Replacing Thermal paste on a GPU

[irishbeast]

Quick question. 

 

Is this as easy as replacing it on a CPU or does it vary depending on GPUI. I've never realty taken a GPU apart but there are some really good deals out there at the moment for Radeon 470s, 580s but the cards are obviously old. 

As I was going to purchase them toi mine with (they can still mine very efficiently despite age) but just wanted to know how esasy it is.

 

Also in the world of TP are all things pretty much equal or are some brands better than others? Stupid question maybe but if you don't know you don't know. I'm building up a nice little mining collection from cards which are more or less pas their shelf life for gaming and there's reasonable profit to be made. Not megabucks but my dfw cards currently cover tne entire energy bill in my place and a bit om top. wo IO am more than happy with that,. 

 

I do have a 3080 which I bought to game (but do mine on it as well) and of course it blows the others out of the water in terms of hash rate but uses about 3 times the power.. I guess if you could get those hash rates , even with the power usage at MSRP (unlikely ) then it would be much quicker gains but I'm in no hurry/. 

 

Anyway I'm going off on a tangent. Back to the thermal paste! questin

[RAS_3885]

It's a little more involved than replacing paste on a CPU, but not terribly difficult. It will vary from card to card depending on cooler design, but there are plenty of guides/walkthroughs online to make it easy to figure out.

 

Most paste will be similar performance as long as it's not bottom-of-the-barrel cheap. Name brand stuff like Artic or Noctua will perform close enough to not worry about it.

[RejZoR]

Kryonaut is one of highest performing thermal pastes that are not liquid metal. Don't go with liquid metal because it's super finicky and just not worth it. Also be aware that RTX 3000 cards use terrible thermal pads that will tear up during disassembly of card cooler. You'll need to replace those too with better ones, but they are very specific with thickness so pay attention with that.

[LIGISTX]

28 minutes ago, irishbeast said:

Quick question. 

 

Is this as easy as replacing it on a CPU or does it vary depending on GPUI. I've never realty taken a GPU apart but there are some really good deals out there at the moment for Radeon 470s, 580s but the cards are obviously old. 

As I was going to purchase them toi mine with (they can still mine very efficiently despite age) but just wanted to know how esasy it is.

 

Also in the world of TP are all things pretty much equal or are some brands better than others? Stupid question maybe but if you don't know you don't know. I'm building up a nice little mining collection from cards which are more or less pas their shelf life for gaming and there's reasonable profit to be made. Not megabucks but my dfw cards currently cover tne entire energy bill in my place and a bit om top. wo IO am more than happy with that,. 

 

I do have a 3080 which I bought to game (but do mine on it as well) and of course it blows the others out of the water in terms of hash rate but uses about 3 times the power.. I guess if you could get those hash rates , even with the power usage at MSRP (unlikely ) then it would be much quicker gains but I'm in no hurry/. 

 

Anyway I'm going off on a tangent. Back to the thermal paste! questin

As said above, DO NOT use liquid metal. Liquid metal eats copper, and it’s conductive and can somewhat easily run. 
 

Thermal grizzly kryonaut is the best option.

[irishbeast]

Thanks all for the awesome responses!

 

Just FYI I won't be taking apart any of my 3000 series cards. I have various Old Radeon's (470,480,580) that may well need a polish at some point. 

I just use them to mine and have GPU-z monitoring the temps which are all fine so far. I did pick another up today which I have no yet received that I suspect is going to have been through the was. Its hard to know with GPU's Though. I remember watching an LTT video where he used the same card, one which spent its life as a miner and after 5 years it performed as well as the "regular" card

[wildgg]

most cards only require you to undo the 4 screws, but some require you to undo more.
heating up the card can help with older pasts for pulling of the cooler of the PCB.
don't force the cooler of the PCB, just slighty twist and pull and it should come off pretty easy.

use non conductive paste for repasting and i highly recommend manually spreading the paste, there's no IHS here so you need to fully cover the DIE.

[failblox]

As others mentioned, it's very doable as long as you're careful about it.

 

I would be gentle pulling the cooler off the PCB, as the GPU silicon doesn't have an integrated heat spreader, unlike a CPU (the metal part that you apply thermal paste to on a CPU). Because of this, it can be a lot easier to damage the GPU if you're not careful.