evga 8800GTS ram gap solution

[Twigsoffury]

I wasn't buying into the whole "the stock heatsink sucks replace it with another one idea". so i came up with this

Full Thread is here

Anyways it made one hell of a difference as you'll see.

[Eclecticos]

Great Job! Lots of readings. +Rep
Sounds like Aphrodite.

[ShadowNyfe]

so I just want to get it straight: the reason it wasn't working was because there was a gap between the heatsink and the RAM chipsets, so you basically filled it in with pieces of aluminum? I watched the vids and viewed the pics, I just wanted to make sure what you did, since you didn't really post an explanation in words.

[Twigsoffury]

so I just want to get it straight: the reason it wasn't working was because there was a gap between the heatsink and the RAM chipsets, so you basically filled it in with pieces of aluminum? I watched the vids and viewed the pics, I just wanted to make sure what you did, since you didn't really post an explanation in words.

yup. If I can get my hands on some copper sheets then I think I'll re-do it.

[crenn]

Would have been nice to see some before results....

[Spawn-Inc]

ya thats what i wanna do with my slim ps2. there is a thick pad in between the core and heatsink. it heats up alot and i was gonna get a copper sheet and fix the gap.

[Twigsoffury]

It seems as if the tempatures have become more stable over the past week or so. I think the thermal paste is settling in.

To elborate some more on it. although its pretty simple. go out and buy some quality aluminum. stamp out some thin rectangles with a punch or a die or in my case a knife and hammer...

and use thermal paste to sorta bond the layers together. I also used a dab of some epoxy on each corner to keep the pieces from sliding around. The gap is somewhat under 1/32"

the whole reason behind this is. from the factory there is a thick thermal pad inbetween the ram and the heatsink kinda plugging this gap up. it's not all that scary but with tempatures in the 130-137 on the ram it seemed like a good idea to come up with a better solution other then buying 100$ worth of cooling just to lower the tempatures on gpu and somewhat lower them on the ram.

So just bridge the gap with a very thermal conductive material. ta-da aluminum!

but you can see the resulting tempature difference it quite amazing for the amount of work put into it and the total cost (somewhere around 7.00$)


Sorry about the lack of before pictures. My buddy was bogarting my camera card at the time and I took all of those pictures with the internal memory...which holds about 3 pictures.

[Twigsoffury]

Oh just for S&G's the price tag on that laser thermal gun is more then my computer,monitor and most of the accessories.

2,700$


LOL wooooo!


but alot of videocards now have this kind of set up. the 7800's 7900's and now the 8800's and im sure most of the bad ass cards inbetween. I looked into doing my buddies 7900GT Ko superclock. but resistors and other objects were amazingly close to the ram. if you'll notice on the 8800 around the bottom of the heatsink its barren. the 7900 has those little rectangle ones all over the place. so out of fear of a shim sliding and contacting something on the board it was passed by. Same goes for the BFG 7800GS. although that card is amazing. the ram is on the top of the board and has a heat spreader attached via spring screws.

[crenn]

If I get a 9800GX2 (eventually) I might try this and see how I go.

[Twigsoffury]

If I get a 9800GX2 (eventually) I might try this and see how I go.

I'm not sure how different the 9800GX2 is but im pretty sure its the exact same solution. although i was reading somewhere that they are releasing a new revision of the heatsink with better contact between the heatsink and ram.