Change the Thermal Compound on Your MSI Twin Frozr III 7950!

[propaintballa]

Hey Guys!

I never really post on here but there aren't many definitively positive threads on the net and I wanted to share my findings with everyone!

I've been running my MSI 7950 for a couple of months now and have been happy with it, I have a mild overclock of 940/1300 on it and it has been fine, however, I was getting about 71c with the fan at about 60% average running Planetside 2 on full settings. I thought to myself that these temps could be better as the cooler on the card gets good reviews and what not!

I started looking around the net and found people changing the compound because of the poor job from the factory, but most people only reporting a 2-5c drop in temps, so I thought I'd give it a whirl myself.

Stuck some MX-2 on it and reseated the heatsink and boom, temps after about 30 mins on PS2 around 50c and the fan only at 35%! After about 1.5 hours playing, the temps seemed steady at around 50-55c and fan speed at 40-45%!

Tis a shame that I don't have any before and after screenshots or anything, but I'm not going to lie, am I?!

All in all, very happy with that! I can actually hear myself now! If you have one of these cards and you're getting pretty high temps, I'd definitely give this a go!

 

[HankScorpio]

Think this goes without saying for any GPU which is loud on stock volts etc.

 

[Arthur Hucksake]

That should be added to a tech wiki on here somewhere. Useful info.

 

[mickyflinn]

Warranty screams to mind, hope you dont need it.

 

[propaintballa]

Think this goes without saying for any GPU which is loud on stock volts etc.

Maybe so... But a lot of people don't know whether it's worth doing it, especially after a lot of people have negligible results after re application

Warranty screams to mind, hope you dont need it.

I have heard that MSI aren't bothered about that, much like XFX, that's the only other company I know that isn't too fussed about removing the cooler

There are also to stickers on the screws or anything that would show the cooler had been removed

 

[Tonester0011]

Warranty screams to mind, hope you dont need it.

Like they actually check :L
My 7970 went back for RMA, had a waterblock on it and you could still see some of the crap left by the memory and VRM pads etc. (this card came without memory cooling) still got accepted.

 

[Sin_Chase]

Depends on the natrue of the fault.

If you have a crushed GPU die and it's obvious you used a custom cooler then questions might be asked

 

[Drizmod]

There was a MSI rep on here recently who was saying that warranty will not be void if you change thermal paste