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Thermal pads

omgitsdavie

omgitsdavie

omgitsdavie

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Not really sure if this question belongs here or in the watercooling forum as its really relevant to both..

Anyway, Whats your stance on re-using thermal pads? Ive upgraded to a 780ti and plan to sell my 7970s, i plan to re-fit the stock air coolers to both. Will they be okay or should i replace them?

Secondly, i understand that the clearance is different depending on component, all the pads are 1mm bar one, which is .5mm. Ive been to OCUK today and picked up a 1mm pad, sadly the .5 is out of stock. Will the 1mm pad squash down enough to replace the .5mm thickness pad? or should i hold off until they have got some .5mm in stock too?

EDIT: just read on a thread that the .5mm strip is purely to insulate a line of "chokes" (no idea what these are to be fair?) near the VRM. With this in mind, does this mean the thermal conductivity of the pad no long becomes an issue?
 
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Once compressed your not supposed to reuse ideally.

I assume you mean the fabric/oily ones and they are a lot thicker out the packaging and compress.

0.5mm and 1.0mm are ones I have seen most talk about but it was EVGA Staff who stated which to buy but that would be Nvidia but I do not see it being different.
 
As above once used I wouldn't reuse them once the blocks removed. I normally reseat the card a few times on the block to make sure its all fitted and lined up, but once its screwed on that's that. I shouldn't think the thickness shouldn't make much of a difference as long as it's lined up correctly
 
Thickness doesn't make a difference really (as long as there is contact), since what they cool doesn't need a super minimal thermal compound like on a CPU. A slightly too thick pad will squash down, where as a slightly too thin one might not make contact, so usually i will use a thicker pad if i am running low and had a choice between too thick and toot thin.

omgitsdavie said:
EDIT: just read on a thread that the .5mm strip is purely to insulate a line of "chokes" (no idea what these are to be fair?) near the VRM. With this in mind, does this mean the thermal conductivity of the pad no long becomes an issue?
Click to expand...

Wouldn't worry about thermal conductivity too much, in this case, they are just to stop it shorting. A splodge of non conductive TIM will help the pad stay down and stop it moving if you run into issues fitting it.
 
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