Folding Forum

Does anyone (recommend) reapply any thermal paste/pads on their GPUs every so often for their folders? Just read a different thread where that was recommended for CPU folding (which I don’t do, maybe I should, but so little points)… and curious if I should be doing this for the GPUs which are obviously much harder (I think) that a CPU reapplication.

Thoughts? Data? Commentary?

Really I have done this but would avoid it where possible due to the complexity of opening up most GPUs cases, really not comparable with complexity of taking a cooler off a CPU which is generally pretty simple. I stripped down a GTX 1080ti last year which must have had 60 tiny screws of different sizes...

I have done it years ago. In many cases it is thermal pads that are used in a GPU, not paste. Depending on the model of GPU you may need several different thicknesses of pads or need to stack pieces.

Perfect. Thank you both. Was hopeful this wasn’t something to be concerned with. As I remember when looking at water block cooling for GPUs, the procedure didn’t really seem to lend itself to “relatively easy”.

The GPU sometimes uses thermal paste.
The memory modules most of the time use thermal pads.
I saw a guy who CNC-ed a piece of copper to replace the pads, and used thermal paste, and saw a +20C thermal drop.
For the rest of us, it's best to find the highest rated thermal pads, and reapply the thermal paste on the GPU once every 2 to 3 years.
Someone on youtube made his own thermal paste, made out of cheap components. Graphite, diamond powder copper and epoxy (for a more permanent cooling solution). Only works on a GPU that you intend never to open again.

For thermal pads, it's always best to get the thinnest possible pads.
If the factory uses 2mm pads, but they're squeezed to 0.8mm, 1 or 1.5 mm pads will work better.