9600xt - no shim? VGA Cooler comments.

[Noozer]

Just an FYI post for anyone who's interested...

I just put an Arctic Cooler onto my "built by ATI" 9600XT and was surprised
to find that there was no shim around the GPU at all. I jotted the numbers
off the core down. Is there anything useful I could gain from them? (I'll
post them later if need be).

Install for this thing is pretty simple, but it's a tight fit in the case.
Remember to put the wires unde the sink before attaching it to the board. I
think it would work better if the heatsink was about 1/16" less thick so it
didn't interfere with the 2nd PCI slot and to make the vent slot cover
easier to align.

Remember that this whole heatsink is balanced on your GPU! I expected to
find a rubber nub or something on the far end of the sink to help balance
the load of the sink, but nope... The sink does appear to rest on one of
the capacitors (?) further down the board, but I don't know if this is
healthy or not.

System does appear quieter. Can't really say if it cools better, but with
that much metal I can't see how it wouldn't.

 

[First of One]

See how PIII and Athlon have been mounted this way for years, I don't expect
too much stress on the GPU.

 

[Noozer]

See how PIII and Athlon have been mounted this way for years, I don't expect
too much stress on the GPU.

Normally I agree, but the heatsing hangs 6+ inches away from the GPU...
That's a lot of leverage if it happens to get bumped!

 

[First of One]

6+ inches? It's more like one inch, and most of the weight is on the solid
aluminum chunk that's in contact with the processor anyway.

 

[Noozer]

6+ inches...

The heatink is WIDE and doesn't have any support except for at the GPU...
the sink is floating 5-6 inches from the GPU. An ounce of force at the end
of the heatsink (like bumping something during installation) is multiplied
on the GPU.