# New GPU, should I replace thermal paste immediately?



## Wolvyreen (Jan 19, 2020)

Hi,

I bought a new GPU and I am wondering if I should be replacing the thermal paste from the manufacturers paste to something more premium?

Wolvy


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## Vya Domus (Jan 19, 2020)

Unless there is an issue with it, no. If there is an issue with it, return it.


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## 64K (Jan 19, 2020)

Wolvyreen said:


> Hi,
> 
> I bought a new GPU and I am wondering if I should be replacing the thermal paste from the manufacturers paste to something more premium?
> 
> Wolvy



I've owned a lot of GPUs and never replaced the TIM nor had any problem that would make me think it would be worth it to do that.

Is your GPU running unusually high temps? If it is then I would just RMA it.


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## Thimblewad (Jan 19, 2020)

I always do that, force of habit I guess. 
The TIM manufacturers used before was usually crappy and applied horribly.


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## bonehead123 (Jan 19, 2020)

64K said:


> I've owned a lot of GPUs and never replaced the TIM nor had any problem that would make me think it would be worth it to do that.  *Is your GPU running unusually high temps? If it is then I would just RMA it.*



^^ This ^^


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## Vya Domus (Jan 19, 2020)

64K said:


> If it is then I would just RMA it.



You should never RMA a card if it's within the return window, there is no reason to do so and you'll be setting yourself up for trouble such as being sent back the same card claiming they've "fixed it" or that there was nothing wrong with it.


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## Wolvyreen (Jan 19, 2020)

64K said:


> I've owned a lot of GPUs and never replaced the TIM nor had any problem that would make me think it would be worth it to do that.
> 
> Is your GPU running unusually high temps? If it is then I would just RMA it.


No not at all, I have just seen other's say that the thermal paste on a new card is usually substandard and applying premium thermal paste will get better temps.  I do plan to overclock the card and that's why I was asking.


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## hurakura (Jan 19, 2020)

If it's not broken, why try to fix it


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## ixi (Jan 19, 2020)

I doubt that you need to do that. P.S. if some guys told you to do that... Then I guess they have no clue what they are talking.

In my life I have never changed gpu paste. OC'ed all cards on default paste and had no problems.


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## P4-630 (Jan 19, 2020)

I did it in the past but only because I replaced the stock cooler with a giant thermalright cooler for it. 
These days I just buy a card with a good cooler and leave the card as is.


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## ixi (Jan 19, 2020)

P4-630 said:


> I did it in the past but only because I replaced the stock cooler with a giant thermalright cooler for it.
> These days I just buy a card with a good cooler and leave the card as is.



Yup, same for me. If you want silent and better temps then pay 20-50 extra and get non-reference.

P.S.  off-topic I got for very cheap price  for evga gtx 1080 ti sc2. Which is CRAP in my opinion after of using it more than 1 year...


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 19, 2020)

used but fairly new (pascal/polaris/vega) - no
new - no
used,fairly new but ex-mining - yes
old - yes


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## erixx (Jan 19, 2020)

If you have time and like to live dangerously, why not? The result for sure is good!


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## robot zombie (Jan 19, 2020)

Wolvyreen said:


> No not at all, I have just seen other's say that the thermal paste on a new card is usually substandard and applying premium thermal paste will get better temps.  I do plan to overclock the card and that's why I was asking.


Who told you that? That may have been true at some point - I can see that with by now much older cards. But nowadays the good cards aren't even all that thermally-limited. Unless we're talking like, basic tier entries or reference blower cards, where paste alone isn't going to make up for the restrictive cooling capabilities. As in, the paste isn't the problem. It's the whole cooling solution. A decent cooler will take the card pretty much up to whatever its power limit is set to. Really, its going to be the bios holding you back. At least with Nvidia 10 and 20 series, that has been my experience. You look at your temperatures and kinda know there should be more, but the card just isn't going to let you ever push it much further. Toss it on water and lose 15C of heat load, but you won't get the clocks up that much because it was already pretty much at the top end of the power/clock curve it's locked into. And you can't mess with the bios like you used to anymore. Most times people end up either bricking their cards, or it just doesn't perform like they hoped.

