The reason for full coverage waterblocks (as opposed to just the GPUs) is mainly to cool the VRMs.
As others have mentioned half the ram is on the backside and it gets inferior cooling regardless. The good thing is the power density of modern video ram is pretty low so it doesn't really get that hot (unless heavily overclocked).
Topic: Ram cooling on Radeon 5970 (Read 1502 times)
For what its worth, Sapphire 5830's cooler does not have dedicated RAM cooling, and they use GDDR5 @ 1Ghz (4GHz effective).
It's probably safe to say RAM itself does not need any dedicated cooling unless it is heavily overclocked and you are concerned about getting that extra edge and feel temperatures are limiting it. If you're really curious, simply run 3dmark or some 3d intensive program for a bit and put your finger on (or behind on the PCB) one of the RAM modules if you can.
But really if you're just mining, you should be underclocking RAM and cooling need for RAM should be nonexistant.
It's probably safe to say RAM itself does not need any dedicated cooling unless it is heavily overclocked and you are concerned about getting that extra edge and feel temperatures are limiting it. If you're really curious, simply run 3dmark or some 3d intensive program for a bit and put your finger on (or behind on the PCB) one of the RAM modules if you can.
But really if you're just mining, you should be underclocking RAM and cooling need for RAM should be nonexistant.
No you don't... the backside (half of the ram)is cooled by the backplate and it is not actively cooled. However which ever water solution you go with be sure it has really good cooling for the vrms they really do get hot! And what I hear it is the first part to fail.
I got ekwaterblock fc 5970 and while my core temps are around 50c the vrms are 70c
I got ekwaterblock fc 5970 and while my core temps are around 50c the vrms are 70c
So for the 5970's do I need ram cooling, especially if the ram is underclocked?
Looking at different options for liquid cooling.
Looking at different options for liquid cooling.
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