ATI R300 Thermal Shim Problems?

[Goi]

Anyone heard about this? Apparently the 4mm wide band of copper shim is higher than the R300 core, causing the HSF to not make complete contact with the core...

 

[lordbob99]

it's quite interesting that ati would overlook something like this. too bad i don't have the money to buy one of these puppies so that i can worry about it

lordbob99

 

[FlowerMan]

The R300 is designed to be used with a heatsink that utilizes a thermal pad, which bridges the gap. I for one do not like the idea, but supposedly the shim is there to protect the surface mount components adjacent to the R300 core. I would just lap the shim and use some thin mica sheets to insulate the components from whatever heatsink you're gonna use. I'd go easy on the silver-based thermal compounds too

 

[Goi]

Yeah, I have no problems with the metal shim protecting the surface mounted components next to the core, but apparently the didn't produce those accurately enough. Thermal Pads don't perform as well as TIMs, as all of us already know, and there's something about lapping a shim that's less than an inch away from a $400 core that gives me the heebie jeebies.

 

[FlowerMan]

That's why you lap very carefully with a high-grade sand paper. It's been done. The VPU is just like recent AMD and older P3 CPUs. They have a thin epoxy coating over them that somewhat protects them. You Anandtech guys are not ard enough