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Can Heatsinks damage other cards and/or components?

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 4:28 pm
by Max Dread
Hi guys

I'm currently looking at the passively cooled HD3850 and HD3870 GCs. Problem is, with the size of the heatsinks Im already gonna lose a PCIe slot because of the size of the heatsink. But I'm wondering what will happen if I use the PCI slot next to the heatsink? A card in that slot would be pretty close to the heatsink - could it therefore get damaged if the heatsink gets too hot? I've got an INtel DP35DP motherboard.

Behind the GC I have a large heatsink on the CPU which has a kind of material wrap round it to act as an exhaust duct. Likewise, I'm worried about the heat of the card near this. I can try to post pics when I get home. The case is made by PaQ.

Also, will it cause problems if the heatsink is near the part circled in red? (North/south bridge - I'm not sure which it is).

Image

Would really appreciate any advice.

Cheers

Max

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:44 am
by kel
I'd say it's unlikely - I have the same board and with some airflow (from a 650rpm exhaust) the heatsink is only slightly warm to the touch (I do know that the chip itself hits around 70c, but I'd interpret the temp of the heatsink "slightly warm to the touch" (= above body temp) as around 45c or so)

Think of it that way: it'd have to heat the chips through the board...it'd have to get really damn hot to radiate enough heat to do that - tbh the chip itself would probably fry before it would manage to radiate enough heat and as these northbridge chips can take up to 120-130c you'd have to have a serious lack of airflow to hit that...

In other words I very much doubt any chip could ever "radiate" enough heat to damange an nearby component, the only problem you're facing is when the overall case temp rises too high and then you've got a general ventilation problem.

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:22 am
by Max Dread
Thanks mate, that's really helpful.

So when you say you have the same board do you mean the same motherboard, GC, or both? If not, what GC are you using?

Incidentally, I had a passive Gigabyte 8600GT before but sent it back because of coil whine. It was a single slot design with a blck heatsink - Silent Pipe II they call it I think. Now that got pretty hot to the touch - you wouldnt want to leave your hand on it! I guess that 's why I asked. But maybe being single slot it was less efficient.

Thanks again

Max

Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:25 am
by kel
Same motherboard, I have a eVGA GF9600GT with a Accelero S2 heatsink on it.