HardwareGraphics CardsNvidia’s third-party RTX 40-series GPUs are losing performance over time thanks to rubbish factory-installed thermal pasteWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
HardwareGraphics CardsNvidia’s third-party RTX 40-series GPUs are losing performance over time thanks to rubbish factory-installed thermal pasteWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Future)
Modern graphics cards use lots of power and all of it is turned into heat. So if you’re paying many hundreds of dollars for a powerful GPU, you’d expect no expense to be spared on the cooling system. It turns out that for many Nvidia RTX 40-series vendors, the expenseisbeing spared and cheap, poorly applied thermal paste is leading to scorching high hotspot temperatures and performance degradation over time.
In the space of a few months, the factory-applied paste had separated and spread out, leaving just an oily film behind, and a few patches of the thermal compound itself. I checked the other cards and found that they were all in a similar state.
Igor’s Lab examined the thermal paste used on a brand-new RTX 4080 and found it to be quite thin in nature, due to large quantities of cheap silicone oil being used, along with zinc oxide filler. There was lots of ground aluminium oxide (the material that provides the actual thermal transfer) but it was quite coarse, leading to the paste separating quite easily.
But it’s not just about the hotspots. Cheap, poorly applied thermal paste will cause the performance of a graphics card to degrade over time because GPUs lower clock speeds when they reach their thermal limits. PC enthusiasts are probably very comfortable with replacing a CPU’s thermal paste regularly but it’s not a simple process with graphics cards.
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If you’ve handed over the better part of $1,000 for your graphics card, you’d be justified in thinking that this shouldn’t be a necessary job for years—certainly not within a few months of having the card.
Your next machine(Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
Your next machine
(Image credit: Future)Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
(Image credit: Future)
Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines.Best gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming.
While Nvidia enjoys huge margins on its GPUs, graphics card vendors aren’t quite so lucky, but they’re not so small that spending a few more dollars on better thermal paste isn’t going to bankrupt the company.
Mind you, if they all started using PTM7950, then none of this would be an issue—the cards would run cooler and would stay that way for much longer. The only problem then is that you’d hear the coil whine over the reduced fan noise.
Ah, PC gaming is never easy, is it?
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Epic CEO Tim Sweeney says tech leaders are ‘pretending to be Republicans’ to gain favor with Trump, skirt antitrust laws, and ultimately ‘rip off consumers and crush competitors’
If you’re trying to convince me your ‘companionship’ robot is ‘lifelike’, maybe don’t rip her face off in the demo video
Square Enix launches new anti-harassment policy to protect its employees and partners from abusive fans
The Sims begins its 25th anniversary celebration next week with a Behind The Sims episode of news and announcements
Path of Exile 2 numberlord spends 16 straight days killing rare monsters to prove that a stat that makes loot better makes better loot
Palestinian developer raises more than $200,000 to make Dreams on a Pillow, a game about the horrors of the 1948 Nakba
Piranha Games will lay off employees after Mechwarrior 5: Clans ‘performed below projections’
Marvel Rivals’ latest update quietly killed the game’s burgeoning mod scene
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