Why is today's RAM so ... ugly?

U

uOpt

[H]ard|Gawd
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Mar 29, 2006
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Did watch too many chick flicks lately or is today's RAM with its Transformers look ugly? What the heck happened?

What happened to shiny heatspreaders that don't look like they have been taken over my Borg?

Say about OCZ whatever you want but at least the stuff looked good. Is Geil still in business?
 
I wish people didn't even bother with those heatspreaders. they're absolutely unnecessary.
 
Mushkin with the ridgeback looks damn good. Their frostbyte heatsink is simple, looks good and works good.
 
Lol as if looks matter with ram. I don't believe it beats price for most informed buyers.

But I agree. Ocz gold series looked pretty.
 
I've gone through a lot of the modules with weird sawtooth designs (here's lookin' at you G.Skill) and I think they have their place for people that like that sort of visual thing. I have to say I'm now much more partial to very low profile modules like the Samsung sleeper modules and Crucial Ballistix VLP Sport modules. Mushkin makes some very nice, unobtrusive standard height modules, though.
 
None of the ram looks bother me.It isn't like you are going to see it after you close the case up anyway. Most get it as it matches their color scheme. Believe it or not, most will buy it because it looks weird or just plain different. People like weird stuff.

Those Trident-X takes 2 seconds to remove the blades off the top. Has a screw in each end to take it off. Great if you need low profile ram. Great ram and G.Skill has always been great ram for me.


cortexodus said:
I've gone through a lot of the modules with weird sawtooth designs (here's lookin' at you G.Skill) and I think they have their place for people that like that sort of visual thing. I have to say I'm now much more partial to very low profile modules like the Samsung sleeper modules and Crucial Ballistix VLP Sport modules. Mushkin makes some very nice, unobtrusive standard height modules, though.
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munkle said:
But its on what's on the inside that counts
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This. Would you pay extra for better aesthetics? I am not an artist and I certainly don't care how it actually looks. I care about 2 things when it comes down to computer hardware. Reliability and performance.
 
uOpt said:
Did watch too many chick flicks lately or is today's RAM with its Transformers look ugly? What the heck happened?

What happened to shiny heatspreaders that don't look like they have been taken over my Borg?

Say about OCZ whatever you want but at least the stuff looked good. Is Geil still in business?
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I like my Samsung low pro ram. Its plain and simple but OC's to 2133 no problem.
Though I got the sticks when they were cheap.
 
uOpt said:
I'd rather have nothing than the chainsaw design.
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Crucial Ballistix Sports 1.35V very low design, actually looks good

Ballistix-Low-Profile-Memory-Crucial-s-Latest-Creation-2.jpg
 
No only are the heatspreaders ugly, they also are quite tall on some of these current designs. I recently built a dual lga 2011 system with two cooler master hyper 212 evo's. There was no way I could clear any of the g.skill ram spreaders, I ended up going with kingston hyperx blacks. Too bad since I really liked my g.skill ram.
 
csshih said:
I wish people didn't even bother with those heatspreaders. they're absolutely unnecessary.
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depends on the ram, DDR2 FB-DIMMs they are absolutely necessary I assure you! :eek:
 
Again mine are pretty simple to take off. Remove one phillips screw from either side and it slides off. No issues with any heat sink I've ran so far like this.


NukeULater said:
No only are the heatspreaders ugly, they also are quite tall on some of these current designs. I recently built a dual lga 2011 system with two cooler master hyper 212 evo's. There was no way I could clear any of the g.skill ram spreaders, I ended up going with kingston hyperx blacks. Too bad since I really liked my g.skill ram.
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Last edited:
Well that's it.

I'm going back to DDR1. All sales of the 939 boards are canceled!
 
HeavensCloud said:
Aren't those "heatspreaders" fairly easy to remove?
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The ones that are clamped on mechanically, yes, but be careful about removing heatspreaders that are glued or taped on because some reviewers have torn off the chips and copper traces from the circuit board by trying to remove the heatspreaders.
 
There is plenty of ram that looks good, granted im running naked magic low profile samsung ram...
 
larrymoencurly said:
The ones that are clamped on mechanically, yes, but be careful about removing heatspreaders that are glued or taped on because some reviewers have torn off the chips and copper traces from the circuit board by trying to remove the heatspreaders.
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It's actually very easy to remove the glued on ones. Just use a flat knife/tool and slowly leverage them apart. I removed the heatsinks off 3 sets of G. Skill Ripjaws without any issues. Then I put some low profile copper heatsinks on it, looks great.



I was tempted to keep the heatsinks off though because G. Skill looks great without their ugly heatsink.

http://www.rwlabs.com/images/articles/gskill/tridentX_32gb/06.JPG
 
NickJames said:
It's actually very easy to remove the glued on ones. Just use a flat knife/tool and slowly leverage them apart. I removed the heatsinks off 3 sets of G. Skill Ripjaws without any issues. Then I put some low profile copper heatsinks on it, looks great.



I was tempted to keep the heatsinks off though because G. Skill looks great without their ugly heatsink.

http://www.rwlabs.com/images/articles/gskill/tridentX_32gb/06.JPG
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The key is to pry between the chip tops and heatspreader, not between the circuit board and heatspreader. It's best to use a hair dryer and a thin knife or razor and poke into the edge, slowly and evenly among all the chips.
 
uOpt said:
Did watch too many chick flicks lately or is today's RAM with its Transformers look ugly? What the heck happened?
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Even worse, a lot of them are 10 feet tall and interfere with every heatsink ever.

ALL RAM should be low-profile. Also, 1.65V DDR3 shouldn't be sold anymore, regardless of the frequency. We need to not have 1.65v RAM far more than we need 2400MHz RAM.
 
larrymoencurly said:
The key is to pry between the chip tops and heatspreader, not between the circuit board and heatspreader. It's best to use a hair dryer and a thin knife or razor and poke into the edge, slowly and evenly among all the chips.
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That's exactly how I did it. Slowly push between the chip and the adhesive, twist a bit to pull it up, then use a business card to wedge between the gap, then slowly move to the side with the next chip, one by one till eventually it just falls right off.
 
i think spreaders can look nice but tall spreaders get in the way of my CPU cooler and don't help case air flow.
 
Odd, I figured it would have sparked when you did that. Weird it worked with no issues but glad it did. Heat gun or hairdryer for me.

WinSomeLoseNone said:
I like to microwave my DIMMs for 2-3 minutes before attempting to remove the heatspreader.

Works like a charm.
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dandragonrage said:
Even worse, a lot of them are 10 feet tall and interfere with every heatsink ever.

ALL RAM should be low-profile. Also, 1.65V DDR3 shouldn't be sold anymore, regardless of the frequency. We need to not have 1.65v RAM far more than we need 2400MHz RAM.
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Why dont you just run a AIO water cooler?
 
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