Replacing stock cooler on Radeon 9600

[Jinx79]

Hi

I have recently added a Connect3d Radeon 9600 (non Pro) to my system. As it only comes shipped with a heatsink on the GPU so I was thinking about replacing it with a heatsink and fan as I'm going to try and up the performance.
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to which one to use and how difficult is it to replace them? Is it simmilar to a CPU heatsink? Also would it be woth getting some memory heatsinks as well.

Thanks

Chris J

 

[gcunning]

I have not seen the physical card so bear with me

If the memory chips and cpu are flush, just strap an giant old monitor heat sink to the guy and point a case directly fan at it.

You can also buy one of the fans that fits into a open PCI slot on the back of the PC.

Usuall the CPU and memory are not the same height, if thats the case you can use separate sinks, old 486 and pentium heat sinks make great ram coolers, you can even chop them in half or 3rds to make better use of them.

I would reccomend getting some generic silver heatsink compound as well.

If you don't have mounting holes next to the chip, you are going to have to look at an adhesive compound to stick the heat sinks on.

Remove the metal PCI slot next to the card and point a case fan (just attach it to a metal rebar like you use to mount car stereos) and point it so it goes over the heatsink and out the slot in the back.
You can also use a heatsink/fan combo from and old 486/pentium machine too.

 

[paparazi]

Or:
You could do the job properly and use one of ThermalTakes excellent active fan, after market replacement kits, they either come with ram heatsinks or they can be purchased separately (the ram sinks come with thermal adhesive tape)
Other products that may be useful: Artic Silver epoxy resin (not sure thats the correct name) but basically this is a high quality thermal adhesive.

Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[Jinx79]

Thanks for the replies. I think that I'll take a look at the ThermalTake solution.

 

[gcunning]

Artic silver is the name brand, the generics are just as god, but hlaf the price, just make sure that it contains in the higher 90% of silver content, and that the sivler is 99.9% pure, or close.

I would not spend more than a few buck on a cooling solution, new cards that surpass yours without being as noisy or hot cost around $100 now. Overclocking sadly has lost most of its appeal with cheap replacements so readily available.