Gigabyte graphic cards - TIM gel SLIPPAGE problem

[remekra]

I assume because of the selling price, right?

I saw may peeps who thought selling 95% of their purchase price or when higher the current asking price is a good asking price for an used graphic card.
My stuff sold well with 60 to 70% of the cheaper of those two prices.

-- RMA such cards. Hidden defect which was unknown at point of purchase as 100% refund if you are based in central europe. The only thing I would accept an RMA when gigabyte would be open about such issues. As gigabyte stays quiet i classify the problem as hidden defect. It would be much different when gigabyte would went public. When they had put on any subpage of their graphic cards a note with that problem, e.g. tech specs, pictures, generic overview it is not an unknown issue anymore and the consumer most likely has to go the RMA route.

Yeah if my second card starts degrading even on just core I will RMA again but will not send the card until I have written confirmation of a refund.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Igor reported that the GPU chip had some major paste degradation...

I am stuck with a GB 5070 Ti, which nobody wants to buy now used but I think I slowed the decay and rot by keeping the card cool when idle with an additional fan on top. I am not sure now If I should not remove it and let the card to do its thing, whatever it will be. I may be just prolonging the suffering.

Maybe I missed it but did you have chip degradation? If not why not just cut to the chase and replace the TIM with something you trust?

 

[Hussar]

Maybe I missed it but did you have chip degradation? If not why not just cut to the chase and replace the TIM with something you trust?

In Europe you loose the warranty.

 

[remekra]

Maybe I missed it but did you have chip degradation? If not why not just cut to the chase and replace the TIM with something you trust?

Why should you pay this much money for a GPU to fix it yourself? It's not customer job to fix mistakes done by manufacturer. If said manufacturer isn't able to fix it's then refund is needed and you go to a different one.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I am not touching the card for the next 3 years the warranty runs. I will just observe what is happening and if the card starts losing gel or overheating I will RMA it. So far the card works well and I am getting excellent results from 3DMark stress tests - e.g. 99,3%.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Why should you pay this much money for a GPU to fix it yourself? It's not customer job to fix mistakes done by manufacturer. If said manufacturer isn't able to fix it's then refund is needed and you go to a different one.

For some reason I was under the impression BoggledBeagle was past the point of return. What you have written of course makes sense.

 

[GrimReaper85]

Is this fixed yet from particular week?

I'm having real trouble getting a good 5070 Ti.

Gigabyte Gaming OC - I feared gel slippage might occur, so sold it for €750 and lost €286
MSI Vanguard SOC - terrible coil whine at 300 FPS, but still hearable at 100 FPS, also front fan is wobbling a little and I already heard it rattle a couple of times, though it seems to be fine now, but still a ticking time bomb

So now I am only left with (apart from shady manufacturers like Zotac, PNY and Gainward):
Palit GameRock OC - like it the most due to low price, but RMA in Europe is probably not good, XpertVision Germany
ASUS TUF OC - probably has coil whine, fans not the best as I just had a bad ASUS Dual EVO and ASUS TUF OC 4070 SUPER
ASUS ROG Strix OC - probably has coil whine
GIGABYTE AORUS Master - gel slippage could still be a problem, should wait 2-3 months before buying to be sure

From my experience with RTX 40, Palit and Gigabyte are your best bet for low coil whine and overall good quality. Though Palit can have problems with fan noise.
Sadly it seems there is no Sapphire or PowerColor quality and RMA for Nvidia.

 

[JustBenching]

Gigabyte is notorious for having thermal pad issues in both motherboards and gpus - and they are one of the companies that keep releasing silent revisions of their cards to fix the issue. So yeah, doesn't surprise me the least.

 

[vermie22]

I am not touching the card for the next 3 years the warranty runs. I will just observe what is happening and if the card starts losing gel or overheating I will RMA it. So far the card works well and I am getting excellent results from 3DMark stress tests - e.g. 99,3%.

Same here with my "repaired" card. I have been running the Steel Nomad stress test regularly and the max GPU temp hovers around 61. However, the memory junction temps in HWiNFO 64 always maxes out at 64, never going over that number by even the smallest amount, which makes me question how they are actually measuring this. I find it very hard to believe there would never be a 64.1 reading.

