Gigabyte graphic cards - TIM gel SLIPPAGE problem

[BoggledBeagle]

There have been numerous posts on this and other fora about thermal interface gel slipping out of the Gigabyte graphic cards.

See the articles on Techpowerup:

GIGABYTE AORUS RTX 5080 MASTER Starts Leaking Thermal Gel After Four Weeks of Light MMO Gaming

An unlucky owner of a GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE 16 GB graphics card has reported a baffling instance of thermal gel leakage. A forum post—titled: "5080 oh my god thermal problem"—on the Quasar Zone BBS alerted the wider world to this bizarre fault. The South Korean MMORPG...

www.techpowerup.com

GIGABYTE Acknowledges Issues With Thermal Conductive Gel on GeForce RTX 50 and Radeon RX 9000 Series

GIGABYTE acknowledges customer feedback regarding thermal conductive gel application on our GeForce RTX 50 Series and Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards. This gel is engineered to ensure optimal contact across uneven component surfaces, and is applied via a fully automated process to minimize...

www.techpowerup.com

More Owners of Premium GIGABYTE GeForce RTX Cards Report Thermal Gel Slippage

Last week, GIGABYTE issued an official response to an initial case of "thermal conductive gel slippage," involving an ultra-expensive AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE, a vertical-mounted graphics card setup, and very non-intensive MMO gaming sessions. The Taiwanese manufacturer believes that...

www.techpowerup.com

See the articles on Videocards:

User reports concerning thermal gel leakage on vertically mounted Gigabyte RTX 5080 AORUS Master - VideoCardz.com

Thermal gel problem on vertically mounted GeForce RTX 5080 A member of the Quasar Zone community reports that his Gigabyte RTX 5080 graphics card appears to be ‘melting.’ However, this time the issue is not related to the power connector, but rather the thermal paste—specifically, the thermal...

videocardz.com

Gigabyte acknowledges excess Thermal Gel in early GeForce RTX 50 Series batches, says it's not a cause for concern - VideoCardz.com

Gigabyte confirms thermal gel application variance, but says excees gel is just a cosmetic issue No recall, no problem. We are returning to the report from South Korea, where a user noticed that his GeForce RTX 5080 AORUS Master, a high-end graphics card priced well over $1600, had thermal gel...

videocardz.com

https://videocardz.com/newz/gigabyte-reputation-melts-alongside-thermal-gel-more-cases-of-rtx-50-gel-spill-issue

See the picture by user Remekra from this forum:



And another by user vermie22 from this forum:




The gel just slips down leaving the RAM packages bare.

I closely examined my photos from the other thread (in which I complain, that not enough gel has been used).

This is 5070 Ti Gaming OC card that has been slightly used:



And another specimen of this model, completely unused.



You can clearly see, that there is oil oozing out of the gel in the first picure, and the completely unused card has the edges of the gel wet already.

So it seems that the gel just sweats oil and then slides on it out of the position, when it has an opportunity to do so - when the card is vertically mounted. This is a serious problem for the manufacturer, which probably should recall all the cards made with this defect TIM.

To the moderator: could it be possible to merge the already existing threads for the news articles about this in this thread, please? I think we should not have many separate threads about this single problem for every news article about it.

 

[YSC]

That's really bad, I used to want to buy a Gigabyte 9070XT just because it's an MSRP card with vapour chamber and that the thermal putty on paper sounded like an better idea than pads, I ended up holding off due to it not using PTM7950 as everyone else on the GPU die itself so as I plan to use it for some years, would like to have, luckily I didn't pull the trigger and avoided this thermal gel disaster

 

[remekra]

Card is off to RMA. Not sure how they will handle it, but we will see.

I will write the same thing I wrote on the other thread. This situation more than Gigabyte mess up makes me wonder how Nvidia is reporting GDDR7 temps. Because one chip didn't make contact with heatsink at all yet the max temp reported was 80C.

 

[YSC]

Card is off to RMA. Not sure how they will handle it, but we will see.

I will write the same thing I wrote on the other thread. This situation more than Gigabyte mess up makes me wonder how Nvidia is reporting GDDR7 temps. Because one chip didn't make contact with heatsink at all yet the max temp reported was 80C.

yea, and even ignoring the VRam, they use the same gel on GPU die (which Nvidia cancelled the hotspot altogether), and all those VRM need to handle 300W+ power, which sounds like a good idea to quickly burn something

 

[BoggledBeagle]

... wonder how Nvidia is reporting GDDR7 temps. Because one chip didn't make contact with heatsink at all yet the max temp reported was 80C.

