The usefulness of applying heatsinks to the RAM modules on videocards is in debate. Although I'm in favor of it, we won't cover that here. The particular chip that I'll be using as a test bench is the clock generator on the Asus P3V4X motherboard. Here is the link for the in-house article covering the subject.
The value of adding a heatsink to the clock generator on this board won't be of question. The thing gets hot. When it overheats it seriously affects system stability and keeping it cool greatly increases your chances of a successful overclock. Before putting the heatsink on it, the best I could overclock without stability problems with this PIII-450 was to 558. After adding it, 600 MHz became rock stable.
Instructions on how to apply the thermal epoxy can be found on Arctic Silver's website. One thing I will add is to follow the direction carefully. It is mentioned that the electrical conductivity of the epoxy is negligible. I am not really comfortable with that. I will reinforce their recommendation to insure that none of the product ends up where it should not be. MAKE ALL EFFORTS TO PROTECT ANY CONDUCTING SURFACES THAT IT COULD COME INTO CONTACT WITH! An ounce of prevention, or in this case, a dab of RTV silicone, will go a long way.
For testing, I used a thermal tape I purchased from Tennmax. I measured the temperature of the clock generator at idle and then again after letting my Necromancer clean out Hell at Hell difficulty in Diablo 2 (takes me about an hour).
| |
Thermal tape |
Arctic Silver Epoxy |
| Idle |
28.9C |
26.5C |
| Load |
30.4C |
27.9C |
Wow! As you can see, the temperature of the chip was significantly lowered after using the epoxy. Seeing that the temp at full load using the epoxy was less than the idle temp using the tape REALLY surprised me.