Pretty much, cards now are set to give more or less all they can out of the box. From the design, to the bin, to the way the bios is set, what you get is what you get. You can squeeze out some minor gains and that's about it. GPU overclocking is dying... unless you buy an older card to play with, it's just not very fruitful. There's just no getting around it without serious time and know-how. And even then, it might not pay off. The die itself kinda runs how it runs and that's all she writes.

If you really want to go that route, water might have the real impact. Or even just a cooler upgrade. But by that point you could've taken the money spent and put it towards a card with a cooling solution that can handle more than the card itself can put out at max. There are plenty out there that can give you everything the die on the board could ever give. This is the paradigm now. Buy the card that already performs how you like and let it do its thing. Not very fun, but that's just how it is :/

Not on a brand new card... that's just asking for it. If you bought an older used card, maybe.


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## Wolvyreen (Jan 19, 2020)

Thanks All   I'll leave it as is for now.  This thread will serve it's purpose for the future when other people wonder the same question.


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## rtwjunkie (Jan 19, 2020)

Wolvyreen said:


> No not at all, I have just seen other's say that the thermal paste on a new card is usually substandard and applying premium thermal paste will get better temps.  I do plan to overclock the card and that's why I was asking.


Well, your temperatures would indicate if it is substandard or improperly applied. Does it happen? Yes.  But unless you see evidence it is inadequate, just leave it be for a couple years.


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## Schmuckley (Jan 19, 2020)

I do that, but it does void your warranty immediately, unless it's Gigabyte or Asus and you know people.

Now the sticker is on the screw, maybe it could be peeled off and re-applied after TIM work..

Eh, I grind down IHS's and delid chips too, so..keep that in mind. 

I sure enough didn't care when I put that MX-4 on my brand new 5700XT..

Stuck the screwdriver right through that sticker.

My mobo just died and the GPU rail on the PSU is toasty, but the GPU lived on..whew!

Mobo was an Asus X470 Prime..PSU was SuperFlower Golden Green Bronze.

PSU still works if one doesn't need a GPU rail.

Typed from the backup..

GPU is alive! It gets good temps, The fans are pulled off and using 2 120mm Cooler Master fans.

Sure if one sets +20 power and OCs to the max it will get to 105 at the hot spot.

I got some finger choppers too, but they're too loud.


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## jlewis02 (Jan 19, 2020)

I change the TIM if the card is getting hotter than I think it should.
Gaming cards don't get hot like workstation cards do.
My w7000 was getting super hot so I changed the TIM and dropped load temps 20c.
My p4000 is the same way getting hot under load changed the TIM 5c drop. The cooler is just too small for this card to cool it properly.


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## EarthDog (Jan 19, 2020)

Wolvyreen said:


> Hi,
> 
> I bought a new GPU and I am wondering if I should be replacing the thermal paste from the manufacturers paste to something more premium?
> 
> Wolvy


I didn't read past this post, but why would you do that?

1. Some AIBs, this voids the warranty IIRC.
2. The gains are likely only going to be a couple of C at best... not worth the effort unless you are benchmarking competitively and need every last C...

Unless there is a NEED to do it, I wouldn't... I don't care if it was a mining card, old or w/e... only if it needs it.


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## R-T-B (Jan 20, 2020)

Schmuckley said:


> I do that, but it does void your warranty immediately, unless it's Gigabyte or Asus and you know people.



Or you know... evga or xfx... or any vendor that explicitly allows it...  read the warranty.

BTW, speaking from experience, my brand new XFX card had some horrific clay like paste that resembled the stuff Intel uses.  They are aparently infamous for that though.  EVGA uses Shin Etsu (decent if applied right).  Others?  YMMV.



EarthDog said:


> I didn't read past this post, but why would you do that?
> 
> 1. Some AIBs, this voids the warranty IIRC.
> 2. The gains are likely only going to be a couple of C at best... not worth the effort unless you are benchmarking competitively and need every last C...
> ...



Still, I defer to this.  Even horrible paste does the job it was engineered to do.  Unless benching or going for ever more OC, don't fret it.



Schmuckley said:


> Now the sticker is on the screw, maybe it could be peeled off and re-applied after TIM work..



Sticker is legally irrelevant stateside.


