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My GPU Re-Pasting Experience AMD 7950

H

hammerforged

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 23, 2012
Messages
1,092
I've got a Sapphire 7950 OC that usually runs at a steady 72C in BF3 with 1.225v and 1150/1550 overclock.

This by all means is pretty damn good. Being the tinkerer that I am I decided to re-paste the cooler onto the GPU. This not sure if anyone is interested but I figured I would share my experience in doing this.

Fist I removed the 4 screws around the GPU core. These 4 screws are all that hold the whole cooler assembly onto the pcb. The rest hold the vram heat spreader.

20120502181122719.jpg


Next I removed the rather large about of stock thermal paste and shown in the picture below. To remove the paste I very carefully used some of the ArctiClean Thermal Material Remover (smells likes goo gone).

20120502181342441.jpg


Once all the old was removed I treated the surface with the ArctiClean Thermal Surface Purifier. Not sure if even does anything but it certainly makes for a mirror finish :)

20120502182723943.jpg


2012050218274146.jpg


I was very surprised how the GPU had such a mirror finish like it had been lapped or something almost. On the other had the cooper block on the cooler assembly was very rough and not as smooth as one would hope. It seems like such a shame to have such a beautiful gpu core and then slap a rough ass mating surface on top of it. Maybe one of these days I'll smooth that thing out :)

I then applied Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste onto the GPU core using the plastic bag method. Once this was satisfactory I placed the cooler assembly back onto the card and buttoned everything back up.

Results :

I ended up dropping down to around 68C in BF3 during load and around 31C during idle (originally 33C). Whether it was worth it or not is to be debated but I just wanted to share my findings with the rest of the crowd and hopefully help anyone thinking about doing this!
 
The component that says R22 on it? I dont believe they are rubber. When I was cleaning the card to put it back in my system they felt pretty solid. Why do you ask? Coil whine?
 
Yeah, thought crossed my mind. They look placed there to prevent it, I also like the PCB design. Beauty.

Whats the plastic method? Just curious ;)
 
I havent had any yet, knock on wood, so it very well could be ha. At first I was unsure about the blue PCB but it is growing on me for sure. Looks good in these pics. I need to post an updated system pic. Looks excellent in the case.

The plastic bag method ha?

Basically just smearing the thermal paste around with a plastic bag to helped even the paste out better. Actually worked better than I thought it was going to.
 
That's sharp looking alright! Any idea if that cleaner stuff is conductive, or do you just clean it, wipe it, and done? Might reapply the thermal paste on my H60 if that stuff works better than isopropyl alcohol.
 
Nice write up hammerforged and good pictures.

Yeah you really should smooth out the copper block on heatsink as well that would help temps a little.

But, hopefully you should find that your temps drop a little more in the next few days, doesn't it take a couple of days for the artic cooling paste to bed in properly. So report back during the weekend with the updated temps.
 
All the more reason to use Arctic Cooling MX-2 or MX-3 paste, no need to wait days or weeks to see its full potential and its just better paste anyway.

That being said, thanks for the write-up, most people never take the time to do these.
 
reaper12 said:
Nice write up hammerforged and good pictures.

Yeah you really should smooth out the copper block on heatsink as well that would help temps a little.

But, hopefully you should find that your temps drop a little more in the next few days, doesn't it take a couple of days for the artic cooling paste to bed in properly. So report back during the weekend with the updated temps.
Click to expand...

Thats what I was hoping for. I wasnt sure if it was supposed to do that or not. I did notice how mush moisture was in the paste while applying it. Like you are saying it should set up pretty well over the weekend hopefully. Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I try to do similar writes ups on any of my other endeavors ha.
 
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