Perhaps they report average over all RAM chips and they run some thermal safety guards in the background, which may be pretty high and the card may apper to run normally (not hitting the high safety thermal limit), just with one RAM chip unhappy.

I am not an expert on semiconductor thermal stress, but intuitivelly it feels like the situation, when part of the RAM package is cooled and part not (as the gel slowly leaves the package) is even worse and causes higher thermal stress, than if the package would be bare completely.

yea, and even ignoring the VRam, they use the same gel on GPU die

Where did you get this information? I do not think it is correct.

 

[YSC]

Perhaps they report average over all RAM chips and they run some thermal safety guards in the background, which may be pretty high and the card may apper to run normally (not hitting the high safety thermal limit), just with one RAM chip unhappy.

I am not an expert on semiconductor thermal stress, but intuitivelly it feels like the situation, when part of the RAM package is cooled and part not (as the gel slowly leaves the package) is even worse and causes higher thermal stress, than if the package would be bare completely.



Where did you get this information? I do not think it is correct.

just by the look of the teardown of some cards, I could be wrong, but it's some kind of paste/gel anyway and not the pump out free PTM7950, which is basically what deters me in the first place, now with the VRM and Vram gooping issue I feels lucky to have this "bias" of PTM

 

[Nathaaab]

they use the same gel on GPU die (which Nvidia cancelled the hotspot altogether)

That's just not true. You can't use thermal putty in place of a paste or phase change pad.

 

[vermie22]

I have also sent my card in for RMA. Got confirmation from shipping company that it was delivered yesterday, but so far 0 updates from Gigabyte and the RMA ticket. Not even an update that they had received it yet. I am probably being too unrelaistic that it would be processed that fast, but I am also pretty anxious about this whole thing considering the cost of these cards, and the fact that I no longer have my PC available to use while this is happening.

 

[remekra]

Mine got delivered today to service. I wouldn't expect any update that fast. Maybe they will be a bit faster because it got media coverage, but last RMA with Gigabyte on my side ended with shop refunding me because after 1 month there was zero updates from Gigabyte service.

 

[Kwadratowicz]

That's really bad, I used to want to buy a Gigabyte 9070XT just because it's an MSRP card with vapour chamber and that the thermal putty on paper sounded like an better idea than pads, I ended up holding off due to it not using PTM7950 as everyone else on the GPU die itself so as I plan to use it for some years, would like to have, luckily I didn't pull the trigger and avoided this thermal gel disaster

I've got gigabyte gaming oc 9070 xt and for now the gel is rock solid, and I've even hanged it vertically to see if it's problematic in my case, but it could be that it is later revision of the gell, or 9070 xt is not powerfull enough to fry this gel out of the place.
But maybe it's just a matter of time , we will see

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I've got gigabyte gaming oc 9070 xt and for now the gel is rock solid, and I've even hanged it vertically to see if it's problematic in my case, but it could be that it is later revision of the gel

I believe that the serial number contains date of production, the serial numbers of the oily gel cards I posted above begin with 2506 for the first used card and with 2503 for the unused card from the second picture. That could mean third and sixth week of 25.

What is the date of production of your card, and of cards that belong to remekra and vermie22?

 

[remekra]

Well then mine was fresh new year's made as it started with 2501

 

[Bomby569]

i've seen a lot of "used as new" gigabyte cards for sale at incredible prices form 3rd party sellers, I'm sure it will all end splendidly.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I think that the application of the gel is a problem too, not just the material. Thick and heavy slippery oily gel blob just slides down, while thin light gel layer anchored with some overspill would stay in place. See my illustration from MS paint:


So the large gap between the cooler and components and too little gel used I have been complaining about in the other thread may actually be some of the reasons for the gel slipping problem.

 

[Bomby569]

I think that the application of the gel is a problem too, not just the material. Thick and heavy slippery oily gel blob just slides down, while thin light gel layer ancored with some overspill would stay in place. See my illustration from MS paint:

View attachment 398808
So the large gap between the cooler and components and too little gel used I have been complaining about in the other thread may actually be some of the reasons for the gel slipping problem.

you forgot the oil part.

 

[vermie22]

I believe that the serial number contains date of production, the serial numbers of the oily gel cards I posted above begin with 2506 for the first used card and with 2503 for the unused card from the second picture. That could mean third and sixth week of 25.

What is the date of production of your card, and of cards that belong to remekra and vermie22?