UPDATAE: Some interesting information. I just turned on HWiNFO64 logging durring a 1 hour gaming session. Both the GPU and memory junctin temps maxed out at exactly 64. I does appear that memory temp is only recorded as a whole number, but GPU temps are recorded as a decimal. The max GPU temp recorded was exactly 64 degrees, this does not add up to me. I am running the latest drivers 576.52.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Same here with my "repaired" card. I have been running the Steel Nomad stress test regularly and the max GPU temp hovers around 61. However, the memory junction temps in HWiNFO 64 always maxes out at 64 ...

I think they report RAM temp with steps of two whole degrees, not even 1. So 64 probably means anything between 63 and 65.

 

[remekra]

Same here with my "repaired" card. I have been running the Steel Nomad stress test regularly and the max GPU temp hovers around 61. However, the memory junction temps in HWiNFO 64 always maxes out at 64, never going over that number by even the smallest amount, which makes me question how they are actually measuring this. I find it very hard to believe there would never be a 64.1 reading.

UPDATAE: Some interesting information. I just turned on HWiNFO64 logging durring a 1 hour gaming session. Both the GPU and memory junctin temps maxed out at exactly 64. I does appear that memory temp is only recorded as a whole number, but GPU temps are recorded as a decimal. The max GPU temp recorded was exactly 64 degrees, this does not add up to me. I am running the latest drivers 576.52.

Yeah back with my old card that basically had one VRAM chip bare without any contact to the heatsink max memory temp was 74-78, during memtest vulkan stress test it stopped at 80. So either they are so efficient or it reports average of all chips, rather than a hotspot.
Now with new GPU it hovers around 64-66.

 

[Knight47]

Is this fixed yet from particular week?

I'm having real trouble getting a good 5070 Ti.

Gigabyte Gaming OC - I feared gel slippage might occur, so sold it for €750 and lost €286
MSI Vanguard SOC - terrible coil whine at 300 FPS, but still hearable at 100 FPS, also front fan is wobbling a little and I already heard it rattle a couple of times, though it seems to be fine now, but still a ticking time bomb

So now I am only left with (apart from shady manufacturers like Zotac, PNY and Gainward):
Palit GameRock OC - like it the most due to low price, but RMA in Europe is probably not good, XpertVision Germany
ASUS TUF OC - probably has coil whine, fans not the best as I just had a bad ASUS Dual EVO and ASUS TUF OC 4070 SUPER
ASUS ROG Strix OC - probably has coil whine
GIGABYTE AORUS Master - gel slippage could still be a problem, should wait 2-3 months before buying to be sure

From my experience with RTX 40, Palit and Gigabyte are your best bet for low coil whine and overall good quality. Though Palit can have problems with fan noise.
Sadly it seems there is no Sapphire or PowerColor quality and RMA for Nvidia.

The only info we have that they used too much putty. No info if they started to use a better putty.

I've read in reddit that MSI fans started to rattle after a month or so. So are they crap?

Palit fan noise seems to be a feature, they had in on 4070 Ti Super Gamerock and they still have it on the 5070Ti Gamerock.

I wanted Gigabyte too for the low chance on coil whine and 4 year warranty, now i'm debating between the Vanguard and TUF or should I wait another 6 months.

 

[synthound]

The only info we have that they used too much putty. No info if they started to use a better putty.

I've read in reddit that MSI fans started to rattle after a month or so. So are they crap?

Palit fan noise seems to be a feature, they had in on 4070 Ti Super Gamerock and they still have it on the 5070Ti Gamerock.

I wanted Gigabyte too for the low chance on coil whine and 4 year warranty, now i'm debating between the Vanguard and TUF or should I wait another 6 months.

In fairness, the only USA-sold brand RTX 50 cards I've seen repeatedly reported with the same failure over and over are:
PNY 5080 & 5090 (First few batches only) - fan rattle, but seems fixed in recent batches as there have been no recent complaints, so safe to buy now
Gigabyte (all models, still ongoing) - TIM slippage, and also fan stop grinding noise - gigabyte distributor reports may be fixed in S/N 0519 and later cards, but unconfirmed in the wild

None of the other USA-sold manufacturers appear to haver any mass defects with RTX 50. Between the Vanguard and TUF, the Vanguard is better in pretty much every way IMO - better PCB, lower noise, lower temps, etc. Coil whine is a crapshoot, but can also depend on the PSU you use.

 

[Knight47]

In fairness, the only USA-sold brand RTX 50 cards I've seen repeatedly reported with the same failure over and over are:
PNY 5080 & 5090 (First few batches only) - fan rattle, but seems fixed in recent batches as there have been no recent complaints, so safe to buy now
Gigabyte (all models, still ongoing) - TIM slippage, and also fan stop grinding noise - gigabyte distributor reports may be fixed in S/N 0519 and later cards, but unconfirmed in the wild

None of the other USA-sold manufacturers appear to haver any mass defects with RTX 50. Between the Vanguard and TUF, the Vanguard is better in pretty much every way IMO - better PCB, lower noise, lower temps, etc. Coil whine is a crapshoot, but can also depend on the PSU you use.

