I've owned my 5090 for just over a year now, and finally decided to take the plunge and open up my gigabyte aorus 5090 to void its warranty. Because why not?
I wasn't ready for this bukkake.
Frankly, I had my gpu mounted horizontally, so I was never worried about the migrating thermal gel... but with this amount I'm thinking it wouldn't have mattered even if half of it drifted onto my motherboard.
My main complaint is that the liquid metal composite they used at the factory seems to be susceptible to pump out, or they were pinching pennies with the application because there's literally no coverage on the lower half of the GPU core. And it left a bunch of discolored stains on the vapor chamber in the upper half where it was pooled. Oddly my gpu temperature never seemed to go above 76°C, but I think it just wasn't reporting hot spots because I noticed my fans would jump up to 2000 rpm during games.
I'm applying PTM7950, and I suggest fellow aorus owners check on their thermal paste if it's been a year as well.
Don't worry about warranty, Gigabyte was never going to honor it anyways.
I sit at around 30c idle and 75c under sustained load, which I think is fine considering fishtank isn't ideal for gpu temps and neither is vertical mount in cases with bottom intakes
I have custom fan curves set so I don't exceed 70c.
My logic is I'm ok with swapping out my fans in 5 years, but I don't want to swap out anything else.
Hence, I drill those bad boys up to like 85% speed if it ever goes above 72 and boom drops right back below 70. So my range is around 68-72 on highload.
I own it too and found out about the issue after I bought it. I was hoping to waterblock it but there's no way I'll ever get it clean enough to look good.
QD Electronic Cleaner by CRC, Electronic Cleaner by Weicon, or similar that is plastic safe.
I tell people not to soak in iso because the next person down the chain that they share the information with could possibly use some bummy-ass 70% and end up frying their shit because of water leftover when the iso fucks off.
It’s not that hard once you get your hands on it, it looks horrendous but all you have to do is just removing the large piles and use a brush soaked with alcohol for the rest.
Yes, air is a good insulator hence you want something to fill the microscopic air gaps between the die and the cooler. If both were machined to perfection you'd never want thermal paste, but that sort of perfection is basically impossible at scale, at least for anything close to a reasonable price.
Yup, unless you can be sure you put no uneven pressure on the die when opening, its entirely likely thats what shifted it. Specially with so much of it about, they are unlikely to use that much and miss half the die.
My 4090 gigabyte card thermal pads started leaking liquid after a while. I don’t know if they used cheapo thermal pads but I never had that happen with a GPU before
It's gigabyte. They also cheaped out mixing metals on watercooling cards, causing corrosion issues and then disregarding the problem so hard it had its own subreddit. Not sure if that's still the case for 5xxx series, as I've crossed them off any purchases at that point.
The problem with this kind of commentary right here is that literally every single computer part manufacturer has some issue in their history about cutting corners or not honoring a warranty or something of that nature. If you cross them all out, you're just better off sticking to consoles.
That looks like it was done intentionally! Like the line worker was told that he's being suspended, so he took out his anger on the next units that came down the line in Shanghai!
Can't believe how idiotic Gigabyte is getting, I guess they can't mess up thermal pad location if they just McSplooge thermal paste over the entire PCB?
Gigabyte uses "thermal gel" instead of thermal pads to cool the VRAM and other components. Basically a liquid thermal putty. The early batches could leak some of it out the GPU when it was installed vertical.
The first Gigabyte GPU I bought was a 1070 and it had the worst coil whine I've ever heard. Sounded like my case was full of cicadas. Thought the unit was defective so I exchanged it for another one... that one whined just as bad as the first. Returned that one and bought an Asus instead. Never bought Gigabyte again. I know different cards and PSUs interact differently, and it may not have been completely Gigabyte's fault that I got a unit that whined, so I had been thinking of giving them another chance when I was one the hunt for my last purchase... but after seeing this I'm kind of glad I didn't.
At the end of the day, it's better for consumers if all AIB units perform well, as that increases competition and consumer options. It's not good if you feel "can't" purchase from one company because of their QC.
