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#842 - GeCube x1950Pro Video Card |
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Written by Zach Jeffers
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Wednesday, 04 July 2007 |
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Page 5 of 7
Dissection:
To start my ever so hungry need to take things apart, the dissection starts at the back of the x1950Pro. At the back there is a large copper plate. This plate serves as a back plate retention bracket for the cooler along with give added cooling to the Mosfets that are located on the back of the card.
At the tail end of the plate, there are some clearances for the capacitors that are soldered through the PCB and stick out the back side. Around these solder joints are where the Mosfets are located. At the center of the plate is a series of slits in a circular formation. In the center is a divot that actually places pressure against the back of the GPU! I don’t know about you, but my computer mentor always told me to never bend a PCB…
 
With the five screws removed from the back of the copper plate, we can see that the plate has rubber feet that hold the plate away from the PCB and any possible short circuit scenarios. You can also see that the divot that places pressure against the back of the GPU has a rubber square placed over it to thwart electrical activity.
 
 
The location where the back plate is to touch the Mosfets and create a path for heat to escape, you find that there are two thermal pads. Notice no indentations of these pads…
 
With the back plate now removed, you can simply pull off the copper cooler from the front face. You can see that the base of the cooler has thermal pads for the memory to make contact, stand-offs with rubber grommets, the excess thermal paste from the GPU and the back label of the cooler’s fan.
The cooler’s fan is labeled as an Everflow 0.35 amp fan manufactured in December of 2006. The model number of this fan is T127010DH. You can see that coming out the side of the fan is a three wire lead. This allows for fan control from the system. The GPU makes contact in the center of the cooler’s mounts. You can see that there was a very generous supply of thermal paste applied here. This is a little excessive if you ask me and too much thermal interface can cause heat buildup. Lastly look at the thermal pads for the memory. You can clearly see indentation implying solid contact with the memory creating an effective heat conductor. You can even see the part numbers transferred over… makes you wonder how safe the Mosfets are!
  
Taking a look at the GeCube x1950Pro without the cooler attached, it seems a bit plain and barren. You can see the eight, thirty two megabyte, memory modules surrounding the AMD (ATI) RV570 GPU. A closer look shows the apparent over pasting of the GPU’s die and a second look shows the mirror finish these babies get at the factory.
  
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