Hi Bob! I have heard that things like that are possible. Hard-modding, i.e. anything that involves a soldering iron! I haven never tried it or have any knowledge of it, but I would think that if you are prepared to replace the card then it could be well worth following up!
Dan

The chips are hard-wired to the card. It would be most difficult at best to replace them even if you could find suitable chips to buy.

You're only real option is to buy RAMsinks to put on the memory chips to help cool them. You can find those at any electronics store. Couple that with better case fans/airflow, and high-end VGA heatsink/fan, and you may be able to get a slightly better overclock.

Ramsinks: http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx=139&code=013

VGA cooler with RAMsinks: http://www.zalmanusa.com/usa/product/view.asp?idx=149&code=013

Usually, Ram heatsinks are pretty much for show unless your are applying more voltage, the ram may run a little hotter though if overclocked.

It's the GPU chip that cops the heat during overclock the most. (If you are o/c'ing your GPU)

Modern ram dissipates heat readily though it's thin, high surface area design. Your overclock is only mild, don't worry about the ram temp unless those chips are hot enough to just about burn the back of your finger, if you can rest soft skin on it without burning, it's cool enough.

You'll probably see  artifacts (display abnormalities) as soon as you have  overclocked too far, and if you see artifacts, you are in a danger zone, so back it off a bit.

You can't change the memory chips. They are actually one of the defining factors in your's card's design. Out of the nvidia 5000 series, The 5900XT has the most overclocking potential I believe,  as it is very similar to the 5900 ultra, and some brands are fitted with high quality memory that is under-rated.

If your research shows that your chips are of higher spec than your card's default, chances are it will overclock very well indeed.

Just be careful. I've never burnt out a video card despite some rather rash early attempts at overclocking them, but it's certainly possible to damage them that way. Video card overclocking needs to be done right or not at all in my opinion, and you need a card that does it well enough to make it worthwhile, otherwise you may as well buy a better card in the first place.

My 5900XT is one of the exceptions, it's design begs for overclocking and it does it well.

The last card I had was a GF TI4200 128mb 8x AGP, and it was a hopeless overclocker, getting hot quick and showing artifacts with modest overclocks.

When I bought my card online, I asked the guy at the store he could verify the RAM onboard it was the brand and latency I had read positive reviews about. Now, that involves an "out of the box" physical inspection before purchasing the card, so you need a pretty good relationship with your PC parts dealer, otherwise it can be pot luck when it comes to recieving a good overclocker or not.   8)

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The fact you had to remove the sides of your case, describes nothing but a heat problem, I'm afraid.