How to make 260 gtx 55nm VRM custom heat sink

Question

Warning: This will void your warranty
The caveat above added by Mike, Forum Administrator
How to Create a Custom 260 GTX 55nm VRM Heat Sink
Introduction:  This guide was created to show how you can make a custom VRM heat sink from the stock heat sink to be used with an aftermarket cooler.
Reason:  Many aftermarket companies, such as Thermalright and Arctic, fail to provide a good VRM heat sink for the 55nm 200 series GTX’s.  The solution often involves poorly sticking thermal tape or no solution at all, such as the Arctic cooler, which states it’s ok to leave the 260 GTX 55nm VRM chips uncovered.  To leave the VRM chipset uncovered maybe ok for stock clocked cards but what about an over clocked card or an enthusiast trying to push the performance envelope?  That is after all, what these aftermarket cooling solutions are all about; especially the Arctic cooler which can cool up to 250 watts!  Fortunately the solution is very easy and should take you no more than 10 to 15 minutes to address.
Use:  To create a custom made VRM heat sink to be used with an aftermarket cooling solution such as the Arctic cooler and Thermalright cooler.
Tools: 
Dremel, with metal cutting wheel and sanding wheel.
Thermal Pads, which you can buy in sheets from any performance pc store and should be 1.0 mm in thickness.
Philips Screw Driver, very small size would be ideal.
Before we begin I’d like to remind you that removing or tampering with the stock heat sink will more than likely void your warranty.  This guide was also constructed assuming an aftermarket cooler will be installed.  The card used in this guide is a MSI 260 GTX 55nm with reference PCB design (REV 1)  but will also work with other 200 series GTX cards.  When working on any electronic device, always make sure you are well grounded!!!
Step 1:  Remove the screws with the springs only from the back side of the graphics card as shown in figure 1A.  There is a total of 13 spring screws that need to be removed.  Check to make sure that your card does not have two small additional securing screws which are located on the exhaust side of your graphics card with your DVI ports.  If your card does contain these additional screws, remove them before continuing on to step 2.
Step 2:  Gently work the card from the heat sink.  NOTE: Do NOT force or pry heavily, you will damage your card.  It may take a little caressing depending on how much poor quality thermal putty was used from the manufacturer.
Step 3:  Remove the fan power connector from the fan power port as shown in figure 2A.
Step 4:  Remove and discard all the old thermal pads.  You should never re-use thermal pads and especially not the low quality manufacturer ones!  NOTE: keep in mind the location of the VRM thermal pads since you will be making replacements.
Step 5:  Clean off the voltage regulator chips with a tissue or with a soft eraser as instructed by Arctic.  Personally I use a tissue very lightly dipped in alcohol to clean the surface of the chips.  The voltage regulator chips for the 260 GTX 55nm are shown in figure 3A.  NOTE: I will not be covering the cleaning of the GPU or Ram since it does not pertain to the VRM heat sink.
Step 6:  Flip the heat sink so you are looking at the bottom where the thermal pads were attached.  There are 6 very little screws which need to be removed from the assembly.  Figure 4A shows the location of the screws attaching the plastic shroud assembly.  Once they are removed gently pry the plastic shroud off and set it aside. 
Step 7:  Now turn the heat sink over and remove the 4 black screws from the top side of the heat sink.  The fan should come off freely and set that aside as well.  Your heat sink should look like figure 5A.
Step 8:  Now we are ready to begin cutting the stock heat sink.  With a sharpie draw a black as shown in figure 6A.  This will give you a marker to follow when cutting. 
Step 9:  Attach the metal cutting wheel to the dremel and begin cutting across the black line.  Danger: ALWAYS wear eye protection when cutting a metal object or any object.  The metal is very soft and not much force is needed to cut it.  Try not to damage the mounting holes when cutting (figure 6A).  You may need to lightly sand the cut edge depending on how rough or jagged it is after cutting.  When you’re done you should have a piece as shown in figure 7A.  This will be your VRM heat sink.  Important: MAKE SURE you clean the heat sink well and remove all metal particles.  Also allow the heat sink to dry well before installing!!
Step 10: Next cut the new thermal pads to the shape of your VRM chips.  It should look like figure 8A when you are finished.
Step 11:  Gently place the heat sink into place and attach the screws.  When you are done it should look like figure 9A. 
Congratulations on your custom made VRM heat sink.  The great thing is that it never has the risk of falling off, such as thermal taped ones, and can be removed and installed as many times as you wish.  It also does not contain thermal adhesives which also do not facilitate removal as well.  The stock spring screws will also insure secure contact between the VRM chips and the sink.  The custom heat sink comes with nicely built in fins and much better cooling performance then individual dinky VRM heat sinks provided from the Arctic or Thermalright coolers. 
p.s. It is possible to put old heat sink back on the card since each section has its own mounting screws but I would not recommend this unless absolutely necessary.

Answer 1

I'm running a corsair 750 watt PSU
Q660
Gigabyte g31 motherboard
1TB WD Hard drive
OCZ 1066mhz of ram
And I recently swapped the lighting with a gtx 260 and see what would happen in the same system. The GTX260 ran games smoothly, and would run furmark fine with the newest nvidia drivers. Swap back the gtx 275 lightning, and games are really slow and choppy especially when you add any kind of AA. The FPS is literally cut in half when I switched to the msi gtx 275. I think it's safe to say that the GTX275 is defective.