Is it worth repasting the the motherboard's northbridge and GPU from stock?

[JM Popaleetus]

Been a few years since the last desktop I've built (went all laptop for school). Are there any gains from repasting the motherboard's northbridge or GPU like there used to be? In other words, will I see any improvement removing the stock thermal pads and applying some ICD?

Don't want to start pulling off heatsinks if there is no longer a benefit .

 

[Rifter]

yes it will still provide an improvement, even crappy paste is better than the best pads. And even when they use paste then tend to use 4-10 times the amount they need to.

 

[mtnd3vil]

reapplying thermal paste to motherboards and GPUs is one of the computer tasks I most enjoy! Interfaces that have been in service for a while can dry out and get crumbly and need replacing. Will you notice anything? maybe, probably not, but who cares. As long as nothing breaks in the process, it will be an upgrade.

I recently used AS5 to rebuild video cards I'll almost certainly never use again,
X1900, 6600GT, 7800GT, etc :\

 

[rrplay]

I recently just checked my Northbridge on an older MSI 6570 board and the original paste did not completely cover the entire chip-heatsink the temps were ok at about 35C
I reapplied some non-conductive paste and got a better lockdown by a adding 4mm nylon washer to the push-pins for a tighter fit [just a little play in the mount].

maybe no substitute for hand-on see for yourself. This board also had a little fan which died quite some time ago been using temp fans/coolers and idles about 31C
which is likely to be fine.

 

[JM Popaleetus]

Well, I decided to repaste everything. I 'effing broke one of the clips holding on the NB's HSF...seriously those screws are wayyyy to thin, but was able to fix it.

Here are my idle non-OCed temps, how are they looking to you guys?