Mine was 2504.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

So the all four cards are early production, max. from the sixth week.

you forgot the oil part.

I think it could hold in place even if it would be oily. But if the gel is really some c*ap that flows easilly, nothing would help.

BTW some rough texture on the cooler may help too to prevent gel movement.

 

[Bomby569]

BTW some rough texture on the cooler may help too to prevent gel movement.

if you get air trapped it would defeat the purpose, that's why you always go for a flat surface.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Some ridges on 10% of otherwise flat surface would have negligible impact on cooling performance, but could have some expanded gel in them and prevent it from moving. They also may lead the air away from the flat surface or oil from the gel.

EDIT: So they may help the gel drying out...

 

[Kwadratowicz]

I need to check the date, but application looks more like the second image of Yours.
Edit, I did not found it on card, but after checking the gigabyte product info start date is 26.02.2025.
Edit2: in thread about 9070 @Biker has disassembled His Gigabyte RX 9070 XT ELITE.

Post in thread 'RX 9000 series GPU Owners Club'

May 5, 2025

Teardown Board pic

Gigabyte RX 9070 XT ELITE

• Biker

• 
• 

Post in thread 'RX 9000 series GPU Owners Club'

May 5, 2025

Could You post the cooler too? I love pics of coolers and tech

Sure!

Gigabyte RX 9070 XT ELITE cooler.

Cooler underside... looks like solid contact where it is needed

• Biker

• 

So for now it looks like the idea that You (@BoggledBeagle ) drawn could be plausible.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Kwadratowicz - I do not know what to make from Bikers pictures - I do not see any oil separation, the pictures are not that detailed, all components seem to be well covered, the gel has only "unfirm" (or runny) appearance and I do not believe it could stay long term in place in vertical card orientation, but that is just my gut feeling.

 

[vermie22]

Consolidated posts from other thread regarding my RMA process thus far.

1. https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...port-thermal-gel-slippage.336384/post-5515902
2. https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...port-thermal-gel-slippage.336384/post-5516205
3. https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...port-thermal-gel-slippage.336384/post-5516653

In summary.

1. They got my card, and a few days later when I contacted them for an update, they placed a priortity on my reqeust, which was appreciated.
2. The next day I got an email stating that they had completed the RMA with a tracking number and no other information.
3. When contacted again regarding what was done to rectify the issue, I got a response that they had cleaned and reapplied the thermal gel/paste and were sending the repaired card back to me.

I will post photos of the returned card in this thread, and I guess I will start monitoring for future issues.

 

[Kwadratowicz]

Kwadratowicz - I do not know what to make from Bikers pictures - I do not see any oil separation, the pictures are not that detailed, all components seem to be well covered, the gel has only "unfirm" (or runny) appearance and I do not believe it could stay long term in place in vertical card orientation, but that is just my gut feeling.

the pictures where to show difference in apllication between the GPU, in that case you can See that the gell looks like correctly applied that has squeezed out, and should not slip, it's point for reference, cause in nvidia case You could see that the gel is not squeezed out of the components. It's the imprint on the cooler that shows that gel was overfilled.
It's from card that was maybe 1 week old, and was disassembled for some tweaks from the member of the owners of the 9070 xt.
You can see that it has the coverage like Your picture with heart.
And for now in my case the gel is not slipping, and the application is really similar from outside view as the Biker's gpu.
(I thought about it as control sample).

 

[_roman_]

I think that the application of the gel is a problem too, not just the material. Thick and heavy slippery oily gel blob just slides down, while thin light gel layer anchored with some overspill would stay in place. See my illustration from MS paint:

Nope.
Most mainboards are vertically and the thermal paste stays.

Gigglebyte has issues. Many issues. I do not even pay attention to tall the crap they did wrong in past years.

most laptops are in different positions when they are transported or in use.

gigglebyte should ask a company who knows how to do things and outsource it.

Personally I expect instantly a new card with a pick up coupon from a local shop or less than 24 hours replacement with a new stock card of the same type or better. It's a hidden defect on a new card which was not used more than probably a few weeks. Waiting for a RMA is a big no. I also expect that the warranty than starts when i get the hardware with day 0.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Most mainboards are vertical and the thermal paste stays.

Everybody else uses thermal pads on motherboards or GPUs, not gel or putty. Gigabyte was feeling lucky or adventurous with this material.

IMO this material may work well only when applied in large quantity is some enclosed space which it cannot leave. I myself would love to see a massive backplate with ribbing and PCB completely covered with this gel contacting this backplate.