Idea for Cheap RAMsinks

[phsstpok]

I've been thinking about about adding RAMsinks to my GTS-V vidcard but my source for $10/set is gone so I was looking for something DIY that would be cheap and easy.

I've seen posts for cutting up old 486 HSFs and using other pieces of scrap, including hexagonal, brass pipe fittings but with 4 to 8 pieces needed, that seems like a lot of work.

I was looking around the house and found some discarded staple gun staples. I was thinking I could just break the cartridges to length and invert them over the DRAM, mounted with thermal epoxy or JB Weld. Not sure there is enough mass in these staples but there seems to be plenty of surface area. The best part of the project would be that no tools are needed.

Does this sound like it should work?


<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[FatBurger]

Some staples have some sort of coating on them, look out for that.

CompGeeks.com has some old heatsinks for cheap that you can cut up.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

 

[phsstpok]

Thanks, I was going to sand them before installing (if they will hold together). They are going on a $65 Geforce2 GTS-V (now available for only $49) so it's not worth any additional investment.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Take_Out]

I've cut up finned HSs from 486s and had good luck with them, however, I used the tape and I just couldn't believe that stuff actually conducts heat that well, and this is the good stuff, about $2 or so an inch. I stretched it out and mounted the HS on it and it stayed well over 2 years with no release, ever. I used them on a TNT2Ultra with O/Ced mem that was heating up pretty good and it stopped the probs.
I guess my point is to use the Artic Silver or some other thermal conductive epoxy or adhesive instead of the tape if you want to be sure it is conducting well.
Of course, I am only talking my preferences here, and someone may have scientific testing results that show the tape is very effecient. Let's hear it if you know of any.
Good Luck , Take-Out
BTW, that GTV-s card is the best deal in the universe for value, you get the way big bandwidth of the GF2 at a price of the MX-200 or better along with DDR mem, albiet at lower freq, but not enough to hurt the performance. Fact is, I bought one myself at $65 at Newegg.com, and I see now they are $45 or so there.

"We killed OUR Hitler" - attributed to Paul McCartney (If so, then well done, sir)

 

[phsstpok]

To go off topic, someone posted a customer review at GTS-V claiming that the cards were now shipping with 5.5ns memory but someone here at THG posted a message that his (Rev C, mine's Rev B) still has 7ns memory. Another customer review provided a link where Infineon states that it is discontinuing 32 Mbit SGRAM, all speeds, in favor of 128 Mbit, 3.8ns SGRAM. So unless Visiontek has another supplier or they want to redesign the GTS-V there may not be any more. (On the otherhand, a GTS-V with 3.8ns memory would be sweet. I can hope).

I'm still curious about the overclocking potential of my GTS-V. In most games I can overclock to 200/350 without artifacts but in MaxPayne I see a small amount of artifacts at only 200/333. Strangely, I looped 3DMark2001 for an hour at 200/400 but with about 20% artifacts (looks like winter) but scores aren't any higher than 200/350. Something is "throttling" performance.

I never experienced anything like this. In the past I've always run into a "brick wall" when overclocking vidcard memory. It would work up to a point and crash beyond that point. This card goes all the way up to 210/410 and 218/400, for short periods of time, but as I said artifacting can occur as low as 200/333. I'm really not sure if more cooling will do anything but I am going to try it.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Take_Out]

Interesting, when I get to benchmarking my #2 with the GTS installled, I will post some numbers here. I just had it running preliminarily with my new IBM 60GB until I recieved my ASUS P4S333 and P4 1.5g, so I have to reconfigure, and my other 4 computers I am upgrading in the meantime for my kids and friends, so who knows when, but the day will come when I will be done upgrading and then I can start over again. GOD!
Good Luck, Take-Out

"We killed OUR Hitler" - attributed to Paul McCartney (If so, then well done, sir)

 

[phsstpok]

I gave up on the staples idea. When I did a little research and learned that hardened steel only has about 1/15th the thermal conductivity of aluminimum I decided it wasn't even worth the effort. Instead I cut up a Pentium heatsink. Unfortunately, there was no improvement. Now I'm stuck with a vidcard with rather large and ugly RAMsinks. Maybe long duration overclocking will be improved, (except this vidcard has never crashed at my normal overclock).

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[Take_Out]

Well, they do make copper staples, but they may be copper plated. So, perhaps your journey is not over, my friend.
Check industrial suppliers, as shipping containers are frequently closed with copper looking staples.
Did you use thermal compound to attatch them? They should have made a significant (20%) improvement if memory heat was a factor in O/Cing.
Good Luck,
Take-Out. Copper is about twice as effective as aluminum, I am pretty sure.

"We killed OUR Hitler" - attributed to Paul McCartney (If so, then well done, sir)<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Take_Out on 02/14/02 04:04 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[phsstpok]

Yes, I used thermal compound but I also used superglue so they won't be coming off. They are working because the heatsinks a warmer than the video card (at least to the touch not having means to measure).

I didn't think about copper staples so that will have to be next time.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b>

 

[rcf84]

goto radio shack they sell him believe it or not. well there average you get a good OC with them. get paste and exopy. 1 spot to shop or go on the net and look.

I Love playing on my GameCube or PC cuz there both ATi powered...

 

[Kidane]

As I understood it, SDRAM doesn't generate much since it is capacitance based, not transistor based. The overclockability of RAM isn't based on heat, but how good the yield is. I'm not an engineer though, so I'm not really sure. I think RAM sinks look nice, and they are indeed good marketing (two $200 identical vid cards, one with sinks, one without, which would you buy?), but they're pointless, IMHO.

In fact, I run my GeForce 256SDR with nothing but passive cooling! And you know what? It runs great, and it's fast enough. I'm upgrading to a GeForce 2 GTS-V soon, I don't NEED a GeForce 3 yet, much less a GeForce 4. My card runs all the new games, including Max Payne, Quake 3, etc. I know Q3 isn't a "new" game, but it's still a good performance indicator.

My two cents.

Kidane



Det finns ingen dåliga väder - bara dåliga kläder

 

[phsstpok]

I'd say you are almost right. Before I installed Ramsinks on my old Geforce256 SDR I could overclock the memory 210mhz. After I installed the RAMsinks I could overclock the memory 216mhz. Not much difference except now I could also run at 210mhz while looping 3DMark2000 (at the time) for 24 hours where before I could barely complete one benchmark.

On the otherhand, I have no improvement on the GTS-V.

<b>We are all beta testers!</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 02/15/02 01:17 PM.</EM></FONT></P>