7800- improving the stock cooler a bit (pics beware)

[K404]

Well.... I`ve found that the thermal control on the stock RAM cooling pads sucks dyson stylee, so I had a wee think about how to improve thermal transfer to the main cooler.

Step one...disassemble card and have a look.



These crappy pads are responsible for transferring the heat away from the cards RAM. When the RAM is overclocked, I found that it would freeze the system after one game test in 3DMark- to me, it looks like the RAM is overheating.



These were cut from the PCI blanking plates that are found on cheap cases. I know something similar can be found in DIY stores and some garden centres- small and pretty thin aluminium plates- those would be IDEAL for this.



Putting the plates onto the RAM- a thin smear of AS5 onto the chips, then these will stick on fine. I twisted them back and forth a couple times to make better contact.



All in place. the main cooler had AS5 applied to the blocks that sit proud for the RAM blocks, then the card was reassembled and fired up.

So far so good....temps seem ok, it benches fine and, best of all....I didnt break anything.

Now for the new OC attempts!

Yea, not many of us are using the stock cooler, but i`m surprised/disappointed that NVidia can assemble a card that uses X million transistors, yet cant measure the spacing between the cooler and the top of the core and RAM accurately, so use thermal pads instead.

Kenny

Update: couldnt bench at higher RAM frequencies. Ah well

 

[Master_G]

Interesting to see there is little difference, i personally dont think the PCI blanking stuff is the ideal thermal transfer material, so maybe if you find some copper or something it may work better?

But then i suppose you might as well just have copper RAMsinks and get rid of the stock cooler.

G

 

[K404]

Agreed- not ideal, but I was expecting it to be better than the pads. Got a waterblock coming to cover the whole card, but will need to free the waterloop from the CPU to use it. Time to delve back into "solving" my coldbug problem.

 

[Master_G]

It may have been better than the pads in temp terms, but that doesnt always equal better memory overclocks, as from what i have seen, unless you have Vmods etc, memory overclock isnt as sensitive to temperature as CPU overclock is.

Will be interested to see how much you gain on the memory from the full card waterblock, although the gains from the increased memory cooling will be difficult to tell as the memory will not be heated up as much by the GPU.

A test i would like to see if a GPU only waterblock with some good copper RAMsinks on the memory compared with a full card waterblock and see the difference between the overclocks with the two.

I myself have never been a fan of the full card waterblock as i see it as limiting upgrades in the future, as well as increasing heat input into the loop as well as increasing restriction, for no appreciable overclock gain from copper RAMsinks with decent TIM and reasonable airflow, but still would like to see a test on the issue.

I cant afford a full card waterblock anyway so kind of a moot point but there you go, i can wonder lol

G

 

[welshtom]

I used to have my NV78 cooling a 7800gtx and i liked it.

But when i changed cards it is a pain because it has to go too.

It certainly allowed to me to overclock the ram more, only by around 5-10mhz.

Plus it allowed all the heat from the GTX to go into the water rather than the case. As long as you have a big rad it will be fine.

Tom

 

[phil123]

i changed the cooler on my 7800gt to the zalman and i can get further on the ram and the core.