We don’t typically disassemble graphics cards in our reviews—and for good reason. Once you take one apart, it’s hard to get it to behave exactly like it did in its original state, especially after replacing the factory thermal paste. With manufacturers who don’t skimp on thermal paste, repasting may not bring any improvement at all. In detailed measurements, we’ll look at how different paste and mounting pressure affect the card’s behavior.
The following charts show the results of the repasted card, the original results of which came out worse than they should have. By the way, it’s most likely Polartherm paste, which doesn’t look bad at all judging by its test results.
Cyberpunk 2077, RT Medium, 3840 × 2160 (Q mode)
Card with a non-original thermal pad
Paradoxically, the average GPU clock was slightly higher—with a minimum of 2775 MHz and a maximum of 2805 MHz. But again, keep in mind that this is a different card sample.
The card stays near its 300 W power limit.
The temperature of the warmed-up chip was higher—instead of 71.8 °C, it reached 74.2 °C. The memory fared better, though, at 72 °C—two degrees lower. At first glance that might seem odd, but besides sample variability, higher fan speeds could be the reason.
Fan speeds reached a maximum of 1477 RPM instead of the previous 1226 RPM.
Clocks, Temperatures & Fan Speeds—F1 24, 3840 × 2160 (Q mode)
Disassembled card with non-original thermal pad
The average GPU clock was nearly identical—2747 MHz compared to 2749 MHz. Minimums were 2722 MHz, maximums 2760 MHz.
The power consumption hovered once again around 300 W.
The average monitored maximum temperature of the warmed-up chip was 73.4 °C—compared to 70.8 °C for the sample with the original pad. Memory temperatures stayed between 72 and 74 °C most of the time.
Fan speeds on the card with the original pad peaked around 1330 RPM—here, they reached 1606 RPM. Similar speeds are more typical of the TUF models’ performance mode rather than its quieter Q mode.
Clocks, Temperatures & Fan Speeds—Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, 3840 × 2160 (Q mode)
Disassembled card with non-original thermal pad
Again, the average clock was slightly higher—averaging 2764 MHz instead of 2756 MHz.
The card’s power consumption remained mostly at the power limit—which at least confirms that the higher temperatures aren’t due to higher power consumption.
Memory temperatures held mostly below 72 °C, with chip maximums at 74.8 °C.
Fans peaked at 1577 RPM—compared to 1330 RPM on the untouched card.
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Very interesting article. I believe more and more manufacturers have moved to using quality thermal interfaces, so your results (slightly worse than stock after repasting) isn’t that surprising.
Based on what I know, a popular material they use are phase-change thermal pads like the Honeywell PTM7950, which performs excellently on low mounting pressure/direct die applications, and are very resistant to the pump-out effect which causes deterioration of performance long-term. Regular thermal paste meant for CPUs can suffer from pump-out pretty quickly.
Didn’t Asus use phase change material? Why did your card have paste on it?
Sure. I received two units of the same graphics card for review. One had already been disassembled by a YouTuber, who replaced the original phase-change thermal pad with thermal paste. That card performed worse than expected—and worse than the unit that still had the original thermal pad—so I tried to fix it by reapplying thermal paste.
It is better now but still doesn’t match the other unit’s operating performance, but I’m not sure how much of that comes down to the silicon lottery.