BFG 6800 OC Heatsink

[one30eight]

I bought a 6800 off of someone a couple of months ago. I used it for about 2 weeks and then pulled it while I upgrade the rig it is in. It ran fine for the 2 weeks, unlocked all pipes and got a nice overclock. Well, while it is out I decided to remove the heatsink and put AS on there. When I got the heatsink off I saw a white mess everywhere. On the heatsink itself, it has the thermal pads, but it also has the white stuff on the ram and on the pads. There is a large amount on the CPU. My question is: Should I remove the pads off of the heatsink and the all of the white stuff? I am assuming it is AS and I had no problems with the card before and had a good overclock. If I remove all of it, I should use plastic or something and then clean the heatsink with alchohol? What about the ram? Thanks...