Cooling fan required for OC'd corsair dominator ram

[Hoody_s13]

Hey all,

I recently RMA'd my corsair airflow fan because of an annoying cold boot grinding noise for the first minute. Now the new fans I've recieved seem to be just generally loud, compared to the first fans.

 

I've done a few google searches on the issue, but not picking up any solid info for overclocked ram. Do I need a ram fan running these 3 sticks (12gb dominator gt, 2006mhz @ 1.65v)???

My system is fairly quite without the airflow fan, so I'd prefer to take it out, but won't if it's recommended for OC'd ram.

[Scottike]

With the minimal OC your running your ram at, I wouldn't be worried about the lack of active cooling on your dominator.

If you were running it at a substantial overclock, it might be a different story, but at 6mhz over stock it should'nt be a problem.

I always considered those fans as an added bonus for purchasing that ram, not as a requirement to operate it.

Of course, it also depends on the cooling and airflow you have in the rest of your system, if your case has poor airflow,

your ram may well need the fans to help keep their temps below dangerous levels.

I'm assuming that your using this ram: Corsair Dominator GT

[MercuryDoun]

I run my memory at 1914mhz at 1.65 volts with no fan. The heatsinks are barely over room temp when you touch them with your fingers. Ima go ahead and say the fan isnt really needed. But my case does have excellent airflow over that area of the case.

[Boinker]

I ran mine without the HSF as soon as I went back to air cooling. When I was watercooling. Yes I used it. You really do not need it though. the difference between fan and not fan is about 10c so I would not worry about it. Though mine was with dominator gt 1866 so It may be different.

[MercuryDoun]

Did i mention my memory is only rated at 1600mhz?? Its kinda overclocked alot, and still fine. Im sure yours will be fine without the fan.

[Hoody_s13]

Thanks guys for the response!

Scottike that's the memory kit I'm using, also have the haf x so airflow isn't an issue. When you say 6mhz over stock, is that right? The way I thought rated memory worked is that say 2000mhz was a stable point it could be guaranteed to reach.

 

I have the airflow pro attached (bit of a pc ricer add-on that I've got sick of) so did a little testing last night. Firstly when the fan is running at idle on an average day the LED indicates blue temperature, or sometimes green. Under load in black ops, it stays green.

However with the fan off, it idles green and underload stays yellow. One thing to note is my h70 is setup as intake, so the ram can does get a little warm air on it under CPU load.

 

So the difference doesn't seem like much, but I still have no idea what temperature range each colour represents. Anyone know?

[Hoody_s13]

That is a big clock on 1600 merc, nice latency too.

Haven't ever tried pushing ram past rated speeds, see any worthwhile improvement?

[Onion]

The best way to test ram temperatures is touch it with the backside of your hand. If it's warm, it's fine. If it's hot, but doesn't hurt, you're fine. If it's burning to the touch, time to get some fans on those bad boys. The Dominators are usually fine without the fan unless you're giving them a lot of voltage, thanks to those big heatsinks on them.

[MercuryDoun]

That is a big clock on 1600 merc, nice latency too.

Haven't ever tried pushing ram past rated speeds, see any worthwhile improvement?

 

I saw massive improvements in benchmarks but not very much in games. Seems like loading times are alot faster, but had no noticeable improvement on FPS. Ive taken my ram as high as 2155mhz before, but again had little to no effect outside of benchmarks. If your already at 2000mhz id recommend spending some time trying to drop timings as they had more of a response time improvement than the mhz did.

 

 

The best way to test ram temperatures is touch it with the backside of your hand. If it's warm, it's fine. If it's hot, but doesn't hurt, you're fine. If it's burning to the touch, time to get some fans on those bad boys. The Dominators are usually fine without the fan unless you're giving them a lot of voltage, thanks to those big heatsinks on them.

 

This! Thats really the best way to test. Thats what i do!! Mine are warm and the heatsinks on my Mushkin Blacklines arent as effective as the Ridgebacks(Mushkin equivalent of the high end dominator heatsink) or Dominator heatsinks so i cant imagine it being more than warm even at 2000mhz.

[Waco]

I second the touch-test method. If you can comfortably leave your fingers on the heatsink they aren't getting too hot.

[Onion]

Also, if the ram DOES get too hot, you can easily fashion larger heatsinks out of gpu ramsinks. I had to do it to my crucial ballistix tracers when I decided to pump 2.3v through them for a 1400 mhz OC. I'll post pics of it once I get home if the thread's still alive - I'm on vacation atm.

 

[Hoody_s13]

Lol leet like the little mod, love too see those photos of your ram in the system with heatsinks fitted. I'm guessing you fitted it straight to the memory chip, or outside housing of the memory???

 

I tested my memory with the hand test at idle, can hardly tell there's power pumping through them. Ran a prime95 blend test to get them working and after 15 min they were warm. Under normal load from games and general usage, they are a little warm. All in all this turned out well, ram seems to run cool and I've removed an annoying pair of fans out of my case.

 

Thanks everyone for all your info and help, these forums have become addictive, learning something everyday.

 

Say merc could you point me in the right direction for overclocking ram? I've only pushed ram too it's rated speed so have no clue about fine tuning and testing the overclocks stability.

 

Thanks all.