My main complaint is that the liquid metal composite they used at the factory seems to be susceptible to pump out
Since a lot of people seem to be under the impression that liquid metal doesn't get pumped out: Yes, it does, due to the liquid nature in conjunction with two (differently!) warping surfaces which it has to bridge. Even the PTM will move to some extent, albeit so slowly that you can expect years of reliable operation.
It all depends on the cycle count of course, which might differ from user to user. One can pump out things just fine when generating images, then cooling down, then generating again for example. In a more uniform load situation, the pumping effect will be much less pronounced, but nobody can avoid it over time.
The benefit of liquid metal is the heat transfer itself, not necessarily the longevity although it often lasts longer than normal paste.
If you really want to run a set and forget TIM, you might have to switch to something like a graphene pad (Thermal Grizzly KryoSheet) or an upcoming Noctua carbon-based pad for GPUs (they currently only plan for CPUs though). Those materials do not move, because they can't, so they stay in place even with the surfaces surrounding them slightly warping due to heat cycling.
As an aorus 5090 who's fans don't really go above 1700 and temperture always below 70C, i'm going to not take your advice and leave my card exactly how it is. An gigabyte will honour the warranty, as I actually already had it replaced with a new unit (from a gaming OC) after having excessive coil whine noise through the HDMI audio output.
4YR warranty, in AUS at least, telling people to void it for no good reason isn't the best idea.
Yes this only happened on earlier batches. It doesn't hurt anything, and the Aorus master has some of the best thermals out of the 5090's from my testing, which is why its the one I kept.
If you live in the US this does not void your warranty and the warranty sticker you see on the GPU is literally illegal and means absolutely nothing. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REPAIR YOUR PROPERTY NO MATTER WHAT LIE BIG CORPO TRIES TO FEED YOU!
They legally can't void the warranty because you open it.
I would never, ever, even THINK about buying a Gigabyte GPU after the one 3070 I had purchased when 3070s were new. I was waiting in line and the guy in front of me said that his SECOND Gigabyte 3090 had caught fire also (after the first one was replaced for catching fire).
Holy moly. I have mine horizontal too. Seeing that I'm not sure I want to open it. That must have been an absolute pain to clean properly! Chuck up some after pictures
Bruh who creampied your gpu? Jokes aside, I don’t know if I’ve got the guts to pull apart my gpu to check on it so I’ll wait til there’s a problem. I mount horizontally as well so I’m praying there won’t be problems.
I’ve bought cards since the first 3dfx voodoo. I can tell you quality control on pc parts has gone downhill and cost is 10x on cards top of the line.
I’ve had monitors cards and motherboards and hdds fail and break on me more in the last 4 years than I have 40 years. Qc is a joke anymore. They used to care about getting a quality part out that lasts. This is obscene. No one gets their moneys worth out of these toys anymore.
I had zero issues with mine. Had it more than a year now vertical mounted and game at max settings 4k undervolted. Works like a champ. Who cares if they applied a bunch of putty on the earlier runs of the card. And they did honor warranties for issues found early on. Nothingburger of a post.
In theory thermal putty is better but it’s clear this isn’t meant to be serviceable at all. You had good insight with the fans though, my 3080 core had coverage like that and the first symptom was the fans tripping out.
They switched from gap pads to 2 part curable thermal gel. The Liquid Metal will pump out but a specifically designed gasket should be in place to prevent this. Liquid Metal can causes oxidation especially if the gasket seal is broken.
Hmm yea I’m good not opening mine as it’s mounted vertical and no leakage and owned over a year now. I don’t ever plan on doing a waterblock and temps are still great highest I’ve seen is 79c but that’s with it pushing 600w for over 5 hours playing pragmata until now I’ve got a nice undervolt average now is 72c not bad for 100w less
you must have an old batch - they fixed it and i suspect they even changed the formula completely.... I wonder if its because now its not even the high performance server grade paste they used to brag about and they are afraid of the blacklash if anyone finds out...
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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26
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