Something to be concerned about?

[Jonathan Lemmens]

So I took my R9 380X out for it's annual cleaning and TIM-refresh, and I was shocked to notice this:

 

I have only seen this kind of discoloration on metals that have been heated to temps well above 150C, I also don't see any evidence of insane heat on the plastic shroud, the PCB or any components. The discoloration on the heatsink is more obvious IRL than on the photo.

This is the first time I've removed the GPU since I bought it about a year ago, I tried OCing when I got it, but headroom was limited so I didn't bother and ran it at stock ever since. I frequently monitored temps and as far as I remember the GPU never exceeded 70-75C, airflow in the case is also plentiful. 

 

I often play Factorio, a 2D game, it requires lots of VRAM but not much GPU power. The VRAM chips also don't have any heatsinks on them, could it be that the VRAM got really hot but I (and the fans) didn't notice it because the card only monitors GPU core temps?

 

Could this be a concern in the future? 

 

[System Error Message]

nothing to worry about, more likely it could be caused by water or oxidation as well. Not all metals rust into brown and fall apart. Also temperature of metal does not matter for cooling because you have to consider that cooling is all about energy dissipation and specific heat capacity.

 

However it doesnt hurt to check temps. If your GPU has been running at 150C and survive it must be an extremely rare silicon.

[ARikozuM]

And here I thought nitride or "bluing" was only available for guns and cars. 

 

I wouldn't worry too much.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

6 hours ago, System Error Message said:

nothing to worry about, more likely it could be caused by water or oxidation as well. Not all metals rust into brown and fall apart. Also temperature of metal does not matter for cooling because you have to consider that cooling is all about energy dissipation and specific heat capacity.

 

However it doesnt hurt to check temps. If your GPU has been running at 150C and survive it must be an extremely rare silicon.

It may not be obvious in the photo, but it's clearly not corrosion. It is the same blue/red-ish color you might see on a chromed exhaust pipe on a motorcycle.

[Guest]

If you're really worried rma it. But it should be fine. Just make sure it isn't running at 150 c lol