Scared about crushing that expensive gpu/cpu/chipset core? Microcool to the rescue!

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

Hey whats up people. I've noticed that most people are worried about accidently crushing the core on their expensive gpu/cpu/chipset/etc. and with coolers that are wayyy over the suggested weight to be applied on the thing that you're mounting it, its not that hard to put too much pressure on one side and crushing/cracking/damaging the core. I've found quite an interesting product that can fix all of this and give you a piece of mind when mounting heavy high performance cooling solutions on your expensive hardware: The Microcool Core Protective Rubbers. These are in a nutshell, squares of expanded rubber that you cut out so that you place them on top of the chip, around the core and then you mount the cooler. When you mount the cooler, the expanded rubber will compress, and then your cooling solution will finnally meet the core. These are very cheap, and a great investment to protect your hardware. SideWinder Computers goes into great detail about these rubbers and its a very good read:

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/micoprru.html

they are avaliable for $0.95 a square from here: http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/micoprru.html
or you can get 5 squares for $3.95 here: http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/micoprru5pa.html & here: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5265/shm-07/Microcool_Core_Protective_Rubbers_5-pack.html

also, heres a little review about them that shows how exactly they are used: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=3&artpage=2804&articID=612

cheers! :toast:

trt740 · Nov 2, 2007

Very Nice!!!!!!

Deleted member 24505 · Nov 2, 2007

Thats pretty cool.I'm not sure that hole would fit round the die on a 8800gt tho',the die on them is massive.

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

i added a little review that i found on them for those that are unclear about how exactly they are used.

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

tigger69 said:
Thats pretty cool.I'm not sure that hole would fit round the die on a 8800gt tho',the die on them is massive.

they are 30mm X 30mm, how big is the core?

Deleted member 24505 · Nov 2, 2007

this big-->

Looks big.

trt740 · Nov 2, 2007

it's cold out my core is small right now. :roll:

Deleted member 24505 · Nov 2, 2007

Should that be cory?

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

tigger69 said:
this big-->

Looks big.

you'd put the rubber on top of the silver part. not sure how big that core is, anyone know the exact dimensions?

looking at that pic, its the size of a regular cpu, the gpu core shouldn't bigger then the size of a cpu?

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

wonder if there are any european stores that sell this?

Deleted member 24505 · Nov 2, 2007

Thats a pretty big die that is.Specially considering its a 65nm part.

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

tigger69 said:
Thats a pretty big die that is.Specially considering its a 65nm part.

hmm yeah, but it shouldn't be bigger then the size of a whole cpu, is it?

Deleted member 24505 · Nov 2, 2007

It does look pretty big compared to that hole in that pad tho'

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

you cut the hole yourself, you get the whole pad, and then you cut it to your core size and stuf.

Deleted member 24505 · Nov 2, 2007

I see,so it would be fine for the 8800gt then.

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

tigger69 said:
I see,so it would be fine for the 8800gt then.

yeah, assuming that its smaller then 30x30 mm

Zedicus · Nov 2, 2007

shims were big back in the socket A days. a lot of people would crack the core on the original athlons. anytime u take any of the force off of the core your lessening the cooling effect. even though they only take away a tiny portion of the force your still decreasing the thermal efficiency a tiny bit. besides once u learn how to mount something on a naked core its pretty easy to do.

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

these dont mess with your temps at all. in fact they should theoretically improve it slightly, seeing that the rubber would insulate around the core if you have it hugging the core, and so then the heat cant go sideways, only upward to the cooler.

tkpenalty · Nov 2, 2007

panchoman, shims do affect performance, anyway, the G92's core ALREADY has a shim installed, and installing one on the shim will cause problems. Big problems, the shim is aligned at the same height as the core, so yeah you get that? I would never buy a shim for cores with one preinstalled, these are for dies that are naked, without any form of shim. Example, 9xx intel chipsets didnt have any form of shims, installing something like a thermalright HR-03 would need one of these... honestly the shim that thermalright supply you with is insufficient.

