# Recommendations required ,thermal pads for gpu



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Jun 10, 2020)

So recently my Vega started crashing at high clocks.

It's a battered GPU, it's mined , or folded it's whole life under waterblock at high clocks (Oc).

So this happened before and I wanted to liquid metal Tim it so it's been taken apart numerous times.

A year ago I replaced the thermal pads with some blue fairly cheap ones off Amazon.

Upon taking it apart this time I found these had dried out in the extreme for a years use.
But I only had that type but new to refit it so I've used them again.

They're not going to last long so next time I want decent one's to swap in.

Anyone have any good high throughput ones to recommend.

0.5 and 1.0 mm one's required.

I am not looking for you to Google for me.
I want personal recommendations for something you used and we're good, a name ,brand etc.


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## Dinnercore (Jun 10, 2020)

I personally used the ARCTIC Thermal Pads and the Thermal Grizzly Minuspad stuff.

I had both of them in 0.5mm, 1.0mm and 1.5mm. I used them on old GPUs that I cleaned and replaced TIMs for my collection as well as on mainboard VRMs from my collection.

Both of these brands get the job done. They so far worked well for over a year. The Arctic is a little worse in performance and most times it barely matched the OEM stuff I replaced. But they are reliable and softer then the Thermal Grizzly pads.

The Thermal Grizzly generally perform a little bit better (nothing major, maybe seeing 2-5°C less on VRM temperature on my AMD-cards) but they are also a lot less squishy. So you need the exact thickness when you go for a Thermal Grizzly Minuspad. If you use a 1.5mm it can barely compress down to 1.2mm and by doing so you need to apply a lot of pressure which can deform or bend the cooler/pcb making contact in important areas like a GPU die worse.

The ARCTIC stuff is a bit more forgiving and can be squeezed a bit, however again you should try to match them as close as possible since they are soft but not as ductile, when you squish them they start to tear open which is not ideal.

These are my experiences so far with pads you can buy from stores. Usually I find the stuff you get supplied when buying a decent waterblock is superior as it feels more like soft silicone. They can hold their shape well under pressure, perform good and can be squished down by a lot without high pressure while staying intact.
Sadly I did not find a good source for that type yet, only saw one water-cooling store sell these at outragous prices like 200€ for a 200mm by 200mm sheet.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Jun 10, 2020)

Dinnercore said:


> I personally used the ARCTIC Thermal Pads and the Thermal Grizzly Minuspad stuff.
> 
> I had both of them in 0.5mm, 1.0mm and 1.5mm. I used them on old GPUs that I cleaned and replaced TIMs for my collection as well as on mainboard VRMs from my collection.
> 
> ...


Thanks ,that matches my experience, it's hard to find ones as good as OEMs supply for reasonable money.
Few ideas though Ty..


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## StrikerRocket (Jun 13, 2020)

I've just replaced the original thermal pads on my GTX 1080 G1 Gaming from Gigabyte with the Gelid GP extreme in 0.5mm and 1.0 mm thickness. They seem to be pretty good. For the GPU, I stick with good quality thermal paste. I used the Prolimatech PK3 brand which is excellent, among the lowest temps attained in a huge review I read. To get better results, you have to turn to liquid metal. The GTX never goes over 70°C when room temp is about 25°C, and I live in the south of France where it's pretty hot in summer.


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## nguyen (Jun 14, 2020)

Just an idea, how about some 0.5mm copper shim and thermal paste .
Anyways the caps on your Vega probably degraded as they are not covered with thermal pads on EK wb. Most capacitors have an endurance of 10000hours at 105C and for each 10C drop in temp can double the endurance rating.
So yeah, putting better thermal pads on VRM probably won't help in your case.


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## Solaris17 (Jun 14, 2020)

I run fujipoly myself.


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## dgianstefani (Jun 14, 2020)

Fujipoly or gelid gc extreme


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## Lars V. (Feb 22, 2021)

Hi, I've recently taken apart my RX 590 from Sapphire and have had a real hard time with the pads. The pads the card came with were definitely not 0.5, but 1 mm pads, softer and more like a paste. The pads I've replaced them with were Arctic and although they had the right thickness, they didn't compress at all when just reassembling the card resulting in the card getting much hotter than before (which defeated my initial intention completely) due to the fact that the pads acted more like spacers really so there wasn't enough pressure on the die.
I took the card apart again and flattened the pads more, as evenly as I could but I've now I stripped a screw or screw hole on one of the main tiny screws around the die.
I've now resorted to a washer on the stripped screw/screw hole but I kind of doubt that it did much, although the temperatures do seem to be more stable now.
My next step would've been to get thinner 0.5 mm pads from Thermal Grizzly since the ones from Arctic clearly were not ideal, but now I hear they are actually harder and less compressive than the Arctic ones which ... I don't even know what to make of the whole thing anymore. I really was not expecting what looked like a simple repasting to become such a conundrum.
Any ideas on a possible fix or advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated.


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## jboydgolfer (Feb 22, 2021)

i use grizzly, or fujipoly. grizzly are over priced & then some. Fujipoly work as good and dont cost as much, the only difference is the brand & color


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## dgianstefani (Feb 22, 2021)

Grizzly are overpriced and not the best. But are at least of consistent quality. 

Gelid GC Ultimate is cheap, good 13W/MK and available in UK via amazon. Had good results. 

Fujipoly has some of the best available and I suspect other brands use as their oem, but hard to find directly.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Feb 22, 2021)

I went with artic ones this time, they're holding up well, Ty to commenters.

While folding I'm at 40°c, Vrms not much higher ,with the CPU at 80°c crunching and water at about 39/42°C.

No signs of death here naysayer.

This like all my card's has been Used ,it earned it's price in the last mining boom(6/8months), and has been folding at -10% power since then, look after stuff and it has a chance of being fine for years, which is lucky ATM.
Ideally I would own newer now but, f it.


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