Question Another PSA to ALWAYS new or used check the thermal paste on ur cards!

[funboy6942]

I did a trade for 2 RX 590 Sapphires and due to time, and the fact I always check decided to do the same with these. Below is what we found when we took the 1st one apart, and then the 2nd. The 1st was all sorts of messed up with the pads we had to redo, and on both the paste was pretty much not there like I find with about 90% of the cards taken apart no matter who made it.

So be sure to check your cards, and even if its running "cold" so were these so said the original owner of them.

 

[aigomorla]

Change your Thermal PAD's also.
Your opening that GPU anyhow...

I normally perform a complete clean on the card, including giving it good brush with 99% iso.

Replace Thermal Paste... replace Thermal Pad.... and i even retorque to proper spec's with a Torque driver.
(the last is a bit extreme... but i have the tools, why not use them. )

 

[Fallen Kell]

I wouldn't call the paste so horrible (from those pics at least). That seems to be a typical installation/application. Sure it is more than needed as you can see the excess/over-squeeze, but it is better than not having enough to make complete contact, which is what the manufacturers are most concerned about (losing a degree of two of performance from having more paste than needed is not something that will cause a RMA, but not having enough to make contact with the chip resulting in the complete heat throttling of the card will).

But those heatpads on the memory and power delivery are just painfully inadequate. You can clearly see that most of them are still air-gaped and not in contact with the heatsink/chip (you can see the couple that have the indentation outlines on them that are making contact and the ones that are just contacting air have no contact). Heck, they even tried doubling up on the pads on some of those small power delivery chips and I still don't think they were making contact with the added bump out metal plate on the heatsink. It's like they used a previous gen heatsink on new hardware and didn't bother correcting for the Z axis height difference in the components used on the new board.

 

[DeathReborn]

Change your Thermal PAD's also.
Your opening that GPU anyhow...

I normally perform a complete clean on the card, including giving it good brush with 99% iso.

Replace Thermal Paste... replace Thermal Pad.... and i even retorque to proper spec's with a Torque driver.
(the last is a bit extreme... but i have the tools, why not use them. )

View attachment 100137

It would be so much easier if TPU/iFixit for example listed what thickness pads each model uses. Right now I have to keep large quantities of every thickness just to make sure I have all the ones I might need.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Your Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU may have a big performance issue

Investigation by Igor's Lab uncovers potential widespread problems with Nvidia RTX 4080 thermal paste, affecting GPU thermal performance.

www.club386.com

Wow. Manli (Zotac sis) doesn't surprise me but ASUS caught with their pants down. AGAIN??!!!

Taking both graphics cards apart reveals a truly sad sight. The Nvidia GPUs at the heart of each card are beset by poor contact with the heatsink, with 21-35% of the die sweating away without any thermal paste to conduct its heat away. This is in part due to the differences in die size between GeForce RTX 4080 and 4090 (with many AIBs using the same cooler for both). However, as Igor explains, the problems go deeper still.

As Igor succinctly describes: “It’s not even paste, it’s soup.” Examining the thermal soup under a microscope, he uncovers a poor mix of silicone and other materials which have led to compromised thermal conductivity. What makes this affair all the more frustrating is that these problems are easily remedied simply by using a more competent thermal paste atop the Nvidia GPU.

Numbers don’t lie, as an application of Alphacool Apex thermal paste sees Nvidia GPU hotspot temperatures tumble on both cards by a staggering 25-28°C. This has a positive knock-on effect for noise levels too, falling to just 32.6dBA. Sadly, though, this does make coil whine audible but it’s a small price to pay in reducing the stress faced by the $1,200 graphics card.

 

[igor_kavinski]

@manly just to be clear, Zotac's sis isn't your sis, correct?