X1900XTX - Memory ICs larger than thermal pads, what to do?

[krille]

Hey!

I just received my Sapphire X1900XTX and an Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 aftermarket HSF. However, the memory chips on the X1900XTX are larger than the thermal pads that ship with the Accelero X2. Ie, the thermal pads are square-shaped while the memory chips are recangular and the thermal pads will only cover maybe a slightly more than half of the memory chips. Now I'm not sure what to do. Please, help me out here. I don't want to fry anything!

a) Stick with the under-sized thermal pads. Memory won't fry anyway. (But then, why use thermal pads at all? :stick:)

b) Use some third party thermal paste. Such as Arctic-Silver Ceramique or AS5. Do give your suggestion! However, stock thermal pads are quite thick, so I'm not sure how good contact will be.

c) Something else. What?

I'd appreciate help asap. Thanks! :)

~ Kris

[ncc-1709]

the ram doesnt need extra cooling, but the pads are realy just spacers, so just use them.
and why is the ram not square? all DDR3 is square. if its rectangel, then you havent got DDR2 or 3 but DDR1, which is crap. please post a pic of your card.

[krille]

the ram doesnt need extra cooling, but the pads are realy just spacers, so just use them.
and why is the ram not square? all DDR3 is square. if its rectangel, then you havent got DDR2 or 3 but DDR1, which is crap. please post a pic of your card.I wish I could. But I just realized 10 minutes ago my W800i's (my cellphone's) camera has busted. It keeps saying "remove the camera lid" although it already is removed. I don't have any other digital camera. However, I can tell you what it says on the memory ICs:

SAMSUNG 604
K4J52324QC-BJ11
EFL192BA

They're on a Sapphire X1900XTX. And they say "BJ11", so I'm quite sure they're GDDR3 1.1ns memories.

[adz]

yes good 1.1ns chips^^

[krille]

There must be tons of people out there with X1900XTX and Accelero X2. How did you all solve this little problem? Did your solution work out well?

[arisythila]

These chips are not a perfect square.

[krille]

These chips are not a perfect square.No, but the thermal pads are. So what to do?

[biohead]

Pretend that the chips are too. Install it and start overclocking.

[krille]

Pretend that the chips are too. Install it and start overclocking.a) then. I guess that's the easiest way out. I just want to be 100% I won't fry anything.

[Vincentvega18]

Seriously, it wont matter anyway, think about current cpu's the thermal paste doesnt spread all over the ihs, just the centre, but heat transfer is still pretty good. Also afaik unless your planning to voltmod the ram right away itll do with no cooling.

[krille]

Ok, I just used whatever small thermal pads they sent. No idea about temps, but using force I managed to expand them some so they covered almost the whole die (just a couple of milimeters outside). Anyway, my biggest discovery is that the Accelero X2 really is inaudible. At least in my rig!

[cantankerous]

let me know what temps you get and at what volts and clocks please. I have had an X2 on my XTX for about a month now and yes it is extremely quiet.

[Repoman]

Seriously, it wont matter anyway, think about current cpu's the thermal paste doesnt spread all over the ihs, just the centre, but heat transfer is still pretty good. Also afaik unless your planning to voltmod the ram right away itll do with no cooling.

This is the equivalent of a naked die, where you would infact need to cover the whole thing.

That said I dont think the RAM requires extra cooling, does get damn hot though! There was an article around here somewhere, a guy put phase change on his video card's ram, got him 0MHz for all that hard work :(