GPU Thermal PAds & grease replacement.

[foxmobouser]

Ok Guys I'm planning on replacing the thermal grease on my gpu's and pads on the mosfets etc at the end of the month. I need some suggestions/links on what I should use. I could probably pick out a compound for the gpu but I'm pretty new to thermal pads that are used on the other parts or where to get them. I would prefer something with a ceramic compound but not sure. Have any on you done replacements on your gpus etc and can recommend some stuff.

thx

[zachig]

Just make a search over eBay for 'Thermal Pads'. You'll find many...be sure to select good ones. For GPU MosFETs and memory chips, I'd recommend going with thick ones having a thickness of ~1.5mm. Also pay attention to the Thermal Conductivity (choose anything equal or below 3.2w/m-K...lower is better).


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[foxmobouser]

Just make a search over eBay for 'Thermal Pads'. You'll find many...be sure to select good ones. For GPU MosFETs and memory chips, I'd recommend going with thick ones having a thickness of ~1.5mm. Also pay attention to the Thermal Conductivity (choose anything equal or below 3.2w/m-K...lower is better).


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thx, was looking for something like that and found some stuff on ebay and at frozen cpu but from what i've gathered I think higher w/mk is better?

[zachig]

thx, was looking for something like that and found some stuff on ebay and at frozen cpu but from what i've gathered I think higher w/mk is better?
Oops...my mistake...sorry for misleading you. I meant HIGHER is better. So anything above 3.2w/mk is OK. I've seen over eBay some having a conductivity of 4w/mk, but I'm not sure about their thickness.

Anyway...GOOD LUCK and keep me updated with what you ended up with.

[foxmobouser]

Yea I was looking over ebay and saw the 3 w/mk ones then went over to frozen and all theirs stuff was 6 w/mk with comments "cream of the crop" in thermal pads and was like that seems odd.

[zachig]

Yea I was looking over ebay and saw the 3 w/mk ones then went over to frozen and all theirs stuff was 6 w/mk with comments "cream of the crop" in thermal pads and was like that seems odd.
That sounds odd, as I've never seen Thermal Pads with such high thermal conductivity of 6w/mk. But if you can put your hands on some 'real' 4w/mk that I've seen over eBay, then you'll be just fine, even though the 3.2w/mk will also be ok.

[foxmobouser]

Fujipoly thermal pads: Link (http://www.frozencpu.com/products/11654/thr-87/Fujipoly_Premium_System_Builder_Thermal_Pad_-_14_Sheet_-_150_x_100_x_15_-_Thermal_Conductivity_60_WmK.html)

Japanese company, those guys sure know how to make good stuff.

[zachig]

Fujipoly thermal pads: Link (http://www.frozencpu.com/products/11654/thr-87/Fujipoly_Premium_System_Builder_Thermal_Pad_-_14_Sheet_-_150_x_100_x_15_-_Thermal_Conductivity_60_WmK.html)

Japanese company, those guys sure know how to make good stuff.

WOW! Nice to know such stuff exists. Looks promising...I'd give it a try.


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[foxmobouser]

I just "slaped" on some old left over Antec Silver on my 285 gpu and it lowered the temps by 5C, so now that I got the pads in I'll be changing the pads and paste on all 4 gpus.

[zachig]

I just "slaped" on some old left over Antec Silver on my 285 gpu and it lowered the temps by 5C, so now that I got the pads in I'll be changing the pads and paste on all 4 gpus.
So...Did you eventually get those '6 w/mk' Thermal Pads? GOOD FOR YA...;-)

Oh...and if you want a really good Thermal PASTE, I highly recommend using 'Innovative Cooling IC7 Diamond-Based' thermal paste: http://www.innovationcooling.com/overview.htm :)

It lowered my GPU temps by additional 2-3C compared to AS5 and OCZ Freeze pastes...

[James86]

That's a big pad of thermal pads prolly enough for a couple of cleanings

[foxmobouser]

So...Did you eventually get those '6 w/mk' Thermal Pads? GOOD FOR YA...;-)

Oh...and if you want a really good Thermal PASTE, I highly recommend using 'Innovative Cooling IC7 Diamond-Based' thermal paste: http://www.innovationcooling.com/overview.htm :)

It lowered my GPU temps by additional 2-3C compared to AS5 and OCZ Freeze pastes...

