Changing thermal paste on Vega

[Brent744]

Curious if anyone has changed their stock thermal paste on a Vega 56 or 64. If so did it make any major differences in cooling? I'm sure someone here on this forum has completed this task.

[Metallus97]

1 minute ago, Brent744 said:

Curious if anyone has changed their stock thermal paste on a Vega 56 or 64. If so did it make any major differences in cooling? I'm sure someone here on this forum has completed this task.

i did. it on a VII which is pretty similar. Has improve temps!. but you need a good amount and be super careful with that HBM! 

 

i have my VII under LM now but with high end TIM i saw a temp decrease of about 6deg. this however could be lower in your case because vega is not spitting out that much heat as my VII does.

 

all in all it’s easy to do and can’t hurt, so try it! Wich cooler do you have?

[Brent744]

2 minutes ago, Metallus97 said:

all in all it’s easy to do and can’t hurt, so try it! Wich cooler do you have?

I have a Gigabyte blower style cooler, I preferred the "cleaner" appearance of these coolers.

I have a ton of Arctic Silver 5 laying around so I figured I'd give it a shot but I wanted some insight before taking the plunge. I also recently undervolted it to help keep temps and fan noise down.

[Brent744]

Confirmed, made no difference unfortunately with Arctic Silver 5 paste. Was worth a shot I suppose. Maybe the paste will be more effective after it's fully cured.

[Metallus97]

2 minutes ago, Brent744 said:

Confirmed, made no difference unfortunately with Arctic Silver 5 paste. Was worth a shot I suppose. Maybe the paste will be more effective after it's fully cured.

ok then   I guess Gigabyte used something decent in the first place. Well now you have fresh paste that will hold up longer. 

I have my VII on liquid metal. BUT I dont think that helps much with air coolers and is super risky in the application. One wrong move and the card is fed.

[BTGbullseye]

7 hours ago, Brent744 said:

Confirmed, made no difference unfortunately with Arctic Silver 5 paste.

I wouldn't've expected it to. AS5 was the best, 15 years ago... Now it's almost 4°c off the average for high-end thermal pastes, plus it dries out fast. Prolimatech PK-3 is my go-to paste, and is up there with the absolute best non-liquid metal pastes available, but much cheaper per ounce. (it's about 1/2 the price of AS5 last I checked)

[Brent744]

2 hours ago, BTGbullseye said:

Prolimatech PK-3 is my go-to paste, and is up there with the absolute best non-liquid metal pastes

Thanks for the info, I'll have to check that one out on my next build.

[Metallus97]

4 hours ago, BTGbullseye said:

I wouldn't've expected it to. AS5 was the best, 15 years ago... Now it's almost 4°c off the average for high-end thermal pastes, plus it dries out fast. Prolimatech PK-3 is my go-to paste, and is up there with the absolute best non-liquid metal pastes available, but much cheaper per ounce. (it's about 1/2 the price of AS5 last I checked)

Hm I have never heard about this paste. Will have to try it. Do you have a link to a test or something?

I am always using Kyronaut. Expensive but performance is verry good.For LM I use Conductonaut

[BTGbullseye]

19 hours ago, Metallus97 said:

Hm I have never heard about this paste. Will have to try it. Do you have a link to a test or something?

I am always using Kyronaut. Expensive but performance is verry good.For LM I use Conductonaut

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616-12.html

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/guru3d_thermal_paste_roundup_2019,10.html

https://proclockers.com/reviews/cooling/prolimatech-pk-2-and-pk-3-thermal-paste

https://www.thetechlounge.com/best-thermal-paste/ (a bit iffy this site seems)

 

And here are links directly to the paste in each of its 3 sizes, so you don't have to hunt around the internet to find it...

https://www.newegg.com/prolimatech-pro-pk3-1-5g/p/N82E16835242028?Item=9SIAGPF7KA1046&quicklink=true

https://www.newegg.com/prolimatech-pro-pk3-5g/p/N82E16835242027?Item=9SIAGPF7KA1091&quicklink=true (this is the one I get, and you can see my review on there)

https://www.newegg.com/prolimatech-pro-pk3-30g/p/N82E16835242026?Item=N82E16835242026&quicklink=true

[ZzLy]

On 1/30/2020 at 1:50 PM, Brent744 said:

Curious if anyone has changed their stock thermal paste on a Vega 56 or 64. If so did it make any major differences in cooling? I'm sure someone here on this forum has completed this task.

Regardless of which card it is; changing the paste will always make a difference if it's a few years old.

[BTGbullseye]

36 minutes ago, ZzLy said:

Regardless of which card it is; changing the paste will always make a difference if it's a few years old.

Not always. Many brands use very good thermal compounds for their aftermarket cooler cards, and even after a few years it will maintain full thermal performance.

[ZzLy]

4 minutes ago, BTGbullseye said:

Not always. Many brands use very good thermal compounds for their aftermarket cooler cards, and even after a few years it will maintain full thermal performance.

Yeah nah that's not true. Manufacturers need to pick thermal paste that prioritizes longevity over performance. It is more important that it keeps working for 5 years, than that it can work optimally for 1 year and then have dried up paste. So if you're replacing the paste on a new card you will see a slight drop in temps, but you will also have just thrown away the longevity that the stock thermal paste had.

[Brent744]

On 2/1/2020 at 8:31 PM, ZzLy said:

Regardless of which card it is; changing the paste will always make a difference if it's a few years old.

Most of the time I would think, but not always the case. This is the third card where I've changed the paste and it made no difference. Previous cards were EVGA 1050 Ti and Gigabyte 1060 which both made no difference, maybe because they use a lot less power, not sure. Then I changed paste on a EVGA 1070 and temps went down 6 degrees under load so I figured I might get the same result in the Vega, but it didn't change. Using Arctic Silver 5 for each unit.