Heat spreader fallen off Corsair Vengeance

[dww]

When I put a new disk in my PC yesterday, I noticed one RAM strip seemed loose, so I tried to reseat it, and found it was the heat spreader which was loose. I re-fitted it, but it fell off again. It was only held by soft gum on what looks like tape, which seems a bit weak for something costing £100.

As the spreader won't fix back, I re-seated the RAM strip without it. It's running cool, so does it actually need a heat spreader?

Not sure what to do now. I could RMA the RAM (I bought it from OC UK last December), but I can't be without my PC for however long that would take and I don't (yet) have a second pair to use in the meantime.

I'm also wondering whether it's BETTER without the heat spreader! I'd really like 16 GB RAM but I can't fit a second Vengeance pair, as the Akasa Venom CPU heatsink blocks one slot for such tall modules. The heatspreaderless DIMM looks like it will fit under there!

If I do buy another 8 GB, should I get more Vengeance, or would the cheaper Corsair XMS3 be OK? I know they're not quite so fast, but would that really matter - or should I keep both pairs the same?

The reason I want 16 GB is that I do a lot of database work, and SQL Server eats all the RAM it can get then wants more. I don't run games, but I do run data builds that take 2 hours when the CPU is overclocked to 4 GHz and longer if it's not, so a further speedup from extra RAM would be nice.

P.S. I guess I need to decide before OC UK end the special offer on XMS3

 

[Justintime]

Heatspreaders are more or less a gimmick imo.

 

[Jordan97]

Heatspreaders are more or less a gimmick imo.

Exactly. They do not do anything and are just a marketing trick to get people to buy it in favour of others.

The Corsair XMS3 is the same speed as the Vengeance. This is why it is the most favoured RAM throughout the forum: Good quality fast RAM, without all the silly heat spreaders and the hefty pricetag.

 

[spleenharvester]

They do spread heat out and prevent hotspots tbf, but they're not essential. The only ones that really NEED cooling are the kits you find with the bigass heatsinks on, even so I believe they're for OC'ing.

 

[dww]

Jordan97, you're right that the Vengeance and XMS3 PC3-12800 have similar performance, but I have Vengeance PC3-15000, https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-292-CS

OC UK don't list an XMS3 version above 12800.
But would that memory speed difference have a real impact on performance?

 

[TigerUK]

they may reduce the temps by a few degrees by spread it around. But how much can your expect heat to go down? 1 maybe 2 degrees??

IMO, a ram that's 38 degrees celcius will perform exactly the same as one that's 40 degrees celcius, barely no difference.

Some people say lower temps make RAM last longer though, but are you likely to ever use a ram stick 5-10 years? Before then they would have served their useful life and become obselete, so would be thrown out.

The only reason for using heatspreaders is for overclocking, and that heatspreaders are good for marketing because they look 10 times more cooler than without.

With overclocking, sure if you like push your components right up to their physical limits. But if you ask me, the instability isn't worth it.

 

[Jokester]

RAM can actually be cooler without the heatspreaders as the heatspreaders also prevent air flow round the actual chips. Pretty sure someone tested various setups and found that heatspreaders were only worth it if they were directly cooled by RAM coolers over the top of them.

 

[olivier renault]

OCZ Reaper

Although to be fair to them, they perform well, and I use a H50.

If I needed too, I'd tempted to remove their silly heatpipe

 

[setter]

Using a triple channel reaper kit here, the tall heatspreaders can be a bit of a curse. Im considering swapping them for something with a lower profile. But, as the kit i have are a cas7 set, it's hard too find something comparable. I may still keep them and see if i can clock them a bit higher, with the timings theres a bit of give as far as slackening them off at higher speeds.

 

[iguanoid]

Tempted to removed the spreader on that OCZ ram???

I had 4 sticks of that which fell to pieces before they finally rma'd a newer revision which actually stayed in one piece for longer than a couple of weeks. Enjoy the temptation while it lasts i say

 

[Mr-White]

Heatspreaders are more or less a gimmick imo.

There was an article a few years back that said heatspreaders gave a few mhz increase at best. It does make them look nice though

MW

 

[setter]

I remember a few people reporting that they had spreaders fall of reaper kits, iirc all were the reaper x variety. I used standard reapers on my s775 system, (pc6400 and pc8500), theres been several different heatpipe designs on the standard reapers over the years.

 

[stulid]

I remember this from another forum,

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...Y-DONE-WITH-CORSAIR-MEMORY-AND-THEIR-PRODUCTS

Look carefully and you will see that the actual memory IC is stuck to the heatspreader.

 

[panyan]

from what i understand, ram doesnt really get hot, so there is no need for heatspreaders - it just looks cool to make people think they are "better"

its like if they started putting heat spreaders on a hard drive - completely pointless as they only run at ~30 degrees

 

[Rroff]

There aren't many chips that benefit and when they do you need proper heatsinks and a directed airflow.

For example the old DDR2 D9GMH would overclock to exactly the same level with or without heatspreaders - infact some chips would overclock better without unless you had directed airflow and both degraded at the same alarmingly fast rate if you pushed the voltage above 2.1v regardless of how much you cooled them.

 

[dww]

I saw that, stulid. Fortunately the glue on mine was too weak to pull chips out

I'm now convinced I'm better off without the spreader; thanks guys
But nobody has really answered the rest of my question; can I mix my pair of Vengeance PC3-15000's with a pair of XMS3's, which are only PC3-12800, and if so will it make a real difference to performance c/f two pairs of PC3-15000?

 

[MikeHunt79]

I've found heatspreaders reduce performance, they more like heat jackets;

BH-5 with 3.3v thru it with 6-2-2-2 timings,

240Mhz with heatspreaders
245Mhz with heatspreaders removed
255Mhz with individual heatsinks on each chip and 120mm on top.

 

[panyan]

I've found heatspreaders reduce performance, they more like heat jackets;

tbh, im not suprised, plastic glued on around the chips is just poor...