Ram Heatsinks - do we need them...

SteveOBHave

SteveOBHave

SteveOBHave

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I really do wonder at the use of heat spreaders on DDR ram. I have heard the comments that heat on memory can cause errors and the such but have never seen anyone testing this statement.

So, my question is, does RAM really require heatspreaders and if so, where is the proof?

I have only found a couple of articles regarding this subject on Google:

http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/other_misc/Artic Silver Adhesive/artic silver.html

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=712

and also found this extract from one of the FAQs from OcUK.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53160

"Q. Do heatspreaders make a difference, should I add them?

A: In RDRAM heatspreaders are absolute requirements, in DDR all chips do equivalent work when processing a command. Heatspreaders are little more than a cosmetic improvement."

But again, is there any conclusive proof, and what about VGA card memory?
 
I think the answer is 'it depends'.

If your overvolting or overclocking the chips beyond spec, then yes you do, and even at stock i find mine get quite hot, so i think it is necessary for performance ram.

For value ram i have seen heatspreaders used as a selling point where they aren't actually needed.

As for gpu ram, yes that almost always needs heatsinks as it often runs much faster than system ram. Again, in most cases heatsinks are a must when overclocking, and dead texture ram is a common failure on graphics cards.
 
I too have been lead to believe this, and I am inclined to agree with you on the GPU Memory, regardless of the actual heat generated by the memory on a graphics card, any amount of head dissipation is good.

But for memory and using heat spreaders, I hear what you are saying but where is the proof? (Not saying you are not correct, but we see reviews and shootouts for any number of cooling devices for CPUs GPUs and Chipsets, where are the ones for memory cooling?)
 
You make a good point, a lot of things have heatsinks stuck on em these days to make them sell, not to cool them down. And sadly, a lot of products come with short warranties and no heatsinks where a heatsink should have been attached.

I had a graphics card fry on me recently, because the voltage regulators on it blew up due to poor (zero) cooling. A tiny piece of metal would have saved me about £100.

But as for ram needing a heatsink, i'm not sure how hot its supposed to get, but i don't think memory chips are as durable as, say a gpu or a voltage regulator fet which can take >100 degrees.

I'll go and get my thermometre and measure the surface temp on my ram in a moment. It does have a heatspreader.

Edit: I have a metre with a dead battery and a lazer probe that isn't supposed to take readings off a shiny surface, but i'm getting readings of around 35. The machine is folding, and does have a small fan on the ram. Its definately producing some heat.
 
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These are very good points

With anysort of memory if it gets too hot the memory cells die. This is why after a while of useage the RAM on your PC and laptops decreases. By placing a Ram heatsink on to the ram it will cool it down and stop these cells from dieing.

I had 512MB Ram in my laptop and overtime due to contuinuous heat it has decrease to only 478 Ram. But on the otherhand I have Ram heatsinks on my PC and its fine. I have also found that my PC runs faster when the Ram is cooler. When you first boot up your computer it is fast. After about 6 hours of idleness the computer will be slower when no Ram heasinks are present.

I would always use Heatsinks on my Ram, its not as f its a big invstment. £5-£15 for some decent heatsinks, and it stops cell death.
 
PC-M Vip3r said:
With anysort of memory if it gets too hot the memory cells die. This is why after a while of useage the RAM on your PC and laptops decreases. By placing a Ram heatsink on to the ram it will cool it down and stop these cells from dieing.

I had 512MB Ram in my laptop and overtime due to contuinuous heat it has decrease to only 478 Ram.
Click to expand...

You have to be having a laugh right? Seriously?!? I mean come on if memory goes bad, it will not function at all, I have never seen a case of DDR RAM suffering from Alzheimer's :p
 
TBH i think that heat spreaders on ram just looks a lot better than the dirty old look, it makes the dimms look more contempory. Ive got the giel value ram with like a matte bl00 heatspreader, i think it makes em look real nice.

As for gfx memory if your not thinking overclocking then you dont need them if u have good airflow in your case, maybe even with a hot case. When i removed the stock cooler from my x800xl it left the ram bare and with no cooling what so ever, ive run this card for months now without, however i can only overclock my ram by like 14 mhz before i get errors, if i had ramsinks on that ram i could get much more.

Ramsinks looks pretty nice too.... :D
 
One advantage of heatspreaders and ramsinks is the protection provided from static shock when being handled.
 
PC-M Vip3r said:
These are very good points

With anysort of memory if it gets too hot the memory cells die. This is why after a while of useage the RAM on your PC and laptops decreases. By placing a Ram heatsink on to the ram it will cool it down and stop these cells from dieing.
Click to expand...
Sadly even if that were true there is no method of marking ram 'cells' as dead, so they would simply get used and cause data corruption and blue screens and crashes.
 
smit101 said:
One advantage of heatspreaders and ramsinks is the protection provided from static shock when being handled.
Click to expand...


Was going to post the same as that provides a bit of protection for the chips on the pcb :) & they look nice too hehe
 
Journey said:
You have to be having a laugh right? Seriously?!? I mean come on if memory goes bad, it will not function at all, I have never seen a case of DDR RAM suffering from Alzheimer's :p
Click to expand...

I dunno...it would explain why my mate's computer seems to be going senile....
 
While DDR memory chips all share the workload, no two chips perform exactly the same. One chip on the stick may get hotter than the others (despite sharing workload equally) and this could cause errors. Heatspreaders reduce the risk of this happening.

The purpose of heatspreaders is to simply enlarge the surface area from which heat can dissipate, thus giving more effective cooling from the memory. The fact of semiconductors is that heat is bad.

It will give some advantage, however small.

I agree though; mostly I think it's a marketing ploy but TBH I prefer the look of my nice shiny silver-coloured heatspreaders to plain old black chips / green PCB.

Hav
 
Havana_UK said:
While DDR memory chips all share the workload, no two chips perform exactly the same. One chip on the stick may get hotter than the others (despite sharing workload equally) and this could cause errors. Heatspreaders reduce the risk of this happening.

The purpose of heatspreaders is to simply enlarge the surface area from which heat can dissipate, thus giving more effective cooling from the memory. The fact of semiconductors is that heat is bad.

It will give some advantage, however small.

I agree though; mostly I think it's a marketing ploy but TBH I prefer the look of my nice shiny silver-coloured heatspreaders to plain old black chips / green PCB.

Hav
Click to expand...

Meh, Thanks for the contribuition, but this is the same info that you can pull from any RAM Marketing literature. It is beginning to look more and more like the heatspreaders etc don't really add any advantages.

And just so you don't think that I am talking myself out of spending money on ram with heat spreaders, I have a set of 2gig Crucial Ballistix ram - nice yellow heat spreaders :)
 
They look cool. What more do you need? ;)

I dont think they will make a great deal of difference personally but i also dont think they are going to hurt either and for the small extra cost to either buy some heatspreaders or get some ram with them already on there is no real reason not to (though i havent got any on mine at the moment! :) ).
 
AN old copy of Custom PC said that even the people who produce memory stated that heaspreaders are purely cosmetic.
They also carried out test that showed no performance gain (ie extra FSB/HTT)
 
pegasus1 said:
AN old copy of Custom PC said that even the people who produce memory stated that heaspreaders are purely cosmetic.
They also carried out test that showed no performance gain (ie extra FSB/HTT)
Click to expand...

If Custom PC mag said that then it must be false.:p
 
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