Ram Heat Spreaders, Necessary?

[mezmir]

Is there a general agreement about whether or not the heat spreaders on ram is necessary? I got a 12gb kit of corsair vengeance but due to the length of the spreaders had to remove them in order to make room for my triple length rad that I'm mounting in the top of my nzxt phantom. I am watercooling everything but will still have a 200mm fan on the side of the case which is pretty much blowing right on the ram still, do you think it'll be ok?

I do plan to oc them to 2000mhz. I read somewhere else because of the way ddr3 tri channel works they shouldnt get all that hot still and air flow should be sufficient, but I still want some opinions

 

[tinytomlogan]

Is there a general agreement about whether or not the heat spreaders on ram is necessary? I got a 12gb kit of corsair vengeance but due to the length of the spreaders had to remove them in order to make room for my triple length rad that I'm mounting in the top of my nzxt phantom. I am watercooling everything but will still have a 200mm fan on the side of the case which is pretty much blowing right on the ram still, do you think it'll be ok?

I do plan to oc them to 2000mhz. I read somewhere else because of the way ddr3 tri channel works they shouldnt get all that hot still and air flow should be sufficient, but I still want some opinions

The Vengance I got sent do not overclock very well at all. Can you post a picture of your rig? You will need some kind of heat spreader on them just to get the heat away from the ram chips, you just dont need the huge ones some kits have.

You will need a lot of QPI volts when you start to clock them. You should have bought a 970 rather than the n00b 980 option aswell.

 

[pursuinginsanity]

TTL, why would you "need" a heatspreader? RAM is sold and used all the time with no heatspreaders.. there shouldn't be anything different here. A DDR3 IC is a DDR3 IC. Micron D9KPT is sold both with and without heatspreaders, and actually has been known to overclock -better- without the spreaders than with. (yes, I realize vengeance aren't Micron ICs.. it was just an example)

That said, according to a Corsair Rep (Yellowbeard) Corsair bakes the ICs with the heatspreaders already attached. This can sometimes cause the ICs to become seperated from the PCB if you attempt to remove the spreaders. Now, it sounds like you've already removed them, if so, I guess you did it correctly or wouldn't be asking about this. Just something to consider if you haven't removed them yet, though.

 

[tinytomlogan]

TTL, why would you "need" a heatspreader? RAM is sold and used all the time with no heatspreaders.. there shouldn't be anything different here. A DDR3 IC is a DDR3 IC. Micron D9KPT is sold both with and without heatspreaders, and actually has been known to overclock -better- without the spreaders than with. (yes, I realize vengeance aren't Micron ICs.. it was just an example)

That said, according to a Corsair Rep (Yellowbeard) Corsair bakes the ICs with the heatspreaders already attached. This can sometimes cause the ICs to become seperated from the PCB if you attempt to remove the spreaders. Now, it sounds like you've already removed them, if so, I guess you did it correctly or wouldn't be asking about this. Just something to consider if you haven't removed them yet, though.

No need to worry dude. But it does also depend on the model. Vengance isnt an issue when whipping off the cooler hence why I suggested it

 

[Stryker64]

In fact having heatspreaders on RAM will only decrease the temperatures by only a few degrees. They are more for aesthetics than functionality for modern RAM.