How hot does RAM get? Is RAM Cooling important?

[setsakara]

Hot RAM usually means a faulty module, so why do brands like PNY make the XLR8 with tons of cooling fins, or G.SKILL with the RipJaws and SniperX with lots of divots. How hot does RAM get on average? Is there a performance difference when covered with "heat spreaders" and "barebones"  RAM modules?

 

ThermalTake even made watercooled RAM but that seems very excessive...

[aDoomGuy]

To make them look cool so people will buy them. afaik..

[BetteBalterZen]

5 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

To make them look cool so people will buy them. afaik..

Yeah I think this is mostly correct. I say mostly because I would guess that if you heavily overclocked / overvolted RAM, and you have a heatspreader + good case and airflow, that would help on temps I guess

[bmx6454]

afaik it's more or less just aesthetics, appealing to the gamer bling most people want(even i am guilty of that lol). cooling for ram really only starts to matter when pushing much higher clocks/voltages.

[setsakara]

Ye same, I'm pretty guilty of buying fancy ahh ram. I went with the PNY XLR8 Epix 4600MHz RGB 

 

instead of some Vengeance normal

 

;-;

[Alvin853]

RAM cooling is not very important, what is important however, is keeping the chips at about the same temperature. If you're going for very tight timings at the edge of stability, then having the chips at different temperatures, resulting in different impedances, can cause instabilities. So heat spreaders on very high performance RAM modules are not just for looks, but they're not intended for cooling, rather for spreading the heat so all chips heat up evenly. 

[setsakara]

Now I know why G.SKILL calls their heat sinks "heat spreaders". 

[freeagent]

I don’t let mine get to 40c.

[Sarra]

What about the integrated voltage regulator on DDR5? Any need to cool that?