When you try to overclock your video card to its limits, you use
various mods to cool down the VGA core, but many people forget that
cooling the Memory is very important.
This is because memory speed is always the limiting factor in any
overclock, so a speed increase for your RAM will yield better results
than a speed increase in your GPU clock.
It’s quite easy getting high overclocks from a GPU, but overclocking
the memory over its stated limit is quite hard; and the only way you can
avoid artifacts and damaging your VGA card is that you use some cooling
mods for the memory too. Enter RAM-Sinks
While some card manufacturers do provide ramsinks on their high-end
models, this feature is missing on majority of the cards. So this guide
basically shows you how to attach ramsinks on your VGA ram to squeeze
out the last MHz out of your card
List of things required for this mod –
1.) A graphics card (
). We’ll be using a Club 3D 9600 Non Pro in this article.
2.) Ram sinks (you can get these at any local electronic shop, ask for small heatsinks. These heatsinks are often used in stereos and TVs or for cooling any small IC).
3.) Electrical insulation tape.
4.) Thermal grease/paste
Instructions
Remove your VGA card from the slot. Clean it thoroughly. All
application surfaces (including your ramsink bottoms) should be cleaned
to remove any dust particles or oils
You can use a earbud or a matchstick for applying the thermal paste.
Put a very small blob on top of the ram chip and press to fit the ramsink
one at a time. Carefully wipe away any excess that gets squeezed out.
Thermal paste should not come in contact with any resistors/smds on the
card PCB, because thermal paste is conductive and so may prove fatal for
your card.
Repeat this procedure for all the ram chips. Once done, cut out strips
of insulation tape (2-3 inches in length) and drape it over each
ramsink and fix it firmly to the board.
The finished mod should look something like large margin. Attaching a 80mm fan somewhere near the video card would
be a good idea, as this would help in cooling the heated ramsinks.
So happy modding and overclocking folks!
