Thermal-pads or paste for RAM heat-sinks recommendations?

[iCounterMyself]

I bought some heat-sinks for OEM RAM (3 pairs) & I wanted to replace the crappy thermal pads it comes with but as economical as possible as well as efficiency. I was thinking of using the Artic Thermal pads or Artic-MX4 paste if possible. Any advice, tips or help on the matter? Thanks in advance.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Recommend using the pads. Don't worry about the quality of the TIM used because RAM doesn't put out near enough heat to be affected by that.

 

[iCounterMyself]

Recommend using the pads. Don't worry about the quality of the TIM used because RAM doesn't put out near enough heat to be affected by that.

I forgot to mention I had Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 on hand. Also, do I need to cut pieces big enough to cover up the black chips on the RAM or use a whole strip inside the heat-sink spreader? I'm trying to stretch the dollar because I have to do a total of 6 RAM sticks for 2 different compact setups. They tend to get a little warm, so I wanted to reduce the heat on them.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

You cut the thermal pad strip to cover the RAM chips yeah. There's nothing else that really outputs heat on the sticks.

 

[iCounterMyself]

You cut the thermal pad strip to cover the RAM chips yeah. There's nothing else that really outputs heat on the sticks.

I apologize to revive this thread but I have one more question. I was doing some research about using thermal pad plus thermal paste together but I read it's a very bad idea because it isolates the heat in between the thermal pad & thermal paste. Also, there was a suggestion to use K5-PRO thermal paste over thermal pads because of it's thickness & efficiency. However, the issue is that they were typing about it for a GPU & not RAM. Would that even matter or the same principles apply to the RAM too & it makes it compatible by default?


K5-Pro thermal paste: http://www.ebay.com/itm/K5-PRO-gummy-sticky-thermal-paste-grease-XBOX-320GB-thermal-pad-replacement-20g-/261472670774?hash=item3ce0fc5436:g:AnkAAOSw3ydVt0BC#rwid

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Again, RAM does not put out remotely enough heat for this to matter the slightest bit. Thermal pads are just used because they're far more convenient to work with when it comes to RAM.

 

[iCounterMyself]

Again, RAM does not put out remotely enough heat for this to matter the slightest bit. Thermal pads are just used because they're far more convenient to work with when it comes to RAM.

I'm not denying this but I have to cut them out to size if I buy the Arctic Silver thermal pads compared to quickly applying the paste from K5-Pro & I'm doing this for at least 4 RAM sticks. It comes out cheaper & maybe as fast if I use the paste. However, is it safe to do because I don't know.

 

[Mr Kagouris]

Paste won't make the heatsink stick. It could literally slide off. If you put too much on it could also leak out of the heatsink and get in some very hard to clean places.

Personally, I like to compare the use of paste on RAM chips to using melted ice cream instead of frozen ice cream in a recipe.

Save yourself a lot of trouble and just use adhesive pads.