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## Hyderz (Jan 20, 2020)

new cards no, unless ur temp is horribly high then might need to check your gpu is cooler is properly seated?
some of the new asus tuf has some thermal issue but its nothing to do with thermal paste.
generally the board partners manufacturer use fairly decent thermal paste, but there r some still use cheapo thermal paste, the standard gigabyte gaming edition which i know uses faily cheap thermal paste, the aorus ones are better 

i used to have a 8800gt ran it 4 years straight and temperature was at 100 degrees and would crash.
checked it and thermal paste on there was paper thin could even see the writing on the tim. added some new thermal paste (arctic silver 5)
temperature dropped by 25 degrees on load, but thats after 4 years of usage


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## lexluthermiester (Jan 20, 2020)

Wolvyreen said:


> No not at all, I have just seen other's say that the thermal paste on a new card is usually substandard and applying premium thermal paste will get better temps. I do plan to overclock the card and that's why I was asking.


As a rule, I generally replace the TIM on GPU's for me and mine, just so I know it gets done right.


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## Wolvyreen (Jan 20, 2020)

robot zombie said:


> Who told you that? That may have been true at some point...



You asked me who told me this...
Well some ppl like these told me this...  



Schmuckley said:


> I do that, but it does void your warranty immediately, unless it's Gigabyte or Asus and you know people.





lexluthermiester said:


> As a rule, I generally replace the TIM on GPU's for me and mine, just so I know it gets done right.


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## Thimblewad (Jan 20, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> As a rule, I generally replace the TIM on GPU's for me and mine, just so I know it gets done right.



Just as @lexluthermiester said. It not something you have to do, it's just peace of mind I guess. And as far as my experience goes, there's always at least a two or three °C difference.

If you ever popped a cooler of a GPU you may have seen all the shit that can be found under there  I always use my own TIM, even on new CPU coolers etc. On my old reference R9 290X, GPU clocks were 50-ish MHz higher after TIM change when gaming, because the card throttled at 90° at all times.


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## kapone32 (Jan 20, 2020)

If you break the seal on the screw that holds the bracket in place it voids your warranty. There has only been one instance where I removed the shroud from a brand new GPU and that was the Gigabyte Gaming OC Vega 64.


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## lexluthermiester (Jan 20, 2020)

kapone32 said:


> If you break the seal on the screw that holds the bracket in place it voids your warranty.


Not anymore, at least not in the USA. "Warranty Void" stickers and policies were deemed unlawful a couple years ago.


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## Wolvyreen (Jan 20, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Not anymore, at least not in the USA. "Warranty Void" stickers and policies were deemed unlawful a couple years ago.


UGH!  I want to move to the US!


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## RealNeil (Jan 20, 2020)

Wolvyreen said:


> Thanks All  I'll leave it as is for now.


There you go! Smart move.

I think that GPU makers are paying close attention to TIM application these days, making the possibility of substandard application statistically moot.
I ~could~ happen, but it's unlikely to,.....especially with premium cards.
Consider that they've gone through considerable lengths to design their products to work properly under normal conditions. (and slightly overclocked) 
This relies on the whole (heatsink, fans, and interface to the GPU core and memory/power handling substrate) system design being done right. TIM application is a critical part of the whole.
They can fudge it a little with low-performance GPU's, but even _they're_ built to a designed spec that they adhere to.

If there are temp issues with a new card, it's best ~not ~ to crack it open, and better to return (or maybe RMA) it.
I sold a perfectly good GTX-1070 to someone and it quit working. He sent it back to me and I RMA'd the card since it was under warranty.
Gigabyte refused to fix it because he had repasted the card.


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## freeagent (Jan 20, 2020)

I scraped off the stuff they put on my 970 and 980 and replaced it with my own.. Maybe a 2-3c difference.. maybe.. probably closer to one or two. When the load is off and temps drop is where I see the biggest change, I think.. and idle temps are lower for sure. my 970 and 980 are sitting at 25 doing nothing in quiet systems. If it were me, I would just leave it for a couple of years.


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## 64K (Jan 20, 2020)

I took apart a GTX 560 TI that I didn't have any need for one time out of curiosity and it looked like EVGA had put way too much TIM on the GPU. It looked like a sloppy mess to me but it probably wasn't conductive TIM.


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## EarthDog (Jan 20, 2020)

64K said:


> I took apart a GTX 560 TI that I didn't have any need for one time out of curiosity and it looked like EVGA had put way too much TIM on the GPU. It looked like a sloppy mess to me but it probably wasn't conductive TIM.


