Reapplying Thermal Compound on Graphics Card.

M00lers

Just for the sake of it and out of curiousity I want to replace the themal paste on my GPU to see if my temps drop and maybe give me a bit of OC headroom.

I've never taken apart a GPU before and not really worried about the process but I could do with a bit of clarification please.

My GPU is an Asus 6870 DirectCU in a SilverStone LC13-E so cooling is not as good as a normal rig so if I could get the temps down even by a few degrees I'd be happy.

My main slight concern is the thermal pads on the memory chips, I'd prefer not to replace them if possible.
Is it as simple as getting out your screwdriver, removing the heatsink, clean off old thermal paste, apply new thermal paste and reattach the heatsink or am I missing something?

I'm sure some of the WC gurus will have some good advice for me!!

Thanks,
Moo

Serephucus

That's pretty much all there is to it, yeah. Sometimes graphics cards will use weird screws (GTX 580, anyone?) but it is basically just unscrew, clean, rescrew.

Careful when you're taking off the heatsink, as it can get pretty well stuck to the GPU die. You might want to game with it for a bit, to heat up the thermal paste, before you pull it apart. Helped when was pulling heatsinks off.

Also, be careful with the thermal pads. You can use the current ones fine, just be sure not to get them too deformed. They can stretch a fair bit if you pull on them. Try lifting them off with a screw driver or something.

M00lers

Serephucus wrote: »

That's pretty much all there is to it, yeah. Sometimes graphics cards will use weird screws (GTX 580, anyone?) but it is basically just unscrew, clean, rescrew.

Careful when you're taking off the heatsink, as it can get pretty well stuck to the GPU die. You might want to game with it for a bit, to heat up the thermal paste, before you pull it apart. Helped when was pulling heatsinks off.

Also, be careful with the thermal pads. You can use the current ones fine, just be sure not to get them too deformed. They can stretch a fair bit if you pull on them. Try lifting them off with a screw driver or something.

Thanks Serephucus, heating up the thermal paste was something I had planned to do, I learned that the hardway when I pulled a cooler of CPU and it was stuck to the bottom of the cooler!! No harm done though.

Do I actually need to remove the thermal pads though? I'm planning to avoid touching them altogether if I can get away with it.

Serephucus

Depends on the cooler. Some you might have to, some you might not. From the looks of this video, it seems the card doesn't use any RAM pads, and the heatsinks for the vregs are seperate, so you should only have to remove a total of four screws! (Lucky bastard - try twenty-nine on the GTX 580)

M00lers

Serephucus wrote: »

Depends on the cooler. Some you might have to, some you might not. From the looks of this video, it seems the card doesn't use any RAM pads, and the heatsinks for the vregs are seperate, so you should only have to remove a total of four screws! (Lucky bastard - try twenty-nine on the GTX 580)

Yeah, I saw a video of my GPU naked and didn't see any thermal pads, just heatsinks but didn't know for sure if they had been removed or not. Four screws is indeed handy, maybe too handy!! Where's the fun in that?;)

ShadowHearth

Direct cu2 should not have heat problems. On 6870 it's a bit smaller, but it's still a massive good cooler.

I know my direct cu2 gtx 570 was very cold considering it was on air.

Dunno if changing of thermal paste will help, unless you you really having issues above normal temperatures.

M00lers

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Direct cu2 should not have heat problems. On 6870 it's a bit smaller, but it's still a massive good cooler.

I know my direct cu2 gtx 570 was very cold considering it was on air.

Dunno if changing of thermal paste will help, unless you you really having issues above normal temperatures.

It has the original DirectCU cooler, not the DirectCUII replacement.

I'm not having any heat issues, I just want to see if I can reduce the temps, if I don't get a reduction in temps I won't be too dissapointed, it's just something to do for an hour!

I've read elsewhere of some dramatic reduction in temps by reapplying thermal paste on a GPU but my thinking is that it was not applied correctly in the factory in the first place.

Like I said it's just for the craic more than anything!

ShadowHearth

moolers2000 wrote: »

It has the original DirectCU cooler, not the DirectCUII replacement.

I'm not having any heat issues, I just want to see if I can reduce the temps, if I don't get a reduction in temps I won't be too dissapointed, it's just something to do for an hour!

I've read elsewhere of some dramatic reduction in temps by reapplying thermal paste on a GPU but my thinking is that it was not applied correctly in the factory in the first place.

Like I said it's just for the craic more than anything!

have fun then so m8!

M00lers

One more question......I have some IC Diamond and some Noctua NT-H1. The Noctua is nicer to work with, the IC Diamond is supposed to perform better, both are non conductive as far as I know.

Which do ya reckon? Toss a coin?

Serephucus

Since you're going for maximum heat reduction, I'd say the IC Diamond, but it's a toss-up, really.

Dublin_Gunner

Unless the thermal compound is really crap - it doesn't really matter what you use. How you apply it can have as much of an effect on temps as which paste you use.

It's over-rated tbh.

With your GPU - you are probably going to notice approximately 0 degree's difference by going to the hassle of taking it apart to replace the thermal compound.

Biggest change you can make to reduce temps is change your case.

Airflow will have a much bigger impact than clutching at straws by replacing the thermal compound on the GPU.

However, if you feel like doing it for the experience / craic - go for it!

Serephucus

I disagree. I've taken apart 580s before to reapply thermal paste, and there is definitely a difference. Most of the time way too much is used, so it does help.

M00lers

Didn't get to do this last night, match got in the way.

But I was messing about with the Heaven benchmark just to get an idea of gaming temps before I apply the new paste.

Also from my brief testing last night I dropped my GPU load temps by 9-10 degrees by undervolting. Default is 1.20V but I dropped to 1.15V and it seemed to run okay but the drop in temps was significant. Obviously I'll need to do some more stabily testing to verify but early impressions are good.

M00lers

Quick update, applied some IC Diamond on my GPU last night, it was a fairly painless task.
There was only four screw holding the cooler on and it came off easily, and no thermal pads to worry about.

Anyway, I set my GPU to the default setting (915/1050, 1.2V, fan on auto) to compare temps to before the new paste was applied and sure enough after multiple runs of the Heaven benchmark my load temps are appox 8 degrees lower.

After that I dropped the voltage to 1.12V and got a further reduction in temps and was stable in both Heaven (looping for an hour) and Furmark (15 min burn in). Tried a bit (not much) of gaming and I got the same drop in temps approx 8 to 10 degrees.

I'm now using a user defined fan profile in Asus GPUTweak software which means I'm now running a much quieter PC.

Overall it was an excercise well worth doing with the end result of a much much cooler, quieter and slighty more power efficient gaming/HTPC.