I have an ASUS 4090 OC on a Crosshair X670E Extreme motherboard with a Ryzen 9 7950x CPU. Recently I noticed that after a few games of COD, my frame rate would drop quite a bit. Firing up the GeForce Performance overlay I found that my GPU was running at around 90-95C. My case is an NZXT H710i with (I think) pretty good airflow. My CPU will peak at 91C but usually is around the 40-60 mark, so I don't think airflow is the issue.
I'm not really an overclocker so I really don't pay attention to voltage or temperature etc. I had never even heard of a GPU "Hot spot" until I started researching this, and it turns out my hot spot is hitting 110C pretty consistently which, based on my research, is uh… hella hot.
HWMonitor screenshot from right now (This is after thoroughly cleaning my fans and case with compressed air) – If any of the other values seem out of whack please let me know, but as far as I'm aware my system settings are pretty stock.
I'm going to open a ticket with Asus support but if it's like my previous Asus RMA experiences (and I have so, so many), they're going to want me to send my card back first, which isn't an option as I need my computer to work from home. So I'm likely going to re-apply the thermal stuff myself in hopes of lowering the temps. But as I started down the rabbit hole I ended up with more questions than answers because I've never had an issue with GPU cooling until now. As I read more and more about how to fix these issues I kept coming back to this subreddit so I hope it's ok to post here despite not having an overclocked system. My GPU has OC in the name so that's enough, right? 🙂
Anyhoo, my questions:
- GPU die – I plan on using something like Kingpin KPx thermal grease on the GPU die. Though it depends on the result of questions 2 and 3:
- Pads – I've seen folks on youtube just replace the die grease and call it a day but I've also seen lots of people rip the pads on disassembly, leading to less than desirable results. Since I never turn my PC off and my temps are already molten lava I'm thinking that pad replacement is in order, even if by some miracle they are still intact and functional.
- Thermal Paste – So if I do remove the pads, I've gathered that thermal paste is the way to go. However, most of the paste that people seem to like result in discontinued or out of stock items. I don't want to order from Alibaba and wait a month for delivery, and I don't need a hundred dollar bucket of goo. I've seen reference to Easycargo ES410 which is currently in stock at Amazon. Is this good enough? And if I do go with thermal paste to replace my pads should I use that on the GPU die as well or go with the Kingpin grease?
Hopefully it's ok to post here and I've made some sense. If I've missed something please let me know… I've been in the PC game for a long time but haven't kept current with the latest OC trends so I really don't know what I'm talking about. Thanks in advance for any help!