mrw1986 · Nov 2, 2007

Off topic, but while viewing this thread my hard drive made a funny clicky sound...I think I might be buying a new HDD soon...haha

panchoman · Nov 2, 2007

tkpenalty said:
panchoman, shims do affect performance, anyway, the G92's core ALREADY has a shim installed, and installing one on the shim will cause problems. Big problems, the shim is aligned at the same height as the core, so yeah you get that? I would never buy a shim for cores with one preinstalled, these are for dies that are naked, without any form of shim. Example, 9xx intel chipsets didnt have any form of shims, installing something like a thermalright HR-03 would need one of these... honestly the shim that thermalright supply you with is insufficient.

err whats a shim? this is just rubber which goes around the core, not on top..

tkpenalty · Nov 3, 2007

Yes, this IS a form of shim mate. This "Piece of rubber", i mean easily compacted foam is only for shim-less, bare chips. The G92's core has a shim which does the same purpose as this thing, and the shim is at the same height as the core, to prevent coolers from rocking around. Installing the shim onto the preinstalled shim is literal suicide, you wont have ANY contact between the core and cooler; resulting in a fried G92, etcetra.

As I said, guys, only use this product for cores without that silves square surrounding it. This applies to most motherboard chipsets (except for the newer X38 with the intergrated heatspreader), and low end GPUs.

Theoretically there would be an increase in temperatures, not much but it would be there. I'd need this for my 975X chipset however... as the HR-03 loves to rock around the place.

ex_reven · Nov 3, 2007

The silver bit IS the "shim"

Definition: A shim is a thin and often tapered or wedged piece of material, used to fill small gaps or spaces between objects. Shims are typically used in order to support, adjust for better fit, or provide a level surface. Shims may also be used as spacers to fill gaps between parts subject to wear.

tkpenalty · Nov 3, 2007

ex_reven said:
The silver bit IS the "shim"

Definition: A shim is a thin and often tapered or wedged piece of material, used to fill small gaps or spaces between objects. Shims are typically used in order to support, adjust for better fit, or provide a level surface. Shims may also be used as spacers to fill gaps between parts subject to wear.

There ya go panchoman.

Basard · Nov 4, 2007

panchoman said:
these dont mess with your temps at all. in fact they should theoretically improve it slightly, seeing that the rubber would insulate around the core if you have it hugging the core, and so then the heat cant go sideways, only upward to the cooler.

If the rubber insulates, then its keeping heat in, so it's not good. If the heat goes sideways, its still better than going up into the cooler, because that would just add more heat to the cooler.......

Anyways, its JUST RUBBER, you can cut the inside out to fit your GPU.... and every GPU I've seen lately is WAY bigger than CPU core. They are usually made on a bigger fab process. The 8800GT JUST moved to 65nm, which is already outdated by 45nm. My x800 is 120nm i think, its like 3x the size of my old Athlon XP cpu core.

And that Nvidia core you guys have posted up, that silver thing around it is supposed to serve the same purpouse of the rubber shim. You guys are crazy. :banghead:

Oh, and btw, EVERYTHING (almost) these days is pre-shimmed, or die-protected, these guys are about 4-5 years late on this one.

Processor	Amd Athlon X2 4600+ Windsor(90nm) EE(65W) @2.9-3.0 @1.45
Motherboard	Biostar Tforce [Nvidia] 550
Cooling	Thermaltake Blue Orb-- bunch of other fans here and there....
Memory	2 gigs (2x1gb) of patriot ddr2 800 @ 4-4-4-12-2t
Video Card(s)	Sapphire X1950pro Pci-E x16 @stock@stock on stock
Storage	Seagate 7200.11 250gb Drive, WD raptors (30/40) in Raid 0
Display(s)	ANCIENT 15" sony lcd, bought it when it was like 500 bucks
Case	Apevia X-plorer blue/black
Audio Device(s)	Onboard- Why get an sound card when you can hum??
Power Supply	Antec NeoHe 550-manufactured by seasonic -replacement to the discontinued smart power series
Software	Windows XP pro SP2 -- vista is still crap

