Do you mean heatsinks like OCZ reaper RAM or just heat spreaders? It all depends on how heavily you span on pushing your RAM OC, I prefer heat sinks personally, as my Reapers just look cool
I don't think it really makes any difference to be honest - perhaps in the case of extreme overclocking. Otherwise ....well, they look pretty if you have a windowed case. Caroline
Big heatsinks with fancy fins etc might help if you plan to push your RAM above spec, otherwise there is no need for these. As a general rule, OC'ing your RAM won't change your world much. Most good DDR3 RAM does come with more low-profile heat spreaders across the chips however (like the corsair XMS3 line), and they are useful to keep the heat ... well ... spread. I haven't seen RAM without a heat spreader for a long time - as frequencies have increased it's become important to manage heat to some degree.
I would say a heatsink just makes it look nice. Unless your going to overclock/overvolt the memory. A heatspreader probably has more advantages without making the memory oversized or much more costly. Your profile says you have a i7 920 at 3.6ghz. I am guessing thats a bclck of 180 seeing as the 920 usually uses 20x multi. I would also guess your ram is 1600mhz rated. You are probably using the 8x memory multi if thats the case giving you a memory speed of 1440. If on the other hand you were using the 10x multi this would give you a speed of 1800 and if using 1600mhz rated memory I would say you would certainly want heatsinks to cool that being as its so far out of the recomended speed.
Low profile heatsink is nice thing to have as it help reliability of your memory, as they are cool better. Also, it helps extending the life of the RAM stick. The big fat heatsink one's are just for show, unless you really plan to overclock your memory. For me, I don't care. I just get RAM that has low latency and high speed that fits my needs, at the best price from a good brand I like. If it comes with a small or large one really I don't care, as I don't overclock my RAM.
It depends really on what the heatsink is. The "big fat" heatsinks that GoodBytes mentioned do improve cooling, but they aren't needed unless you are pushing your memory quite hard. Heatspreaders, don't really make a difference. This article shows that the heatspreaders have minimal advantages. The OCZ heatspreaders in another test that I read years ago, showed to insulate heat massively, however, so results vary.
@favst89 "Your profile says you have a i7 920 at 3.6ghz. I am guessing thats a bclck of 180 seeing as the 920 usually uses 20x multi. I would also guess your ram is 1600mhz rated. You are probably using the 8x memory multi if thats the case giving you a memory speed of 1440." You've earned yourself today's lollipop
Worth while on some performance modules, especially if all the memory slot are filled. I had a set of 4 modules toast due to overheating, i had been worried about them after one morning shutting my machine off to install a GTX280 (upgrade from 8800GTS) i could feel the heat off them. In the end one night of GTA4 killed them, RMA'd a few days later.
The main feature of a well-designed heat spreader is to make the memory stick nicer to install and pull out from the socket. I hate those pointy spreaders that sink just as far to your thumb as they do to the memory socket. And the tall, "real" heatsinks are a joke IMO. If you over volt the chips beyond any reason then extra cooling will be needed anyway.
Talking about tall memory heatsink, the Corsair Dominator, if memory serves correct, you can remove the top fins with 2 or 3 screws, and have them small factor. Showing the lack of importance in them. What IS funny, is those with water cooling... you better overclock those RAM like no tomorrow if you have such setup, else I'll hit your head with a pan. Anyway, just get ones that fast enough and lowest latency. If they come in bring heatsink and it's from a brand you trust at a good price, go ahead like I did with my G.Skill Pi series. They were on special, and they were the cheapest 6GB DDR3-1600 low latency (7-8-7-24) 1.5v RAM I could find. I did not get them because of the heatsink.. I could not care less. As long as it has some level of heat spreader, I am happy. Makes setup easier, price are about the same, maybe a few dollars more, and ensure more reliable memory. Oh and opens room for any potential small memory overclock. But other than that, not worth it.
