Should we change our Thermal Compound on GFX Cards?

[qiuness]

I was wondering if any of you with bigger farms has done it.. and what thermal paste they used.

[Prelude]

I've done it to a few cards with positive results. Manufactures often cheap out on TIM. I usually use Prolimatech PK1, great paste.

[Hydroponica]

I tend to remove the thermal paste, from GPU's and CPU's, and use my own. It's cheap, and it helps lower temps, even if only a little.

[qiuness]

i've also heard that newer cards have a some uber ceramic compound that is better then what we would apply buying...

[anderl]

how much of a temperature difference do you see from applying a new compound?

[r3animation]

I use Thermaltake Chill Factor III with my gfx cards and cpu.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2148631

[qiuness]

anyone else had any experience with thermal paste?

[flyingmonkeycrap]

I always replace it with arctic silver when I buy a used card, however a new card I never really bother. On the used cards, temps can drop as much as 5-10 degrees (of course I remove dust as well when replacing so that has an effect too)

[fcmatt]

I always replace it with arctic silver when I buy a used card, however a new card I never really bother. On the used cards, temps can drop as much as 5-10 degrees (of course I remove dust as well when replacing so that has an effect too)

Same here. If a card has been running non stop for a year it is time to change it. You open it up and the old is crusty and dried.
Especially on 5800 series now days.

[erk]

What are those self adhesive thermal tapes like compared to the thermal compounds?

[lopheaded]

What are those self adhesive thermal tapes like compared to the thermal compounds?

a great way to fry shit..

[qiuness]

well i opened up my 5970 and changed the paste with AS5... they had some greasy wet pad's as well.. i left those alone although i was tempted to apply as5 to the memory's as well..

Thing is, my 5970 won't run now (it looks fine in Windows, but cgminer does not accept it.. crashes)

will have to take another look at it.

[deadweasel]

well i opened up my 5970 and changed the paste with AS5... they had some greasy wet pad's as well.. i left those alone although i was tempted to apply as5 to the memory's as well..

Thing is, my 5970 won't run now (it looks fine in Windows, but cgminer does not accept it.. crashes)

will have to take another look at it.

My 6770 had crumbly paste when I swapped it.  It's running two 24in screens now, so it must be good.

I'm not sure applying that stuff to memory was smart...  but i'm not a doctor.

[ohhaithere]

Arctic Silver really shouldn't be used on GPU's. It's quite risky because it's conductive. AS5 should only be used on chips with large heatspeaders so you can be fairly confident you won't have any leakage get on surface mount resistors/capacitors near by. It's fine if you put on the perfect amount, but if you put on too much it can fry your card.

I redid my mining gpus with IC Diamond. Just about anything would have done better than the ~1mm thick goo put on by the manufacturer. One of the cards had half of the die not even touching the compound and that card throttled instantly so it was effectively DOA thermal compound, but worked fine when re-applied.

[Malawi]

What are those self adhesive thermal tapes like compared to the thermal compounds?

Without having any data to back me up. (Maybee someone else has?) I have always thought that compounds are much better. You don't want a lot of it either, the ideal is to polish/clean both the GPU/CPU and heatsink and apply a small amount of thermal paste, just enough to fill in any gaps.

-Actually the most ideal scenario would be to have two completely even and perfectly clean surfaces and nothing else. The thermal paste is there because that is not really possible in most situations.

[qiuness]

Arctic Silver really shouldn't be used on GPU's. It's quite risky because it's conductive. AS5 should only be used on chips with large heatspeaders so you can be fairly confident you won't have any leakage get on surface mount resistors/capacitors near by. It's fine if you put on the perfect amount, but if you put on too much it can fry your card.

I redid my mining gpus with IC Diamond. Just about anything would have done better than the ~1mm thick goo put on by the manufacturer. One of the cards had half of the die not even touching the compound and that card throttled instantly so it was effectively DOA thermal compound, but worked fine when re-applied.

good input... what IC Diamond are you using?

[BrainShutdown]

Recently replaced the thermal compound on two Asus 5850 that I bought 2nd hand with NOX Xtreme Intros TG1.
It's non-conductive and the results where very good.

The old compound was very dry and after cleaning all the dust the temperature dropped 5 degrees in one and 8 degrees in the other.
Other great effect was the fan speed drop of around 2000RPM in each card

[mullick]

Bought a used 5850 and changed the paste. The previous owner bought it as a refurb and the TC was everywhere and actually water like on top of the gpu brought idle temps down 30° I dont know how the cards were even mining before. Also brought the temps down on my 6850 by almost 5°. I used whatever coolermaster gave me with my v8. Seems almost like as5 but less metallic I like it