The eBay seller I bought them from still sells them in "buy it now" multiple item auctions. Quantity 4 goes for $7 shipped. I bought 8.

Here is the current list of his auctions. He currently has two other auctions for the ramsinks.

However, what you see in the picture is not what I got. The ones I got had taller fins with ridges and other shapes. Gives more surface area for better cooling IMHO. I'll try to post a pic later.
 
Sounds like good stuff.. I'm considering slapping some on a 9800pro or maybe even an arctic cooling silencer eventually.

I'm ordering some round cables from svc soon anyway so I'll probably pick up two sets of 4 ocz sinks at $6. Ebay frightens me :D
 
My digital cam is just a $15 office max special so please forgive the quality but you can get the general idea of how they look here.

2003-12-20-9800pro-ramsinks.jpg
 
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NIce Job!... Just the other day I did the same thing but took it a step further with a thermaltake heatpipe on the GPU. I have a nice clock now but am still playing around with it. Stock 9700pro's run 324/311 see sig.
 
JigPu said:
I'm not sure how big a difference slapping RAMsinks on would make since the BGA memory is so cool to the touch, but with my memory already OCing horribly why not!!

What kinda card are you running? The BGA memory on my 9800np is hot at stock speeds and is practically untouchable when overclocked. It's got the 2.8 samsung.
 
I noticed the same thing; the Samsung memory on my 9800np gets DAMNED hot, without any sort of modification. Ramsinking them helped cool them down significantly, although only netted another ~10mhz to the total overclock.

Leaves me some room to voltmod :)
 
That explains it then :D I've got the horrible 3.3ns Infinion :( It hits exactly 303MHz overclocked :rolleyes:

JigPu
 
jmcmike said:

No brand per se. They were most likely cut from larger stock. The eBay seller I bought them from still sells them in "buy it now" multiple item auctions. Quantity 4 goes for $7 shipped. I bought 8.

Here is the current list of his auctions. He currently has two other auctions for the ramsinks.

However, what you see in the picture is not what I got. The ones I got had taller fins with ridges and other shapes. Gives more surface area for better cooling IMHO. I'll try to post a pic later.

Wow those look like they would be good for Mofsets too:)
 
jmcmike said:

OK, newb question time. What is a mosfet and why do I want to cool it?
They are smallish plastic squares black in color with three legs (the middle one not connected to the mobo) and usually in 3-phase configs on today's motherboards. This means that there are six of these squares, usually in a staggered line. What they do is regulate and clean up the juice supplied to the CPU somewhat by handing off the voltage supply in a sequence through each FET (IIRC). They routinely get freaking hot in today's mobos especially when overvolting the CPU (pics here). They are rated for proper operation at up to 90ºC I believe, but some folks have found they can get better overclocking results with heatsinks on those little black squares. Their primary form of dissipating heat is through the connection into the motherboard where more surface area can meet with air to complete the convection cycle so usually better results can be obtained by just harnessing a good quiet fan directly over the FETs.
 
mr1337pants said:

They are smallish plastic squares black in color with three legs (the middle one not connected to the mobo) and usually in 3-phase configs on today's motherboards...
Wow! Thanks for all the info, I'll look into it.
 
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