Replace your 3080 FE thermal pads and save your GPU from throttling

[@faisalrao4426]

Supposedly something has changed in the recent batch of manufacture of the cards so that the 2mm pads end up being too thick, the recommendations I find now are saying 1.5mm instead. Either that, or there is too much deviation in the pads themselves.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Thanks! I have been hearing reports of that recently also. I Pinned your comment so hopefully everyone can see!

[@TM-ni1gn]

Same here. 2mm didn't work for me either. After my 3rd try yesterday with the 1.5mm pads (on the gpu side), my 3080 is performing much better.

[@tusharsaini6621]

@@TM-ni1gn Did you choose 1.5mm all over the die side? Or just the VRAMs? Also what temps are you getting?

[@La4edimension]

@@frigidpeons4816 oh well.... I used 2.0mm everywhere and my vram temps are amazing, but my hotspot is 100c!! Core temp is around 60c. Dunno what I did wrong

[@La4edimension]

would have loved to have SEEN this BEFORE buying the Gelid 2.0mm pads :( Maybe put it in the video description at least?

[@j.b.7133]

Ladies & Gentlemen... The best FE 3080 repasting tutorial to date has dropped. I was JUST thinking last night, why are there no videos on it, step by step? Just blogs/videos with 75% info. This is close to 99% everything you need. Well done.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Thank you!

[@trentbrown7601]

Great tutorial. For some reason, my screws types were reversed on my GPU backplate, the Torx screws were where the Philips were and vice-versa. 2 of them were already stripped. I had to drill out the top of the Torx screw carefully. Now I'm going to have to find screws to replace those two. But I have it running RN at 84-86c @ 100Mh/s while mining. Was 108-110. So it works. Thx.

[@frigidpeons4816]

That's weird, Sucks to hear about the stripped screws... I wish Nvidia had better QC.. Glad to hear the Temps are way lower for you thought! EBay may have some similar screws not sure though

[@Umbralttv]

You are an angel I just bought a 3080 and I haven't had a gaming pc in years. I work in a repair shop and am extremely thankful for you for posting this video. I tried launching a game for the first time and it crashed my entire pc causing it to reboot. I had set up a custom fancurve and came back the next day to much cooler Temps at idle, but as soon as I launched a game it was back to square one.

[@HannesKirsman]

I wasn't expecting the kitchen to become a proper OR room. Thanks for the video!

[@frigidpeons4816]

Haha that kitchen counter got more use as a tech bench 🤣

[@jkdfhdifdsfjhdnfi]

Thanks for the video. I bought the gpu used and the last guy used 2mm pads which were too thick as the gpu was throttling, I used 1.5mm today and its working like a dream

[@willemwiersema]

Followed the guide and am down 25 degrees in my junction temperatures. THANK YOU for the thorough guide. Its in the little things that sets this guide above others!

[@frigidpeons4816]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad it was helpful!

[@Slademon0000]

Didn't work for me

[@gamerscore88]

Hey! Just want to say I used this video and it dropped my gpu memory temps by 30C. And my overall gpu temps by over 12C. I used 2 packs of the 2mm pads for the front and back and had almost zero extra. I would recommend 3 packs so you don’t have to be so precise. Thanks for the video!

[@frigidpeons4816]

No problem! Glad to hear your Temps are much better!

[@techluvin7691]

Applying hand pressure to the card and then removing the pcb again will tell you if your pads and gpu die are being contacted properly. Saves a bit of time just in case the pads are too thin or thick. Also holding back your cables with tape works quite well.

[@Kevinchung409]

I can tell you all, my RTX3080FE GPU temp is 44degree and RAM temp is 68degree under 95Mh/s after modification. I am using 1.5mm for both side and add an external cooling pad at the front. ........ dont use 2mm cause there will be a gap for GPU not touch the thermal pad closely ............................... remember.

[@techluvin7691]

There is a small tab on top of those cables used to pull them out. Much easier. Good video though. Covered all the bases.

[@EileenTheCr0w]

This is the most thorough tutorial I've found yet for doing this, thank you!

[@frigidpeons4816]

Thanks!!

[@theburntwaffle7390]

Great tutorial, glad to see you're feeling better and back to making videos. I'll definitely try this and post my results.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Thanks man!

