My 8RDA is down until I can replace the RAM (it's dead, Jim) on Monday (lifetime warranty, good). I figured I might as well clean the cooler on my PNY Ti4600. I decide to lap it since the bottom of the heatsink unit doesn't look all that smooth. I didn't do much lapping, but it appears that at least part of the unit is copper. I doubt it'll give me anything extra in overclocking, as the Ti4600's were clocked pretty close to the edge at stock speeds, but the contact should be better. I don't know if this is on all Ti4600s or not, but it was on mine. Pic attached to show off.
cool did you mange to overlclock the card by much or little? alot of users seem to keep on talking about the ti4200 and how good it is!
In general, does lapping a heatsink make that much of a difference ? I just ordered a SLK-800 because I want good cooling w/out the noise (the fan on the volcano 11 is a Thermaltake smartfan II and it's very loud at high speed : I'll still use that fan but at a low speed) so if it does make a difference, I'll just practice on my volcano 11 heatsink before I do it on the slk-800. I couldn't get the U version as my board doesn't have mounting holes, that's one thing I'd really like to have but....can't have everything right ?
The board I wanted to put it in seems to be the problem with getting the system working, so I haven't been able to test it. I do know that the Ti4600's were clocked pretty close to the maximum of the core. Lapping generally makes the surface smoother so there's better contact between the chip and the heatsink. The thermal paste is just to fill in airgaps, and why you only put a thin coat of paste on. I'm pretty disgusted with the Epox 8RDA, so I'll likely be getting that Soltek NV400 64L single channel NForce 2 board off Newegg (unless some other reputable dealer has a better price). It'll be easier to remove the CPU heatsink since it's not at the very top edge of the board.
That's weird, since every epox owners seem to love their board....until they try soltek (joking) But seriously, I thought you'd have a better experience with it. Personally, if I had to buy a board right now, I'd either get the NV400 or the NF7-S. I'm ruling out the FRN2-L since I'd wanna' try something different. Just for your info, Asus also makes a nforce2 400 board, the A7N8X-X.
