Quick update, used Gelid Extreme 3mm (back) and 2mm (front) and Noctua paste for the GPU.
I think the GPU core is pretty much as good as you'll get it already with any half-decent paste, so grab whatever you have lying around.
I followed the various guides and photos online for placement and disassembly including CryptoAtHome's video. Super easy to do once you learn the tape tricks for the magnetic covers, and you're careful about the tiny ribbon cables.
I just bought the iFixit Essentials toolkit as it has all the Torx bits you need plus a few other useful things.
I kept the stock pads just in case I ever need them again, hopefully never. The iFixit scraper/pryer tool actually came in useful for "snowploughing" the ****** white pads off in one strip as they easily crumble or rip if you try to lift them off with tweezers or fingers.
Once reassembled, very pleased with instantly lower temps for GPU, hotspot and most importantly memory under full load when gaming, RTX and mining. Well worth it.
Not as hard as you might think, with the correct Torx and Phillips screwdrivers, some patience, a bit of organisation, a Stanley knife, ruler and plenty of cups of tea, it's pretty much child's play for anyone who's ever DIYed their own computer...
...Once you get over the fear of disassembling something you will never be able to buy a replacement for due to stock levels and FE purchase restrictions
Thermal pad mods combined with a gentle undervolt means I'm drawing well over 100 watts less while gaming for the same FPS, and for any RTX or mining workloads the memory is no longer at boiling water temps. Using a base offset of -290 MHz, pegging a peak frequency of ~1860 Mhz at ~862/890 mV gives me a stable, high performance gaming rig using much less power, making less heat and still capable of maxing my 165 fps 2K monitor. Plenty of guides online for setting up and tuning an undervolt with a capped top GPU clock.
I can overclock the memory up to +1000MHz over stock for an Ethash workload and it will only reach around 90-95 celcius, I tend to run +800 Mhz (and -350 MHz GPU core) and get 94-95 MH/sec in nbminer - memory temps much lower than before the mod (110 and thermal capped) - now they sit between 80 and 86 celcius depending how warm the room is, average temp is about 26 soon as I close the window! I very rarely mine though, I bought my card to game
