Experience with GTX 980 FE service

[da na]

Anyone who has disassembled a GTX 980 (founders edition) before?
Bit of backstory:

Spoiler

I have the EVGA SC model that uses the founders edition board but has way higher clocks, 25w higher power consumption, and gets quite a bit hotter so it seems important to repaste it. I've had it for about a year, previous owner probably had it since launch (and it was run in a CAD render farm so probably infrequent heavy loads lasting many hours).

I've set a near vertical fan curve so it stays in the low 60s, hotspot in the high 70s-low 80s range so that it won't throttle at all. (Without this curve it gets close to 90, and over 100 on the hotspot) so I have a feeling it might be time.

How hard is the card to disassemble? Looks like it's pretty complex. Also, what thermal pad thickness do I need, as I should probably replace those too? And is Kryonaut as good for GPUs as it is for CPUs?

Thanks!

[tkitch]

GAmer's Nexus has a couple videos walking through GPU Disassembly, cleaning, and re-assembly.

[Mick Naughty]

The reference version is one of the easiest cards to take apart. Prolly gonna need 2, 2.5 and 3mm pads. But depends on the version you get and some are more malleable than others. Like whats on it now its gonna be soft so prolly best to measure. And almost any paste is good to use.