Yeah Vanguard has better cooling, but TUF has lower minimum fan speed, which would be great if I play less demanding games.

MSI seems to suffer from coil whine during every 3D application like scrolling up and down on a webpage, reported in multiple forums. Example noise:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MSI_Gaming/comments/1k42c7j/msi_gaming_trio_5070_ti_buzzing

Asus seems to be known for coil whine, but I don't know why Prime cards rarely whine while TUF cards whine most of the time.

 

[synthound]

Yeah Vanguard has better cooling, but TUF has lower minimum fan speed, which would be great if I play less demanding games.

MSI seems to suffer from coil whine during every 3D application like scrolling up and down on a webpage, reported in multiple forums. Example noise:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MSI_Gaming/comments/1k42c7j/msi_gaming_trio_5070_ti_buzzing

Asus seems to be known for coil whine, but I don't know why Prime cards rarely whine while TUF cards whine most of the time.

I have a Vanguard 5090 and it has almost zero coil whine, I'd say the least coil whine of any video card I've owned in the past 10 years. There are certain PSUs that for whatever reason are much worse for coil whine with the 5090. Specifically, it seems that recent PSUs designed by CWT seem to have the least coil whine with 5090, I know a few people who switched from other brands to a CWT unit (e.g. NZXT C1500, MSI AI1300P) and most of their coil whine with 5090 disappeared.

Typically, the reason higher end cards have more coil whine is they use more power, which puts them at higher risk for coil whine.

 

[remekra]

Quick update after what? 2-3 weeks of usage of the new card? Something like that.

Here's a pic:

If you compare it to the photos I uploaded when I received it, it again starts to slip away. So the issue is not fixed. I will wait for additional 2-3 weeks, see how much of it slips again and this time I will apply for a refund. They either need to change the design of the heatsink or inform people that their cards are not suitable for vertical mounts.

 

[Bomby569]

here there's tons of gigabyte cards selling as refurbished, just avoid them and if you have one ask for a refund.
What a shitshow

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Quick update after what? 2-3 weeks of usage of the new card? Something like that. If you compare it to the photos I uploaded when I received it, it again starts to slip away. So the issue is not fixed.

Your 2514 card may be still too early to be fixed. The trouble is, that we do not know if anything has been fixed at all.

As I mentioned earlier, ideal situation would be if the improved gel would be a different colour so that consumers could tell if they got a safe card.

I wonder how GB can still afford to be silent about this.

 

[SilentComet47]

Honestly, the silence from Gigabyte is the most frustrating part. If there's a known issue with TIM slippage, at least acknowledge it and offer clarity. Until then, watching temps and stress test results is all we can really do. Hopefully newer batches have addressed it, but hard to tell without transparency.

 

[remekra]

Another two weeks:

Raised another case with retailer, this time not for Gigabyte warranty but for a full refund. Card will be shipped again on Monday.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Oh those damned slippery gel blobs...

Perhaps I should examine what is my card doing, but it is horizontal and cooled when idle, so I presume not much, on the other hand I have that detailed shot from the beginning so even a small change should be visible.

EDIT: I just examined my card and all the blobs are in place, they look good, except these two, which started cracking:




Did they just dry out a little and nothing serious is happening? Or have they started to disintegrate?

 

[remekra]

Card was sent on Monday. I RMAed it now not as a warranty but as a complaint based on the lack of conformity of the product with the sales contract. It's a EU law. Now it's back and forth with the retailer to actually do a refund rather than giving another new card or trying to fix the second one. We will see how it goes.

 

[freeagent]

That is crazy.

Just brutal.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

Card was sent on Monday. I RMAed it now not as a warranty but as a complaint based on the lack of conformity of the product with the sales contract. It's a EU law. Now it's back and forth with the retailer to actually do a refund rather than giving another new card or trying to fix the second one. We will see how it goes.

The retailers may be in an unfortunate position with the manufacturer pretending that the cards are OK and just willing to perform standard warranty repairs while the consumers are pissed off wanting their money back.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

Gigabyte should label the boxes with "Horizontal mounting only" or just use another Putty as their cooling agent, or yet just go back to pads..