Hi all, I'm about to embark on applying new thermal pads to my old GPUs, and as with everything, as soon as I started to look into it, I realised there are nuances! Questions: If I have a gap, of say, 1.5mm, should I use a 2mm thick pad to ensure contact? Do "soft" pads have any disadvantages? For example, are they prone to leaking? Is there ever a scenario where I shouldn't put a thermal pad on something, for example, maybe a component is actually supposed to be thermally isolated? My current plan is to thermal pad anything and everything I can on the GPUs. They'll probably end up weighing another couple of pounds or so! Cheers in advance!
Can’t offer a load of advice really but have a look at the likes of alphacool etc, they will likely have water cooled block instructions for your GPU and will tell you what pads and thickness are used on front and rear.
I would recommend doing some investigating and finding out the proper thicknesses needed for your card and where. I wouldn't upsize as although there's some squish, it's not all that much and it can cause strain and bending on the PCB and mounting problems. If you can't find what the thickness should be, thermal putty might be the answer Is the card air or watercooled? HSFs don't usually have many places to sink heat into. The only thing I might add paste or pads to is memory controllers.
Stock leaf blower air cooler. I'll have more of a look around, but haven't found specific measurements yet. I'm taking a caliper home with me from work to measure existing ones.
on that note do you want a new fan for the Titan refresh, I got one for my 1080Ti when I thought I had a fan bearing going, turns out I refitted the air cooler thermal pads incorrectly causing the sort of misalignment mentioned by @The_Crapman , so still have the fan, no need for it, I can pop it in the post.
Dam near broke my 970 cheesecake sticking a 2mm pad on the back of the vrm. Was one of the early thermal grizzly pads that were as squishy as steel.
If you're using 2mm pads to bridge a ~1.5mm gap go with softer pads. Stiffer pads, like the 17W/mK Fujipoly pads will likely not deform enough and impede good contact.
Worth considering putty, a lot of GPUs come with it from new now a lot less faff, more forgiving but can't be reused like pads can. I bought some stuff from Ali express and had good results with it.
