Ram Heatsinks - do we need them...

[SteveOBHave]

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?

 

[SteveOBHave]

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?)

 

[SteveOBHave]

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

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