Why do they use these pads for AGAIN:nono: . The theraml pad to heatsink for the RAM is just crap and if you take a look at these photos with the pads removed there is a significant gap between the heatsink and the ram. What the hell were they thinking!. The gap is .84mm! Now I'm thinking of soldeing a piece of copper from a ripped apart ram heatsink and soldering on the ATI heatsink to compensate for the gap. Take a look!: This reminds me of the ATI gpu ring fiasco a few years back where the square piece around the GPU was too high and caused poor heat dissipation to the hsf - I believe it was the original 9800pros if I'm not mistaken.
Well - no, I really don't want to do that nor should the consumer have to. This is a silly design and should be a concern. I had a 7800 with the fancy heat sink piping as well - similar design and the heatsink was taught against the surface of the RAM. ATI goofed!
AMD and Intel also use ****ty thermal paste with their stock heatsinks. God knows how many GPU makers use sub-best thermal paste on their cards. And my old 6800 GT had thermal pads on the memory, it had them for a couple months before I got a zalman cooler, and it did just fine. I mean unless your having problems, there is nothing wrong with their design.
are you having heat problems? you can always take the pads off and use some artic silver and slap the heat sink on if done it many of times
That was my intention but when you remove the pads, there's a big GAP between the RAM and the heasink ... .84mm gap to be exact and no amount of artic silver will cover that huge gap - that's what I've been saying. ATI screwed up!:speed:
how can he slap the heatsink back on if the sink isnt making contact do to a gap between card and sink?
And why does this matter, the memory is clocked at 2ghz anyways, seriously, you wanna OC it more? Well the memory is now being bottlenecked by the GPU at that speed, who cares as long as it runs.
It does matter since even at rated speed, high temperatures are always the enemy and manufacturers have to follow proper protocol when implementing a design - that's why ATI and much of the higher end cards utilize some sort of heat dissipation design for the ram BUT in this case, the heatsink that was designed is totally FLAWED. As a matter of fact, if you flip the heatsink over, they took the trouble of machining several components to fit the heatsink and a few of them missed there mark!. Not good. These are the choices , either water cool, add heatsinks, add fan especially around the rear of the card where the voltage regulators are OR modify the heatsink and solder some thin pieces of copper to compensate for the difference - I'm choosing to mod the heatsink. All I need is a piece of copper around that size or a tiny bit bigger as not to interfere with the HSF for the GPU and solder it on. ATI rushed this beast out.:no:
They don't have this problem with the X1900's right? Maybe the temp difference is because the ram wasnt making contact with the heatsink, so it didnt get as hot lol... Don't think that X1900's have this problem.. if so then - :no: :canada: lol
Well the Nvidia 7800 was well machined and did not have this problem nor did the x1900's. As you can see from the following pictures, the dimples to meet the ram were designed - but SHORT:
Yes, it produces a lot of heat, but before you messed with it, did it work? Were you getting artifacts? If not, then the product is working as intended, correct? Who cares about their thermal method as long as it serves it's need, and that need is to run the card at 2ghz, and if it does that without fault, then why mess with it.
I don't like paying for a cosmetic mistake nor do I believe that this will not eventually have an effect on the card itself - possibly even premature damage. If they didn't believe it needed a heatsink in the first place then they wouldn't of gone through all this trouble in making one. rder: :givebeer:
The pads fill the gap right? So what's the problem? If you're worked up about it because it somehow interferes with alternate cooling solutions, then that's probably just a tough-titties scenario. This is just a final re-hash card before they move to the 'next big thing'. I doubt they were interested in being carefull that others could slap custom coolers or such on. I see no problem.
Agreed. The cards ram/heatsink are intended to be joined by the thermal pad. Obviously if you pull your card to pieces, remove the pads and sit the sink back on there will be a gap. It's because you removed the pad! Also you have made no mention of heat problems so I'm wondering why you pulled it apart in the first place? I don't think ATI screwed up here.
My x1900 and previous Nvidia 7800 made good contact with the Ram. But anyway, the thermal pads suck and are a cheap alternative that solves a problem of mass production - as far as TRUE guru's are concerned, you would not use thermal pads unless your menstrating:hatty: Just to reassure everyone here, they did screw up. As mentioned, the heatsink was poorly machined for it's intention and there initial objective to make good contact with the RAM by machining dimples on the bottom of the heatsink ( look at pictures ) was well intentioned by short on the mark.