Thx for the link, I remember you've been recommending that from way back. I got a tube of arctic ceramic with the thermal pads and I have some shin-etsu left over I'll use for this application and I will definitely try the diamond stuff next time I change my water blocks.

I'm really excited about a new material in development called "Graphene" 2.5 times better thermal conductivity than diamond. I think it will be a matter of time till someone makes a thermal compound based on it.

Link to article (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/88/i15/8815notw1.html)

[zachig]

Sounds promising and also interesting. Thanks for sharing this info...and article.


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[foxmobouser]

Ok these are max temps after changing thermal paste on the GSO and 285 GTX to Arctic Silver Ceramique. The 480 gtx still has stock compounds. It was about a 10C drop in temps. I only replaced the thermal pads on the 285 GTX and thinking of putting the pad on the GPU instead of the Arctic.

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/8066/capture345.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/38/capture345.jpg/)

[zachig]

Nice!

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[Blacksmith1]

I don't know why so many people give that artic compound a bad rap. I had similar results when i did my system with it. it may no be the best out there, but for the price you can't beat the performance

[peti1212]

wow, pretty nice improvement just for changing the pads.

[foxmobouser]

The GSO already had what looked like similar pads to the ones I got (good job EVGA) just thinner ones and they were in pretty good shape so I only replaced the GPU's TIM which was pretty old. On the 285 GTX the mosfets had some kind of fabric pad with white ceramic like stuff that was all falling off so I put the new pads in there. I imagine the pads where a bit thick at first and the GPU had no good contact with the TIM i put on there so I had to remove the whole thing again and that was the case that the material was not making good contact with the heatsink. I added more TIM and that seemed to do the trick althou I must have not done a very good job becauce the temps on the GTX are 1-2C higher. I plan to put a big piece of the Pad I got for the mosfets on the GPU to see how it does. As you can see the 480 GTX had nothing done on it, has best air flow of all in case and is still running hot (well hot in my opinion).

[foxmobouser]

wow, pretty nice improvement just for changing the pads.
will have to test higher clocks to see if it made any difference, the best comparison will be when i slap the pad on the GPU and see weather it performs better than the stock TIM or the Arctic I already put on it.

[peti1212]

What are your case temps? I'm running two GTX 580s in a case that does not have any side ventilation, and I just have a single fan blowing into the whole case, but three fans blowing out. I experience hot air coming from the PC when gaming, but during just normal use on a normal day it is just slightly warm. I'd say as long as nothing gets to the point where it is hard to touch due to being too hot (except for the video card) then you should be fine. If any of the heatsinks in your system gets really hot where it burns you, then you might need additional cooling. With my setup, it gets to the point where it is hot, but not so hot where it would burn my fingers.

Of course heat kills over time, but all of the chipsets that are running on the system are tested at 85C+ and if they don't pass the tests, they cannot be sold, so even if the chipset seems to be running at 60C - 65C ( X58 ), depending on which motherboard you are running, around 40-50C on P67, then you should be just fine. As long as your 2600K is within 70-75C it should be fine, though I like to run mine around 65-70C at higher clock speeds, like yours.

[foxmobouser]

I havent really looked at my case temps but that probablly because everything pretty much feels pretty cool to the touch. I have an Azza Solano casse with 3 140mm front fans, one at back, huge side and top fan plus 2 fan mountings at bottom. When all the gpus are folding they do raise the temps a bit, even the cpu's temp jump up a notch but nothing dramatic. I like to keep most of my hardware under 75, over 70 I consider hot. I dont have the pics with me but I did replace the thermal compound on the 285 GTX with the thermal pad and to my disapointment the temps went up to 80 when folding. The GPU is huge so I ended up wasting alot of TIM on it, and I was finally able to get it to run at 69 with an moderate application of some left over shin-etsu.

[zachig]

Like I said before, you can always try the IC7 TIM I was recommending. I'm pretty sure it'll give you a decent 2-4 degrees.

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[foxmobouser]

Like I said before, you can always try the IC7 TIM I was recommending. I'm pretty sure it'll give you a decent 2-4 degrees.

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Yea going to try that out, had a left over OCZ rebate card I used to get it off amazon.

[Blacksmith1]

if nothing else you can do like i did and lower the ambient temp in the room, I keep mine at 68 F.

[erek]

Just make a search over eBay for 'Thermal Pads'. You'll find many...be sure to select good ones. For GPU MosFETs and memory chips, I'd recommend going with thick ones having a thickness of ~1.5mm. Also pay attention to the Thermal Conductivity (choose anything equal or below 3.2w/m-K...lower is better).