[@yacqub]

howd it go

[@r4d4g4zt]

I have a big question after doing thermal pad and paster replecement my fans stopped working😢😢 I suppose those 2 flip pin connectors are for the fans and they are connected and still not spinning fans...any suggestion?

[@mdkamal74]

I got had the same problem and I SLOVED it. Only applicable to FE Founder Edition. On the front (Core) side use 2 mm or 1.5mm ONLY!!!. If you use 2mm make sure its a soft pad, not a hard one. Hard pad will create a bigger gap between the processor and the plate. Not recommended Gelid pads. The most important part if high VRAM Temp. Put some thermal paste on the metal side of the cooling block. Between the pad and the metal side of the cooling plate is rough and the paste will help a lot. Put a little more if using 1.5mm pads. On the bask side use 2mm pad only not more then that. It solves it all you high temp.

[@ConspiracyJ]

i have a late model 3080 FE ... should i follow this advice?!?!

[@G_eshak]

thank you for reminding us, I thought i could do it without the 3080 :)

[@sunnymalik3937]

I just wanted to know that will this void the warranty of the card ?, Please let me know thanks , as i noticed there was no warranty sticker but pasting the thermal pads can be detected by the service center i guess

[@frigidpeons4816]

That depends on country and manufactuer usually. In the US the 3080FE should not have it's warranty voided by this. That being said if someone in the service center is a having a bad day I could see them claiming it's voided. I would do it at your own risk

[@David-di6hk]

16:45 These "easy to remove" wires dont budge. Im positive i cannot move the metal guard and further forward. I have tried lifting and wiggling the heck out of the wire. They don't wanna go anywhere. They flex a little but that black tab wont come up. Guess I'm giving up for now. Hoping for some advice please.

[@hashhouse7372]

original FE model pads impress to about 1.5mm front and 2.0mm back, measured with a caliper. 1.5mm pads in front will work, but are risky, because depending on slop, not all the ram may touch evenly and adequately. safer bet to squish a 2.0mm in front to ensure. squishing the 2.0mm is very important. if you use a 1.5mm pad in front, i'd recommend dabbing a bit of paste under each chip to boost it to 1.6mm and ensure contact.

[@Timmmer]

Hope this helps someone. I had already ordered 3mm and 2mm thermal pads before I found this video. I used the 2mm on the front and the 3mm on the back. Much easier to replace the back if necessary. After the operation, I lit it up and at first was concerned because, although the memory temps had dropped substantially, the GPU and HOT SPOT temps were way up. I took the card out and put it between by hands and carefully squeezed it together with a fair bit of pressure. Put the card back in and the temps were MUCH better. The GPU was over 100 initially. My guess is that 1.5s would even work on the GPU side and definitely the 2mm on the back. In the end, I went from a 275 memory overclock at temps of 50 GPU, 94 memory, and 64 hot spot with 87 hash rate, to a 1600 memory overclock at temps of 54 GPU, 84 memory, and 70 hot spot with a 103 hash rate. Matching my old settings, my GPU and hot spot are higher. Likely had I used 1,5 inside and 2 back that would have been better....or even 2mm like shown in this fantastic video, but the memory was the big concern. How sad is it that Nvidia charges a fortune for these cards, and then decides to chince out of thermal pads. To save money. Some bureaucrat decided that a few warranty claims and bad press was worth the savings over properly cooling these beasts.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Thanks for posting your results! I really hope this video helps people out. Like you said it really Sucks to spend so much on a card and they cheap out on important components to save a few pennies

[@Timmmer]

Second day and everything has settled. The temps are cooler across the board but definitely go with 2mm for front and back. Although the 3mm worked for me on the backside, I think it is too thick. Thanks again Frigid Peons for the excellent step by step guide.

[@emanuelecoppini2023]

I’ve your same problem, tomorrow I’ll try to remove de 2mm pads on the GPU side and use the 1,5 mm. I don’t think there are problems with the 3mm pads on the back.

[@KindOldRaven]

@@Timmmer Which pads did you use? Some are very soft, others not so much. You could use one brand's 1.5mm where you'd use another's 3mm.

[@Timmmer]

@@KindOldRaven Gelid Solutions GP-Extreme 12W-Thermal Pad 80x40x1.5mm

[@abyshines]

Nice detailed video,well made and points taken care of.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Thank you!

