WARNING: AC Twin Turbo + Enzotech BMR-C1 RAM Sinks

[spathotan]

I recently bought an Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo cooler http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=166 for my 4870, and since the RAM/mosfet sinks that came with it sucked horribly, I bought some Enzotech BMR-C1 copper sinks. Now, today when installing them I ran into a crucial issue; the sinks are too tall, one of them impacts the heat-pipes making instaliation of the AC TT impossible, and the other 7 sinks touch the bottom of the cooler fins, making the GPU chip I guess.....99% contacted. Temps were not affected directly but there is definetly some resistance on the contact which POSSIBLY could result in some bending/bowing of the PCB, too early to tell. I took some pics but they all came out like ****, so ill have to describe the issue the best I can. The size/clearance specs on the AC site said I should have had 1mm of clearance but obviously not, apparently they did not count for the actuall RAM chip, which is ironically...1mm tall.

These are the RAM sinks in question http://www.enzotechnology.com/bmr_c1.htm . These are the standard ones, awesome quality, decent price from Sidewinder Computers. These http://www.enzotechnology.com/bcc9.htm are the ones I should have gotten and should be bought if you plan to use these two products together, they are the same thing just low profile.

The RAM sink that needs to be modified is the one closest to the PCIe interface/edge of the card. I had to take pliers and bend/twist 2 full rows of "pins" off the sink, bend the 3rd row back a little bit, then when applying it making sure the sink was at the edge of the RAM chip and not overlapping towards the PCIe interface/edge of the card. Only after this was the AC TT cooler able to be installed. Once again sorry I dont have pictures, tried my best to describe.

**EDIT** Update here, DO NOT, I repeat...DO NOT buy the standard heatsinks in combination with this cooler, BUY THE LOW PROFILE ONES. The sinks touching the cooler shot my memory temps up to 124c IDLE, which killed my card. Mass artifacting, repeating driver failure and reinstall failure.

 

[Guest]

or get iandh 4870 ram sinks which work 20 times better

http://www.petrastechshop.com/cuhdcokitbyi.html

sorry you had a bad experience

 

[spathotan]

Yea, at $40. The Enzotech RAM sinks and mosfet pieces were under $20 combined.

 

[Conumdrum]

I see many just cutting the HS shorter with a pair of cutters. Common sense practice and done by many modders. I don't see the big deal why you had so many problems. Looked like you should of cut em first.

Bummer, sorry it dodn't work for ya.

 

[spathotan]

If you look at the pictures in the links (which are provided in the OP), youll see its not so easy to just "cut em". That goes for the sinks and the GPU cooler.

 

[Conumdrum]

Never said it would be easy. Part of the modders life. A quality set of flush wire cutters would work just fine, one pin at a time. I have seen many cut and many bent out of the way. Of course checking them before and cutting them before installing them would be easier.

We all make mistakes. Thanks for the warning, hope others heed and read to learn. I see your not bashing the items, just a warning for others, props to ya for that.

Ohh, curious... What software monitors GPU mem temps? Or did you use a handheld infrared? All I know is I can read chip temp and GPU chip temp on software.

 

[spathotan]

I used Rivatuner, HWMOnitor, and of course CCC. And well I used my hands also. The memory could not be touched for longer than 1 second, unless I wanted to get a serious, cry inducing burn. As I said its still in the system, my replacement/backup/temporary card wont be here till tomorrow.

The card works without drivers just cant play games or display my native res, its still sitting at 127c on the memory and 110+ on the voltage regulators, Rivatuner still recognizes the cards and the sensors, and I know the readings are acurate because just like before WITH the drivers I cant keep my finger on the **** for more than 1 second. Its literally raising the temps of my CPU and NB by 3-6c. I need to get it out of there ASAP.

VisionTek support has been kind of shoddy so far, ive recieved the RMA form in email and filled it out and returned, but ive yet to get an RMA number. All they keep doing is resending the damn form to me.