Replacing the thermal paste for the GTX 980 Ti

[thenoseknows]

I'm interested in doing this, but I'm not sure how to proceed given that it would be my first time replacing the thermal paste for a graphics card. I'd greatly appreciate it if someone could answer my questions (bottom of the post). Thanks!

I have a Zotac 980 Ti Amp edition. Here are a couple of pictures of its cooler and PCB from a German site:

Spoiler

Has anyone had any experience with this card, or any other 980 Ti? Will I need to replace the two thermal pads once I take the card apart, or can they be reused? Anything else I should know about before I start?

 

[elmarko]

You should first find out about the warranty first, does removing the cooler invalidate it?.

Then see if your temps are higher than usual, or if you would gain anything (in real terms) by reducing the temps - are the fans too loud?, are you suffering from thermal voltage throttling. Then ensure you have the correct tools, you will likely need a flat X screwdriver - but check before you go crazy (it's very easy to ruin a screw with the wrong tools).

Then I'd pick a good thermal paste, watch a few videos online to find out how to do it & overall ensure you don't scratch the board with a screwdriver (placing a fibre-free dry towel next to the screw you are taking out/putting in can help) or damage the components.

 

[Kelt]

If they spot it, you can kiss goodbye to your five year warranty.

Zotac don't like you removing their heatsink.

 

[Mr Oblong]

Do you have a good reason to replace the paste, particularly if you're keeping the stock cooler?

 

[thenoseknows]

Well, there isn't a warranty sticker on any of the screws, but it's definitely something I will need to check. Thank you for pointing that out.

What is "thermal voltage throttling"? I do know that the card never reaches the temperature limit (91 degrees) and doesn't throttle because of that. However, it is still quite hot, around 80 degrees, and the fans can't really keep up. No, this isn't at stock clocks. Temperature at stock seems fine and would not justify replacing the thermal paste.

 

[andybird123]

some people have reported a couple of degrees drop by replacing the stock TIM on some GPU's, not seen anything on this particular zotac, also probably not worth risking the warranty for the sake of 2 degrees... the 980ti does "throttle" slightly somewhere around mid 70's by about 10mhz, again not worth risking 5 years warranty imo, and going from say 80C to 78C wouldn't prevent that anyway

if you did do it, yes you could reuse the stock green heatpads

the only thing that might be worth doing, would be getting hold of a prolimatech mk26 which sometimes pop up on 2nd hand for real cheap, but again you have to consider the risk to warranty for the sake of maybe 10mhz

 

[Kelt]

Definitely not a risk I'd be taking on a £500 card personally.

 

[andybird123]

Definitely not a risk I'd be taking on a £500 card personally.

same conclusion I've come to - msi say by email that they are ok with stock cooler removal, but as I get 69C@80% fan, it's not worth even using one of the spare core only waterblocks I have sitting here