GPUs and AS5 - tiny dab, or spread it out?

Z

Zinn

Guest
Hello,

I am going to be installing NV5 silencers on my 7800GTs tonight. I've already cleaned the (used) stock TIM off the silencers and I was wondering what people think the best way to apply paste to a GPU is? I've always done a tiny dab in the center and I haven't burned a card up yet, but would it be better to spread it out more evenly since there's no heatspreader?

Please share your thoughts. :)
 
whenever i do a GPU i spread it out in a thin layer... this method has worked fine on my 7800GTs and all the cards ive had in the past.

Will that board allow dual NV5s? I was hoping i could do that on my eVGA NF41, but they didnt fit :( .... So i left my CO with stock cooling on top, and my other eVGA 7800 on bottom with an NV5
 
Thanks for the advice. I guess I'll clean one of my credit cards with Arcti-clean in order to ensure sterility.

I'm sure they'll fit as the ASUS A8N SLI Premium has an extra slot's worth of space between the video slots. Most other boards put em too close together.
 
Hmm, one of them is loading at 73C which aint so good considering it maxed out at 78 before... maybe I should reseat or maybe I'm too lazy

I like how my ambient temps have dropped though. And I like how much quieter it is. Before my 4400 at 2.7ghz would go up to 57 C and the NB would hit 40 with dual prime / RTHDRIBL going.... Now the CPU is sitting pretty at 52 C and the NB stays at 36.

I think I'm gonna stick an XP-120 in here though because the sound of that whiney 92mm fan is the only noticable thing in my case at full load.
 
With all my applications either CPU or GPU, I put a little dab about smaller than a grain of rice (since GPU core is smaller than a CPU) and let the AS5 find its way into the cracks. If you spread it thin you have a chance of it spewing out onto the core and shorting things out that you dont want to. I learned the hardway when i spread too much on my CPU and there was thermal paste everywhere.
 
Zinn said:
Hmm, one of them is loading at 73C which aint so good considering it maxed out at 78 before... maybe I should reseat or maybe I'm too lazy
Click to expand...
did you do anything to thin down the thermal tape on the ram cooler wings? the AS5 is thinner than the wad of stock goo on there. you might not be getting very good contact as a result in the differance in thickness.
 
DangerIsGo said:
With all my applications either CPU or GPU, I put a little dab about smaller than a grain of rice (since GPU core is smaller than a CPU) and let the AS5 find its way into the cracks. If you spread it thin you have a chance of it spewing out onto the core and shorting things out that you dont want to. I learned the hardway when i spread too much on my CPU and there was thermal paste everywhere.
Click to expand...

Its different for a GPU core. The latest CPU's have heat-spreaders, whereas GPU's do not. The GPU core has to be completely covered, whereas a CPU with heatspreader only needs a dab in the middle that spreads out as the heatsink is applied.

Arctic's website covers this.
 
Ooh! Burning it in a bit (heating it up and letting it cool off) a few times yields much better load results now. 68 C instead of 73...

I've never seen such a "burn in" difference with AS5 before.

As long as the load temps are below stock, I'm happy. I really just bought them to vent the hot air out of my case... it was like an oven with two 7800s and an overclocked X2 in there.
 
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