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Tweakmonster RAMSinks
Company: Tweakmonster
Product: SDR / DDR RAMSinks
Street Price: $25 For 4
Date Reviewed: June 14, 2001
Reviewed By: Jason
First
Impressions:
First I would like to thank Ross, aka Tweakmonster
for letting me review these very nice RAMsinks. Before I get down to my story,
let me give you a few spec's:
- They are proudly made in the U.S.A.
- These RAMsinks are 100% CNC machined from a solid block of 110 copper,
they are NOT extruded.
- The mounting surface is machined to a mirror-like finish, and is flat to
within .0002 of an inch.
- These have been designed to cover both types of RAM chips, although they
would work well on chipsets also.
There are two variations of the RAMsinks, the SDR model (which
is what was used in this review) have 3 fins, and the DDR model has 4 fins which
makes it a bit wider.
With that said, it's time to tell you my experiences with these
RAMsinks. When I took them out of the mailing package, each RAMsink was in its
own sealed bag, which in turn four of those were in a bigger sealed bag. Reason
being is that these are sold in quantities of four, however for my GF2GTS (I
just wasn't daring enough to put them on my GF3 since I haven't finished that
review yet) I would require eight to cover all the RAM chips.
Since these RAMsinks are pure copper, they add a noticeable
amount of weight to a video card (not to mention shine), but more on that
later.
Cleaning Off Oxidization:
They were a little tarnished when I received them (copper
naturally oxidizes over time), however it was fairly easy to clean them up to
their original shine. There are actually several ways that I could of gone about
this. Option one is to get some really fine sandpaper, perhaps around 800 grit,
to clean off the tarnished surface. Option two is to use some copper cleaner or
other mild abrasive, however I didn't have anything around that would of worked
properly, though you can probably get some at your local grocery store. Option
three is to use something acidic like a lemon or lime, which I did happen to
have a couple in the refrigerator. So I put all the RAMsinks in a bowl, then
squeezed a lime over them, added a little salt (abrasive), and swirled them
around. They were just about clean, however I added some baking soda in to get
them really nice and shiny again. Baking soda is definitely a miracle product,
it ranks up there with duct tape! Anyhow, after that I rinsed them off good
then took a heat-gun to them to get all the water off.
I figured I would just use a quarter since it was a comparable
size. Next section has pictures of it mounted on the video card which should
give a better representation.
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