Well, it has been mentioned already that the original cooling of Sapphire
Radeon 9600XT is anything but not impressive. What can you expect from a 40mm
sleeve-bearing fan mounted on a tiny little aluminium radiator? So, it has got
to go in favour of a fast 50mm ball-bearing fan (Titan TFD-5010M12C 12V 0.13A
4500rpm) which is supplied with a fine copper radiator. Much better, but don't
forget about the memory chips. Accordingly to the datasheet, a single 3.3ns part
running at default 2.5V consumes 290mA current in burst mode, what makes 0.75VA
(volt-amperes; it's incorrect to use watts for peak loads). However, a single
2.8ns part running at default 2.8V consumes 400mA current in burst mode, what
makes 1.12VA. That's much more than in the previous example, and it can be even
higher with advanced overclocking. Consider that four memory chips are placed on
the front side of the card and benefit from the cooler's air-flow, but other
four are located on the back side and exposed to overheating. Of course, this
issue may be ignored completely, but don't wonder if any of the memory chips
dies because of it some day. So, the author has decided to install fine
aluminium radiators on the memory chips. See below how the video card looks
like after all upgrade actions taken.
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