Does anyone really see a benefit or need for a heat sync / spreader for RAM in unRaid.  Most commercial desktop RAM comes with these installed or is available.  Most of the ECC RAM I looked at did not, and it did not come on my Kensington ValueRAM. 

 

I've found a few kits out there to add them yourself, but wondering how important it really is our application.  It's about $25 for two pcs. 

 

Thanks.

IMHO, they are not needed when running in spec. If overclocking and running at higher than stock voltage, they may help keep things more stable.

Probably won't make a difference in stability or performance.  But when ecc ram in used in servers there is generally a lot of airflow going over the ram and therefore have no real need for the spreaders to wick away the heat from the chips.  In a desktop,  if you have enough air actually moving across the ram you should be fine.  But if you don't have any active airflow over the ram itself I'm sure they would help.  Ram generally and does run hot.  Keeping computer components cool generally won't get you anything other then insuring/extending the life of the component.

 

Sent using Tapatalk

 

 

over a year running kingston ecc with no heatsink/spreader ... no problems. No unexplained locksup etc. My airflow is not bad but not massive either. In fact I specifically tried to design my system with as little airflow as needed because I have a dog ;-) I'd say the airflow specifically around my single chip is pretty low.

I have quite a bit of airflow in my case.  The Antec case has 6 - 120mm fans and 1 - 200 mm fan.  Nothing blows directly on the RAM but plenty moves through the case.

 

Thanks for the advice.  I dont' overclock anything on my desktop so I don't often think about the extra heat it generates.  That makes sense why most desktop RAM would come with heatsyncs as it is often overclocked.

Not required in the slightest, ever.

 

Laptop RAM, which uses the same chips as desktop RAM, runs just fine at high temps, crammed in right beside the CPU that also has minimal cooling.