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i ordered some fujipoly 6.0W/mK at 1.5mm, but some people are suggesting it will cause problems with the mosfet/gpu making contact with the HSF on a Radeon HD 6970...


(long story short... i went to change out TIM on my 6970s and discovered some of the ram thermal pads were damaged and attempted to use arctic silver ceramique as a replacement, but my temps went up...)

do you think the 1.5mm thickness will still be acceptable in a 6970?

[zachig]

i ordered some fujipoly 6.0W/mK at 1.5mm, but some people are suggesting it will cause problems with the mosfet/gpu making contact with the HSF on a Radeon HD 6970...


(long story short... i went to change out TIM on my 6970s and discovered some of the ram thermal pads were damaged and attempted to use arctic silver ceramique as a replacement, but my temps went up...)

do you think the 1.5mm thickness will still be acceptable in a 6970?

I think they'll be just fine for your 6970. But if you're uncertain you can always lay one layer of pads over the chips and re-attach the heatsink and then remove the heatsink again and see if the pads got squeezed a little. If so, then you have good contact. If not, you can always use 2 layers of pads, preffered with a good thermal compound/paste between the two pads.

GOOD LUCK!

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[foxmobouser]

well I can say that for my 9600 gso's and 285 gtx the 1.5 was a tad thick. When the pads on the mosfets are thick then the heatsink does not make too good of a contact with the gpu, thus you either get higher temps or have to use alot of thermal paste. I also smeared on some ceramic compound for better contact.

[Blacksmith1]

As I understand it the pads melt then resolidify over and over, which is why old ones are around the die rather than on it when they get old. if yoou get it hot then tighen it a smidge it shouold improve the contact.

[Joshua_Mahr]

I have had some great results with Antec Formula 7 on GPU's and CPU's.

[Cody_Irwin]

Yeap dont forget http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835150080&cm_re=masscool-_-35-150-080-_-Product

Is the stuff Asetek uses pretty much on their cpu coolers for the antec/corsair and their ALC's like the h70h/h60/920/620 ect.

[Joshua_Mahr]

I love some of the reviews on newegg. For thermal paste i saw these cons. " Dosen't Taste good." "Butter spreads better." "No instructions on how to get paste out of tube." ha ha ha I love Newegg!

[James86]

and all those people prolly have "high" tech levels

[Joshua_Mahr]

Pretty much. Just funny. You should here some for Video Cards. " Dosent make me breakfast" , Dosent fold my laundry. " Should have come with its own A/C unit." Love it!

[James86]

I like the ram ones that get mad cus it doesn't run at rated speeds out of the box
What I have to go into the BIOS?

[Cody_Irwin]

We gotta love people like them on newegg though, Recently I saw my first newegg.com commercial, I was like WTF?! Wait too bad I dont live in cali cause I cant goto the store they just opened up, Grats fail timewarner.

[Joshua_Mahr]

I want an egg in florida. I would be so broke!

[James86]

I'm sure there are some chickens in Florida

[Cody_Irwin]

Josh, Id be happy with something happening in buffalo ny, What is a Lan event? We never heard of one here, Yes i do know what they are it was sarcastic but really theres never one here to really call a lan event, its quite boring...

[Joshua_Mahr]

I have lan parties at my house ever once in a while.. I need to order a new switch I only have 5 open ports. We need to have a Bjorn get together. Anyone for it?

[Cody_Irwin]

Sure if someone pays my way =)

[James86]

we should all meet up on steam and play some TF2

[Joshua_Mahr]

Well I think if we planned a couple mths in advance the airfare would be cheap!

[Cody_Irwin]

So josh you paying?? =P Also I grew old of TF2 I still got to download all the games n what not after switching my comp. UGH, How bout you guys play some HON?! but honestly I think i might play some TF2 again sometime, Pm me ur steam accounts and ill add ya, ill install steam right now and all that.

[Joshua_Mahr]

I do not think I would be able to pay for everyone to come. Sorry.. Wish I could!

[Cody_Irwin]

How bout me then? =) haha but youd have a lot to ship to ur house as well, My comp, my razer mako speakers, My phone wich is magic jack Yes I use one LMFAO its my cellphone pretty much XD even though I dont leave my house.

[James86]

I love my majicjack
and we have a steam group Cody

[Cody_Irwin]

Stop wasting time and Gimme!