System Name	Apple Bite
Processor	Intel I5
Motherboard	Apple
Memory	40gb of DDR 4 2700
Video Card(s)	ATI Radeon 500
Storage	Fusion Drive 1 TB
Display(s)	27 Inch IMac late 2017

Processor	Amd Athlon X2 4600+ Windsor(90nm) EE(65W) @2.9-3.0 @1.45
Motherboard	Biostar Tforce [Nvidia] 550
Cooling	Thermaltake Blue Orb-- bunch of other fans here and there....
Memory	2 gigs (2x1gb) of patriot ddr2 800 @ 4-4-4-12-2t
Video Card(s)	Sapphire X1950pro Pci-E x16 @stock@stock on stock
Storage	Seagate 7200.11 250gb Drive, WD raptors (30/40) in Raid 0
Display(s)	ANCIENT 15" sony lcd, bought it when it was like 500 bucks
Case	Apevia X-plorer blue/black
Audio Device(s)	Onboard- Why get an sound card when you can hum??
Power Supply	Antec NeoHe 550-manufactured by seasonic -replacement to the discontinued smart power series
Software	Windows XP pro SP2 -- vista is still crap

Processor	Amd Athlon X2 4600+ Windsor(90nm) EE(65W) @2.9-3.0 @1.45
Motherboard	Biostar Tforce [Nvidia] 550
Cooling	Thermaltake Blue Orb-- bunch of other fans here and there....
Memory	2 gigs (2x1gb) of patriot ddr2 800 @ 4-4-4-12-2t
Video Card(s)	Sapphire X1950pro Pci-E x16 @stock@stock on stock
Storage	Seagate 7200.11 250gb Drive, WD raptors (30/40) in Raid 0
Display(s)	ANCIENT 15" sony lcd, bought it when it was like 500 bucks
Case	Apevia X-plorer blue/black
Audio Device(s)	Onboard- Why get an sound card when you can hum??
Power Supply	Antec NeoHe 550-manufactured by seasonic -replacement to the discontinued smart power series
Software	Windows XP pro SP2 -- vista is still crap

System Name	Apple Bite
Processor	Intel I5
Motherboard	Apple
Memory	40gb of DDR 4 2700
Video Card(s)	ATI Radeon 500
Storage	Fusion Drive 1 TB
Display(s)	27 Inch IMac late 2017

Processor	dual G34 6128he
Motherboard	h8dg6
Cooling	OEM
Memory	48gb DDR3 ECC REG
Video Card(s)	onboard
Storage	12x 3tb 4x 15k sas
Display(s)	crappy lcd
Case	chenbro rackmouunt
Audio Device(s)	onboard
Power Supply	seasonic 3x redundant
Software	ProxMox

Processor	Intel i7-5930k
Motherboard	ASRock Taichi X99
Cooling	Phanteks PH-TC14PE
Memory	4x8GB HyperX FURY DDR4-2666 15-17-17-15
Video Card(s)	MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G
Storage	1x Plextor PX-512M6S SSD, 1x WD 750gb HDD, 2x Hitachi 2TB HDD, 1x Seagate 4TB HDD
Display(s)	2x Dell P2314H
Case	Fractal Define R4
Audio Device(s)	Onboard
Power Supply	Corsair AX860i
Mouse	ROCCAT Kone Pure Color White
Keyboard	Corsair K95 RGB - Cherry MX Brown
Software	Windows 10 Professional x64

System Name	ChoreBoy
Processor	8700k Delided
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z390 Master
Cooling	420mm Custom Loop
Memory	CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 2x8GB @ 3000Mhz
Video Card(s)	EVGA 1080 SC
Storage	1TB SX8200, 250GB 850 EVO, 250GB Barracuda
Display(s)	Pixio PX329 and Dell E228WFP
Case	Fractal R6
Audio Device(s)	On-Board
Power Supply	1000w Corsair
Software	Win 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores	A million on everything....

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