• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

ATI 1950XTX Memory Cooling?

Soldato
Joined
12 Jan 2006
Posts
2,547
ATI Radeon X1950 XT-X ***Crossfire/Master Edition*** SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR4 (PCI-Express)

Just got this card and i want to watercool it, but im a little worried as this baby runs HOT :eek:
There is a huge heatsink covering the memory. so i am wondering if i need to cool the memory chips aswell as the GPU? or does the memory run sufficiently cool not to warrant it
Also is there a better method than the little stick on heatsinks which seem to keep coming off, i added a bit of epoxy to the ones on my 7900 GTX but i dont want to make anything permanent in case i want to sell on the card

Thanks in advance
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Sep 2005
Posts
3,267
Location
Manchester
most peple say its fine not to cool the memory tbh. specialy not activly

im sure most waterblocks when bought new will come with RAMsinks. if not the OCZ ones seem to be the most popular.
btu theres plenty other options for ram sinks.


ive just got nacky little thermaltake ones on mine and ive never had a problem
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Jul 2005
Posts
19,359
Location
Midlands
you can go without ramsinks if you want to. the memory doesn;t even get warm when under heavy use. the stock cooler is bad for the memory since it actually dumps heat from the core into the ram. so if your stock cooler gets to 80c, your ram will probably be getting to that same level too. if you remove the stock cooler and leave the ram bare it will barly break 35c. you could slap some heatsinks on it if you wanted to but they won;t help you increase your ram overclocks. but they do look good.
 
Associate
Joined
5 Oct 2006
Posts
65
I've searched with no luck on here and Google, so will post here rather than start a new thread.

What kind of temps does the 1950XTX run at idle and under load.

Mine idles at 59C, upto around 78-80C under load.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Jul 2005
Posts
19,359
Location
Midlands
JAG1977 said:
I've searched with no luck on here and Google, so will post here rather than start a new thread.

What kind of temps does the 1950XTX run at idle and under load.

Mine idles at 59C, upto around 78-80C under load.


those are the normal temperatures. however yours is running a tiny bit cooler than normal, most end up in the load region of 85c
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Apr 2004
Posts
13,489
These cards are EXACTLY the same as any X1900, apart from the 1 less Power Management chip and DDR4.


Temps are fine up to 85C on stock air.

Water shouldn't really be any higher than 50-55 really, as I can get that at overclocked load with a air cooler.

CR.
 
Associate
Joined
8 Jan 2005
Posts
2,405
Location
Worcestershire
For your reference, the maximum junction temperature in current GDDR3 memory modules is 125°C, GDDR4 has almost identical thermal limits. a few passive ramsinks would be all that is needed, if at all. tis true the cooler you can run it the higher you can clock it though.
 
Soldato
Joined
31 Jul 2004
Posts
3,730
The Card runs hotter than the 1900 because ATI have set a much lower Fan speeds in the Bios. The fan speed is at 13% until the card get's to 77c...Crazy

You should be able to watercool and leave the original ramsinks in place...better file off the "stand offs" and refit them with proper compound.

I have an edited bios that keeps the Card temps sensible
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
12 Jan 2006
Posts
2,547
JAKUS said:
The Card runs hotter than the 1900 because ATI have set a much lower Fan speeds in the Bios. The fan speed is at 13% until the card get's to 77c...Crazy

You should be able to watercool and leave the original ramsinks in place...better file off the "stand offs" and refit them with proper compound.

I have an edited bios that keeps the Card temps sensible
i dont want to damage the original cooling in case i want to sell on the card is the thing,
So in summary i only need to cool:
The GPU (obviously) - water
The Mosfets - passive

Optional cooling:
Memory - Passive

is there anything else i should be wary of?
 
Soldato
Joined
31 Jul 2004
Posts
3,730
Well Just pull the Copper looking ram sink with the pads and use some aftermarket ram sinks...Those "insulator pads" don't stick very well so with any luck You could revert the Card to original

for the record TaKen my 1950xtx runs about 45 idle and 70 max
 
Back
Top Bottom