Generally no, unless there is damage.

But it will depend on the person assessing it and how strict some brands guidelines are / if they are having a bad day.

That being said be very very careful with how thick the thermal pads are, being off by just 1mm can cause poor to zero core contact.

Which will quickly kill a GPU (Unlike CPUs which can handle bad cooling by downclocking)

Unless the pads are damaged, I generally wouldn't replace them.

Also you need to use a thermal paste that doesn't have a high pump out risk, ie a phase change pad (PTM7950) or a thicker hard to spread paste like TG hydronaut.

As the liquidy pastes like MX4 degrade really fast on direct die stuff like GPUs, due to heat cycling.

If the GPU is actually overheating you could ask them to replace the thermal paste under the CGA, I know Asus will do this for laptops.

gehenna: What's the GPU and what's the usual temp? I've found the 20-40 series NVIDIA cards I've had were pretty good at staying within acceptable temperatures.... Unless the case was not allowing good airflow in and out. Then I'd see big spikes. It's why I moved from a H1 case to a more traditional tower. Just doing that with all the same specs gave me back about 15C at peak. Are you sure the GPU is the cause?

I've done it for my GIGABYTE RTX 3070 (3 fans). Replaced with PTM7950 and Upsiren thermal putty. I am certain it's the GPU, I have a NORTH XL and the airflow is good.

Max temps were as such, and I was pretty worried about the hotspot just jumping to 105 degrees in full load.

After the replacement

Performance is a bit degraded cause I think I took too long to replace it. But yeah PTM and Upsiren are insane for me. It's boosting higher while my fans are quieter.

SirisLeOsiris:

 

Generally no, unless there is damage.

 

But it will depend on the person assessing it and how strict some brands guidelines are / if they are having a bad day.

 

That being said be very very careful with how thick the thermal pads are, being off by just 1mm can cause poor to zero core contact.

 

Which will quickly kill a GPU (Unlike CPUs which can handle bad cooling by downclocking)

 

Unless the pads are damaged, I generally wouldn't replace them.

 

 

 

Also you need to use a thermal paste that doesn't have a high pump out risk, ie a phase change pad (PTM7950) or a thicker hard to spread paste like TG hydronaut.

 

As the liquidy pastes like MX4 degrade really fast on direct die stuff like GPUs, due to heat cycling.

 

 

 

If the GPU is actually overheating you could ask them to replace the thermal paste under the CGA, I know Asus will do this for laptops.

 

Noted. I did it for my 3070 since it's out of warranty but was curious on how CGA applies to the new card I'll get soon. If I can help it, I'd rather it have PTM7950 but if not and they'd make CGA annoying to claim, then it's probably not worth doing.

PTM7950 and Upsiren Thermal Putty seem insanely good. And those results were directly after replacement.

Asus is now stock using PTM pads on ~most~ of their laptops including when being serviced, I don't know about their GPUs though.

So it might already have that on a new card (40 and upcoming 50 series)

SirisLeOsiris:

Asus is now stock using PTM pads on ~most~ of their laptops including when being serviced, I don't know about their GPUs though.

 

So it might already have that on a new card (40 and upcoming 50 series)

I do recall my 3080 ran around 80-90 when gaming, but sat around 50-70 when idling.  That part came down to the lack of airflow in my case, but I acknowledge the 30 series were generally starting from a toasty baseline. I'm just not sure if the reward of a few degrees is worth the risk, when it's never going to be a cool GPU anyway. 

gehenna:

I do recall my 3080 ran around 80-90 when gaming, but sat around 50-70 when idling.  That part came down to the lack of airflow in my case, but I acknowledge the 30 series were generally starting from a toasty baseline. I'm just not sure if the reward of a few degrees is worth the risk, when it's never going to be a cool GPU anyway.