Quote:
Originally Posted by ArkAngel666 
I don't know if I've ever seen any block on any card that makes direct contact to any parts on them. As a quick guess I'd assume that there must be a medium for heat transfer to take place otherwise chips and such would burn out under stress I would believe. That's just an uneducated guess though so don't take my word for it, but I don't think I'm far off the track.
I don't know if I've ever seen any block on any card that makes direct contact to any parts on them. As a quick guess I'd assume that there must be a medium for heat transfer to take place otherwise chips and such would burn out under stress I would believe. That's just an uneducated guess though so don't take my word for it, but I don't think I'm far off the track.
For sure there needs to be some medium! The role of the TIM is to fill the tiny microscopic gaps on the surface of the heat sink and chip so that no air gets trapped between them since air is a terrible heat conductor. Having said that, the best TIM's have thermal conductivities far below that of the heat sink itself so that is why it's important to use only a VERY THIN LAYER since the rate of heat conduction is worse through the TIM than through the chip and sink. The thicker the TIM layer the higher will be the temperature difference between the chip and the sink and the sink. Thermal pads have a thermal conductivity similar to TIM (maybe not the really good TIM's) but they are considerably thicker which is why I was hoping to do away with them. What I meant with direct contact was that the block/sink should touch the RAM and VRM's so that only a thin layer of TIM would be needed between them and so increasing the effectiveness of the cooling system
