Questions about Old Video Card with Missing Heatsinks

[Iruka Naminori]

I have a few questions based on the following information:

I received an old Radeon 6970 with an aftermarket cooler on it (Accelero Twin Turbo II), but it was missing the heatsinks that fit on the small row of chips, marked in red, here. (The heatsinks on the VRAM and main GPU are still firmly affixed...I hope.)

One of the heatsinks for the row of small chips was rattling around loose. It fell out. Apparently, each of these heatsinks covered two chips, so I'm missing two, plus the (probably smaller) heatsink that went on the chip closest to the PCI power plugs. Here's the heatsink that went over two of the small chips.

The old PC in which I'd install this card has excellent cooling. The CPU has a huge heatsink and two fans. The case is roomy, well-ventilated and has numerous fans in the front, back, top and one side. The top and side fans are quite large.

Questions:

4) If I try to repair, what kind of thermal glue should I use?

1) Could I get away with not having heatsinks on that row of chips? (BTW, what are they? I'm not an electrical engineer. They must be something that runs hot or they wouldn't need cooling. I tried to look it up, but if someone knows and could tell me, I'd be grateful.)

2) If these heatsinks came off, should I worry about the other heatsinks coming off, too?

3) Does anyone know of spare heatsinks / thermal glue that would fit these chips? The fins are tall and arch over adjacent parts. Obviously, the heatsink that fell out was made for this kind of chip.

4) If I try to repair, what kind of thermal glue should I use?

Thanks in advance.

 

[pendragon1]

i cant remember what the components are called but that is all part of the power delivery. the heat sinks that are falling off are probably part of the accelero kit. you could replace them with new heat sinks off amazon and use the included sticky pads or pick up some arctic silver thermal adhesive

 

[honegod]

I really like that heatsink, start with a really big heatsink, cut away unneeded heatspreader and fins for clearance, and end up with a heatsink with huge fins up in the airflow, for small heat sources on cramped circuit boards.
it sort of opens up the range of heatsinks that can be useful.

imagine a heatpipe CPU cooler, with the individual heatpipes, and their fins, cut apart as individual heatsinks.

 

[RazorWind]

The black ICs surrounding the GPU die are the memory. They don't really need a heatsink - you should be fine without one, unless you're doing something unusually abusive.

The row of smaller black ICs to the right are called power stages. In combination with the chokes (big block-shaped components to their immediate left), they're used to regulate the 12V input from the power supply down to the 1.0-1.5V that the logic runs on. The one at the top, near the power connectors, is most likely for the memory ICs, and the ones below it are for the GPU.

You can probably get away with not cooling the power stages, as long as there's some level of airflow through the case, but given that you have the heatsinks, I see no reason not to reattach them. You'll need to clean the old adhesive off of them first, and then reattach them, either with a thermally conductive epoxy, or something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Adhesive-Performance-Heatsink-Computer/dp/B085CLXM7J

I'd use the tape myself. Cut it with an X-acto knife.