[@JeffRevell]

My RTX 3080 FE cover plate was held in with T5 screws, not Phillips head. Slight difference in build materials.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Good to know, they must be changing the design a bit!

[@peytonbrandt3943]

@@frigidpeons4816 I don’t think they changed the design. I think you might have put the screws back in the wrong places before making this video. The “V” section should be Philips, and the screws under the small magnetic covers are T5.

[@motorider727]

Great video, I did this mod using 3mm on the back and 2mm on the front. Unfortunately the temps basically stayed the same. But the stock pads were horrible so I’m glad I did it regardless

[@YourMomm1337]

Damn same here. Any update?? Or is it still the same

[@MRD0889]

Gucci =) My undervolt helped with drooping Temps and Watts from the wall but... I want a tad more speed off the GPU So off to the Matt I go Thanks for the video

[@marknagel9711]

Followed exactly and VRAM temp went down from 110c to 82c. But now the Core temp is 15c-20c higher and throttling. Any suggestions?

[@KDotdidit263]

The same thing has happened to my GPU.

[@frigidpeons4816]

It sounds like the gpu die is not making proper contact with the heatsink. Make sure everything has good contact, you may need to use a thicker pad on the die or smaller pads everywhere else if you still have the issue

[@marknagel9711]

I didn't use a pad on GPU, just thermal paste. I took apart again, thermal paste had good coverage. I pressed the other pads down and reapplied thermal paste and core is down to 80 with fan tuning around 90% continuously. Actually checking previouse temps, my core was 52c, now 80c.

[@JoseHernandez-vf6zx]

Don't follow this guy's advise on the thermal pads size, go with 1.5 for both front and back and you'll see the difference! I did this on my 3080 and gpu temp doesn't go above 60c, memory temp tops out at 69c! HUGE improvement over the stock pads!

[@hashhouse7372]

Newer FEs require thinner pads. You can't get away with 2.0mm/3.00mm anymore on them. 1.5mm front / 2.0mm back of Gelid Extreme would work for both versions.

[@TheRonskiman]

Those little screw covers are keyed, three of them have pins on the back, the curved one doesn't. I think you got one wrong, it looked slightly raised. Best advice to anyone doing this is watch a few different videos, then you get a idea of everything, will do mine today.

[@ReparandomiAutocaravana]

nice video! thanks

[@lamonterolaclan355]

So helpful!! Thank you!

[@angeloiannello3753]

After the replacement the card works ok but my fans, logo light and rgb light are off... all the time.. any suggestion how to proceed??

[@frigidpeons4816]

It sounds like the cables are either not plugged in or not connected all the way, I would check that

[@La4edimension]

Weird.... My vram and core temperatures have dropped by a lot. But the hotspot keeps climbing. It's now 92c... Had to stop the card. I wonder what I did wrong 🤔....

[@nobodykers]

Same progress for the 3070ti 🤔 ? Nice vid, keep it up!

[@frigidpeons4816]

Yeah, the founders cards are all pretty similar. But it wouldn't hurt to find a 3070ti teardown

[@frigidpeons4816]

Also, Thanks!

[@nobodykers]

@@frigidpeons4816 Thank you for the Quick response. I will do some research. Wanna change thermalpads & paste aswell

[@frigidpeons4816]

No problem, best of luck!

[@Timmmer]

Again...in case it helps someone, it would seem either every card is slightly different or at least the 3080Ti FE is different than the 3080 FE. I tried the same thing. 2mm on the GPU side and 3mm on the backside. It didn't work. Ended up with nice memory temps but GPU and Hot Spot went up by 20 degrees. So I tried again using 1.5 on the GPU side and 2mm on the backside and it worked perfectly. And to specify, this was for a 3080 Ti.

[@frigidpeons4816]

good to know, Thanks for sharing!!

[@TheRichMaxwellChannel]

I'm having the same issue on a new 3080 FE. used 2mm gelid extreme pads but it's sending the core temp to 104 degree hotshots and 78 degrees! Got some 1.5mm pads coming which I hope will fix it for me.

