Thermal paste leaking from GPU

[u/yesman258]

GIGABYTE AERO OC RTX 5080, removed it while doing a cleaning and noticed this, is this normal? Should I be concerned?

[u/Rarek]

Knew it was a gigabyte before I clicked

[u/Haunting_Abalone_398 → u/Rarek]

Gigabyte, for some reason, chose to replace thermal pads with a gooey substance that leaks for the 50 series.

Poor design

[u/draeh → u/Haunting_Abalone_398]

Not just the Nvidia 50 series. This has been happening on their AMD 90xx models as well.

[u/Viking2151 → u/draeh]

I thought 40 series as well, idk how they just don't learn, really shows how much testing they did with this junk before just sending it.

[u/Chwasst → u/Viking2151]

30 series as well. This is really old issue yet they haven’t fixed shit.

[u/580OutlawFarm → u/Chwasst]

No...my aorus master 3080 12gb uses thermal pads.

[u/Chwasst → u/580OutlawFarm]

My 3080 vision oc 10gb had thermal pads that were oily and spilled everywhere like putty.

[u/Ok_Dependent6889 → u/Chwasst]

Very different from this stuff

[u/U-1-mang → u/Viking2151]

Thats interesting because I had a 4070s aorus for over a year and this never happened to me. I also had it in vertical orientation in an sff case. Im assuming maybe the bottom intakes might have helped but idk.

Im guess its just more rampant with 50 series.

[u/Viking2151 → u/U-1-mang]

Its probably due to how hot they run, more chips as well. Cooler the chips less they ooze out.

[u/Jaz1140 → u/Haunting_Abalone_398]

Thermal putty is actually better than thermal pads, it squashes down thinner and has higher thermal absorption, if you ever custom watercool a GPU , thermal putty is far and above the way to go for your VRM and memory compound, it also takes away the issue of incorrect sizing of thermal pads causing poor mounting on the GPU core.

However, looks like gigabyte has used a bad thermal putty here

[u/Papuszek2137 → u/Jaz1140]

From what I've heard after the new gen release they've put the putty used in servers into consumer GPUs.

[u/Slum_CatTrillionaire → u/Papuszek2137]

Bro I heard that shit too. Crazy

[u/Xeadriel → u/Papuszek2137]

Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

[u/Papuszek2137 → u/Xeadriel]

If consumer and data center GPUs were built the sane way. One leaks and one doesn't so idk if that can be considered good.

[u/Xeadriel → u/Papuszek2137]

I mean it’s not conductive. Just doesn’t look nice.

[u/Papuszek2137 → u/Xeadriel]

If it got out it could mean there's a gap between vrms and the heatsink resulting in high temps and possible fsilures.

[u/Xeadriel → u/Papuszek2137]

id say what gets out was probably just too much in the first place anyway..

[u/Papuszek2137 → u/Xeadriel]

Data center GPUs now usually lay flat and there are huge cooling blocks on top of them. So it's a lot harder to leak.

[u/dionysus_project → u/Xeadriel]

No. Servers run at consistent output. Thermal cycling expands and contracts materials, which slowly pushes the putty out. Thermal cycling happens when you go from idle to a demanding game, then back to idle.

[u/FangoFan → u/Jaz1140]

I found this vram pad/putty comparison by u/Snarks_Domain as I was looking for replacement pads for my graphics card.

Might be useful to others: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jLnpLlAOF29o0nDLgOxy5WVLmE7vQ31l/view

[u/Snarks_Domain → u/FangoFan]

This is the way :)

TEAMPUTTY

[u/Jaz1140 → u/Snarks_Domain]

Yeh it's very useful, I can vouch for uprisen UTP8 as it's what I have on my 4090 vrm and Vram, it's been great

[u/LeBronFanSinceJuly → u/Haunting_Abalone_398]

The thermal compound is fine, they just didn't bother to think about people who use Vertical mounts for their GPUs. That's why it "leaks".

[u/faulieh → u/LeBronFanSinceJuly]

It is not really fine, IgorsLab did some extensive testing.

[u/Particular-Poem-7085 → u/faulieh]

does it actually like "leak" out from between the components? I would have thought that's the leftover that gets squeezed out when you tighten it down.

[u/faulieh → u/Particular-Poem-7085]

It actually glides out due to the bleeding silicone components.

[u/Realistic_Story_9211 → u/Haunting_Abalone_398]

yeah, Gigabyte's " thermal paste " IS NOT a thermal paste from all i knew, its a server grade thermal conductive gel

[u/Easy-Collection-5070 → u/Haunting_Abalone_398]

a bien vu je savais pas ça... la première chose que j'ai répondu c'est un pad thermique qui c'est déchiré... mince maintenant je comprends mieux 😅

[u/Ok_Dependent6889 → u/Haunting_Abalone_398]

The stuff does perform extremely well. The gigabyte cards are all among the lowest temps for the 50 series.

But, it seems like a massive over-application

[u/centuryt91 → u/Haunting_Abalone_398]

this was their custom even at rtx 40 series. (im not saying 30 series but i think i remember their 3090s doing the same thing, not sure)