what is wrong with Sapphires thermal paste?!

[GerKNG]

i own four Sapphire GPUs at the moment.

all of them have thermal paste on them that is actually worse than the worst available thermal paste on the market.
even my 6900XT Nitro+ has thermal paste on it that is so bad that my arctic MX2 (bought when haswell released!) is almost 20°C better than what sapphire has.

i don't understand how a company that uses thermal compound on a die that is so bad that you can not even find something to compare against.

for example:
6900XT Nitro+
264W load 108°C Hotspot and 81°C Edge with 2900RPM fanspeed.

repaste with arctic MX2 from late 2013:
264W load 81°C Hotspot 68°C Edge with 2150RPM fanspeed.

what is sapphire even thinking?

 

[Shrek]

Got any pictures of the original paste?

 

[GerKNG]

here
coverage is more than decent.

and for another comparison.
the card is still 10°C cooler on the hotspot at 375W compared to the 264W before the repaste.

 

[eidairaman1]

i own four Sapphire GPUs at the moment.

all of them have thermal paste on them that is actually worse than the worst available thermal paste on the market.
even my 6900XT Nitro+ has thermal paste on it that is so bad that my arctic MX2 (bought when haswell released!) is almost 20°C better than what sapphire has.

i don't understand how a company that uses thermal compound on a die that is so bad that you can not even find something to compare against.

for example:
6900XT Nitro+
264W load 108°C Hotspot and 81°C Edge with 2900RPM fanspeed.

repaste with arctic MX2 from late 2013:
264W load 81°C Hotspot 68°C Edge with 2150RPM fanspeed.

what is sapphire even thinking?

Isnt it a pad? also bear in mind msi is by far worse.

 

[micropage7]

maybe, since most will repaste it so it's ok to use them

 

[joemama]

Company logic: As long as it's working, it's working.

 

[claes]

Wonder if it had more to do with mounting pressure than the paste itself? That discrepancy is enormous.

 

[The red spirit]

Wonder if it had more to do with mounting pressure than the paste itself? That discrepancy is enormous.

That's true, you can put toothpaste and get those stock temps. There's something clearly wrong and it's unlikely to be thermal paste.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

maybe, since most will repaste it so it's ok to use them

That's not ok, re pasting voids warranty

 

[Shou Miko]

That's not ok, re pasting voids warranty

I though that was ruled out by almost all countries in the world that you can re-paste without breaking anything you still got warranty together with fan swapping to make RMA easier for the customer and the manufacture.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

I though that was ruled out by almost all countries in the world that you can re-paste without breaking anything you still got warranty together with fan swapping to make RMA easier for the customer and the manufacture.

Not everywhere.

 

[Shou Miko]

Not everywhere.

Hmm interesting, I might need to speak with MSI and Sapphire then from where I am located to see if I can do it without any issues because maybe I should re-paste my MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ventus 3X 24G OC to see if I can get it better then 81C under gaming

 

[GerKNG]

Wonder if it had more to do with mounting pressure than the paste itself? That discrepancy is enormous.

all screws were bascially threaded down to their limits. (they stop at a certain point)
and even with just handtight screws it is almost identical.
this was "Stock" wit the Fans at 75% (otherwise the card would throttle)

and then after repasting with years old MX2:

i am currently using Arctic MX5 and it dropped under the same conditions down to around 75-76°C with 3°C higher ambient.
a difference of almost 40°C (with the ambient difference)

 

[eidairaman1]

all screws were bascially threaded down to their limits. (they stop at a certain point)
and even with just handtight screws it is almost identical.
this was "Stock" wit the Fans at 75% (otherwise the card would throttle)

View attachment 206088
and then after repasting with years old MX2:
View attachment 206087


i am currently using Arctic MX5 and it dropped under the same conditions down to around 75-76°C with 3°C higher ambient.
a difference of almost 40°C (with the ambient difference)

Washer trick, lap the hs too (doesnt, need polishing)

 

[Chomiq]

Hmm interesting, I might need to speak with MSI and Sapphire then from where I am located to see if I can do it without any issues because maybe I should re-paste my MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ventus 3X 24G OC to see if I can get it better then 81C under gaming

AFAIK "Warranty void if xxx" stickers are only invalid in US.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Think they use funky tooth paste ?

 

[rethcirE]

Hi,
Think they use funky tooth paste ?

Dollar General brand rather than Crest or Colgate. Amateurs!

 

[Vya Domus]

I still think it's the mounting, the thermal paste can't possibly be that bad. Pretty much all manufactures have this problem, they only test the cards to see if they run into thermal shutdown and don't really care how good the contact is.

Keep in mind that just because the paste is spread evenly that doesn't meant the mounting pressure was proper.

maybe, since most will repaste it so it's ok to use them

Most wont even clean the dust off the damn thing let alone try and repaste it.

 

[Ruru]

My bet goes too to the crappy original mounting pressure.

 

[micropage7]

My bet goes too to the crappy original mounting pressure.

from the pic the pressure looks ok so the paste is bad ( the material or the thickness ) or just sapphire got bad batch, only God knows why