Hardware Installation

Once we cleaned up the afore mentioned items we can now mount a RAM heatsink at any and all of the memory chips. Now this we show for demonstration only as we need to revert this card back to original once we finished the review. We didn't feel like breaking loose sixteen heatsinks from the memory in a later stage.

After the memory is done, next up are the VRMs take three long and two short heatsinks and stick them on there.

The last heatsink we need to secure is for the NVIO chip. Put a little drop of TIM on there and have a close look at the area marked in red. We take the heatsink and spring based screws, clip on one side of the heatsink and then suddenly I hear a very distinct sounds of something small dropping onto the table. Yep .. that can be only one thing ...

If you look to the left, that small part is a resistor that chipped off ...pressing down the NVIO heatsink puts pressure on one of the resistors (soldered) which actually broke loose.