does 8800 need heatsinks for memory?

Well since the entire point of watercooling the gpu is to overclock it, I would say yes.

The memory might run ok at stock speeds without ramsinks but they are definitely a good investment.

Both the swiftech and zalman ones are quite good.
 
GDDR3 does run cooler but over certain speed manu's do fit sinks, they dont do this for the fun of it and doubt to make it look bling as some dont.

Fact is you will OC higher with sinks if fitted well (some thermal tape hinders transfer).
 
it can't hurt to stick some on, there what 10 quid ?? at the end of the day there not gonna hurt and MIGHT help with summer temps...
but " the choice is urs " as a voice over used to say
 
I found that ramsinks add 2-5mhz at best. Not worth it all. Not even for benching. People used to take the heatspeaders off BH5 for overclocking and better cooling.
 
Aya and point a small delta fan at them, thats because most spreaders were a joke and cosmetic, new ones actually do use thermal goo or some kind of bonding.

I would not run my Card without the ram cooled, I just make it to 2400mhz on the Memory without mods.
 
Made no difference on my 8800gtx. Ram didnt get any higher using ATI tool whether using stock cooler, naked (with WCing on the block) or a D-Tek GFX UNI-Sink.
A word of warning though, the Swiftech Ram sinks i used didnt like staying stuck and one fell off, that could short out anything below it (ie sound card).
 
The EK blocks are nice. Less case heat but more heat dump into the loop. More expensive to replace at upgrade time too.

2 D-Tek Fusions cost £60 and can be used on other cards.
 
The point is if you are watercooling the chances are your airflow in the case will be lower than an aircooled case (normally) so the memory will not have as much air flowing around them to dissipate the heat.

My view is that if nvidia see fit to cool the memory then there must be a reason for it.
 
The Swiftech Stealth blocks seem pretty good too, cooling both gpu and memory. Well happy with mine, 50 degrees load on my 8800GTS @ 650:2000 playing Stalker on full. Not got great radiators either.

The pads for the mosfet? heatsinks are rubbish though. don't stay on for love nor money. Luckily I've not had any problems running without them. Will get them sorted eventually.
 
w3bbo said:
The point is if you are watercooling the chances are your airflow in the case will be lower than an aircooled case (normally) so the memory will not have as much air flowing around them to dissipate the heat.
Click to expand...

You think? Not a generalisation?

The Stock cooler will be putting extra heat to the ram and there will be less heat circulating around the card by watercooling the core. The stock cooling on my GTX would result in hot pockets of air under the card. Now I have watercooled the Core that heat is taken away resulting in cooler ram. I think these stock coolers are built so large purely for core cooling, the coverage of the ram is just a by product of this.
 
weescott said:
The EK blocks are nice. Less case heat but more heat dump into the loop. More expensive to replace at upgrade time too.

2 D-Tek Fusions cost £60 and can be used on other cards.
Click to expand...

I have to agree at the bit about replacing it at upgrade time but i had to do that anyway as my old AquaXtreme MP-1's were not able to be used on the 8800 series anyway. Personally it does'nt bother me as i want the best that i can afford. As already mentioned, Nvidia must cool the memory for a reason.

As for temps, you really can't grumble with 32 degrees idle and 48 on load (Oblivion, Stalker, 3Dmark06 @650/2000. My rad is in a window though. Also in my loop and before the GPU is my 4300 and the NB (which get's quite toasty which is why it's on water).
 
w3bbo said:
The point is if you are watercooling the chances are your airflow in the case will be lower than an aircooled case (normally) so the memory will not have as much air flowing around them to dissipate the heat.

My view is that if nvidia see fit to cool the memory then there must be a reason for it.
Click to expand...
Going by the poor quality tim pads used im not so sure, all i can go on are my personal results. I do however make sure i have decent case cooling even though my CPU/GPU/NB are all WCed.
 
Yes, use ramsinks. If the card is with or without them as standard you will lose the airflow from the air cooler when you go with water. Manufacturers do include the cooling effect, and even engineer it in, when designing cards, whether they have ramsinks or not.
How effective they are will depend on your setup.
I'm lucky, since I modded (am modding) a case I set it up so that the front 120mm intake blows directly at the graphics card, with nothing in between, enhancing the effect of the el cheapo sinks I used.
 
malfunkshun said:
Yes, use ramsinks. If the card is with or without them as standard you will lose the airflow from the air cooler when you go with water. Manufacturers do include the cooling effect, and even engineer it in, when designing cards, whether they have ramsinks or not.
How effective they are will depend on your setup.
I'm lucky, since I modded (am modding) a case I set it up so that the front 120mm intake blows directly at the graphics card, with nothing in between, enhancing the effect of the el cheapo sinks I used.
Click to expand...

but on a card like the 8800gtx, the VRAM doesnt have any direct airflow, there is about a 2mm gap filled by tim pads that looks like a piece of squashed chewing gum.
 
same as x1900 series then, and they did need sinks (I assume you mean they have thick contact pads to the gpu cooler assembly?)
Either way, for a tenner it is worth it for the additional peace of mind.
 
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