If it was conductive, it likely wouldn't have worked spilling out all over the caps surrounding the die.

This is what I have seen in general are liberal applications of TIM. The other situation I noticed is that some were hard as a rock. Those, when taken apart, need reTIM'd, the others, I clean it off, put some paste back in the middle and put the HS back on.


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## blued (Jan 20, 2020)

Only card I did it to was GTX 470, hot as hell (90c) load. Replaced TIM, achieved 2c improvement. Original TIM sloppy but generously applied. Result hardly worth it.
And to anyone thinking of doing it, DO NOT assume its done the same way as CPU, with a thin layer of paste. It needs a lot more, especially if you have heat pipes.
Manufacturing application may be sloppy, but generally it is effective. You will not benefit much from re-application.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Jan 20, 2020)

rtwjunkie said:


> Well, your temperatures would indicate if it is substandard or improperly applied. Does it happen? Yes.  But unless you see evidence it is inadequate, just leave it be for a couple years.


While I understand the point and principle, I think given what the OP has said, He will OC and is after what gains can be had, I personally would definitely consider a re-tim , it is not needed or necessary,
but putting conductonaught or some other very high-end tim on can get you between 5-10 degrees(10 for me) and therein gain impressive sustained bost gains.

Given the Boost/auto OC of both GPU manufacturers, more cooling is always better.

this would optimize his performance and enjoyment For the next few years.

needed no, but beneficial, possibly.


just consider can you do it safely, i see no risk since i am very experienced but you may be different, liquid metal Tim's are better but are very risky and tense to use for the first few times since more care is required but as other's told me putting silicon tim all over the bits you don't want liquid metal on(caps and stuff around chip but on die) works astonishingly well so with the right technique its easy, my main rigs main bits have liquid metal on.


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## dgianstefani (Jan 20, 2020)

As has been mentioned before - workstation cards can see double digit temperature improvements just from a re-TIM. 

Gaming cards won't see as much of an improvement - but contrary to what some people have said in this thread - many manufacturers allow repasting of GPUs without voiding warranty.

I would avoid conductive TIM such as conductonaut on GPU - no issues with CPU but GPU unless done right/perfectly can lead to issues - personal experience. Also with GPU the die size is large enough that the improved thermal conductivity of liquid metal isn't as important as on a small CPU die.

If you're going to do this, take extra care when disassembling and reassembling your cooler - often there are supplementary RGB cables, or in the case of the Founders edition 2060 - copious amounts of glue. 

Use a high quality paste like Kryonaut and you should see a minor temperature decrease, but more importantly a more noticeable sound pressure dBA decrease as the fans won't have to work as hard.

TLDR it's worth it if it doesn't void the warranty of your particular card and the card itself is simple to disassemble/reassemble.


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## EarthDog (Jan 20, 2020)

dgianstefani said:


> As has been mentioned before - workstation cards can see double digit temperature improvements just from a re-TIM.
> 
> Gaming cards won't see as much of an improvement - but contrary to what some people have said in this thread - many manufacturers allow repasting of GPUs without voiding warranty.
> 
> ...


I agree with most of this. However, a couple of C isn't going to change the fan speeds unless it is sitting on the edge already... which can also be accomplished by adjusting the fan curve up a couple of C. 

Why would workstation cards see different improvements when the TIM and application methods are the same?


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## dgianstefani (Jan 20, 2020)

It's not the couple of degrees that changes the fan speeds. Change how you think about it.

It's actually decreasing the temperatures by more than a couple of degrees _at the same fan speeds_ so you'll see a couple of degrees lower temperatures _and _lower fan speeds for a quieter card.

Workstation cards see more improvements because their coolers aren't as overbuilt as on gaming cards, so the increased TIM performance matters more.  It's why repasting your laptop with Liquid metal as I have done before several times will lead to much greater improvements in temperatures than doing the same thing on a desktop with a good cooler.


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## Hardcore Games (Jan 20, 2020)

I repaired a Gigabyte GTX 750 which was thermally throttling. I used MX-4 and the card now is stable and available for use.
The card has 2GB GDDR5 which gives it more memory bandwidth which at least does not bottleneck the ASIC.


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