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I don’t understand high profile RAM

I used to have 2 4GB sticks of DDR 3 RAM in my PC. One died, and so I figured it was about time for an upgrade. On to Scan.co.uk, I picked up a 2-pack of 8GB DDR 3 Corsair Vengeance RAM sticks. For those not familiar, they look like this:

They have a bunch of plastic glued to the top of them. I get that it’s brand displaying and it covers up those nasty techie looking bits (because god knows you don’t want any of that on display), but it doubles the height of the RAM. This is fine for a lot of people, but I happen to have an obnoxiously large CPU cooler which overhangs my RAM slots. With my previous RAM this was no issue, but it prevents this high profile RAM from fitting.

A quick Google search suggests that this extra plastic serves no extra purpose. It’s described as a “heatsink”, but this didn’t really ring true for me considering that it’s made of plastic. A little more research confirmed that it is simply glued on to the RAM (as any good heatsink should be). Time to break out the hairdryer!

After a few minutes, I was able to pop the plastic off. I inserted a drill bit between the plastic pieces at either end (there’s a large cavity because the RAM is so small) to apply constant pressure to the ends during heating. I would also recommend wearing gardening gloves, because hot plastic is hot. A little pressure to the hot plastic and it popped right off!

Nothing heatsink-y here, just a glued on foam buffer between the RAM and the plastic.

Perfect fit!

And an all-round success.

In conclusion, Corsair: Gluing fancy bits of plastic to your RAM is bad, and you should feel bad.

Published inTechnology

One Comment

  1. Nicholas Nicholas

    Well done – the internet is well served by this type of article. You are right to castigate the manufacturer for pointlessly wasting limited space on frivolous ‘stylistic’ elements – the early modernists would be applauding too if they could.

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