[@bps739]

Did you use 1.5 extreme on front? How did it go? I did 1.5mm on front and it helped only a 5-7 degrees difference. Many others stated 15 degrees difference which was not at all the case for me.

[@Timmmer]

@@bps739 it did, but I had to put the card between my palms and gently but firmly press it together along the length. And then it took a couple days before I saw the full temperature drop.

[@ConspiracyJ]

i have a 3080 fe not a TI.... what would you recommend??? i keep hearing that 1.5mm is a better size?? I BOUGHT the card late 2021

[@CrazyRC]

you have accidentally swapped the phillips and torx bits in your card. they are in each others position from factory

[@EileenTheCr0w]

From some of the testing I've seen, there doesn't seem to be much difference in replacing the pads on the backplate side, but a massive improvement on the cooler side (which makes sense). So do you think it would be ok to only replace the pads on the cooler / Die side of the card and leave the stock pads on the backplate?

[@frigidpeons4816]

Yeah, if you wanted to that would still make a big difference. I replaced both sides because I already have the card disassembled might as well do it all!

[@EileenTheCr0w]

@@frigidpeons4816 I only had one pad on hand, but as an update it seems to have worked pretty well! Mining went from consistent 104-106°C to now 84-88°C, still only getting 94 ish MH but it's so much quieter and cooler that I'd still say it's worth it even if I can't tune it to a better hash rate. I did exactly as shown up until the backplate side, just added a small amount where I had some extra of the Gelid pad left.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Well that's awesome! Thanks for letting us know how it turned out!

[@ConspiracyJ]

what pads did you use? 2 or 1.5mm?

[@EileenTheCr0w]

@@ConspiracyJ I bought one sheet of the Gelid GP-Extreme that was 80mm x 40mm x 2mm, was exactly the right amount to do the cooler side of the card with a tiny bit leftover. If you wanna do both sides you'll need another sheet. Still going strong btw! Thermals almost always stay around 86-88 c with the settings I used for mining, and usually cooler than that for gaming.

[@chuchmunk9052]

Hey thanks for the breakdown, overall happy and gratefull there was a thorough video like this. However, i am an idiot and this is not idiot proof lol. It would have been exdtremely helpfull to have a statement to only place the pads on one side of the GPU and not on both the circuit board and the lid like i did and then try to figure out why it would not close. the pads ended up too mixed together and i ended up with crumbs i just spread throught where the pads should have been. Unlucky.

[@fredoh2768]

Hello i haven't replaced the thermal pads on mine. When i am gaming the junction temps only gets to 94C do you still recommend me to change the thermal pads? i never seen it go above 94C

[@frigidpeons4816]

It would help longevity for sure. I think you start to get into throttling around 110

[@fredoh2768]

@@frigidpeons4816 I ended up replacing them with the Gelid Extreme 1.5 front and 2.0 back and memory junction dropped to 74°C. Thanks for the good tutorial.

[@frigidpeons4816]

Nice! Glad to hear it worked really well for you

[@ascap2854]

use coffee filters to clean, I find it works best

[@frigidpeons4816]

That's an interesting way to clean them, I haven't heard of it before :)

[@badsmusic6321]

Not work for me gpu temp hit 7O degrees idle and gpu hot spot hit 96 degrees , memory have good temp maybe gpu doesn't touche heatsink!!! why , someone have a solution?

[@brunohysa2510]

After this I have memory temp good but hotspot temp very hight (100degrees), what can I do?

[@frigidpeons4816]

What size thermal pads did you use? It's possible your gpu is not making great contact to the heat sink

[@brunohysa2510]

@@frigidpeons4816 2 mm for the front and 2 mm for the back… don’t know what’s the problem , what can I do? Try to put 1,5mm on the front?

[@5150saturn]

@@brunohysa2510 I also am having this problem after doing this. I used 2mm pads on the front and now my gou temp shoots up to high 80c while gaming I cant even game anymore.

[@soupy01833]

Can i do 2mm on the back plate or does it have to be 3mm?

[@frigidpeons4816]

I used 2mm on everything

[@ggboot1]

Shoots a video in their kitchen with a sink full of dishes.........

[@opesonee9559]

why did you leave that one piece of old thermal pad

[@frigidpeons4816]

The last really thin one is left to help cool the components underneath. If the gpu comes with it you can leave it. In the video I mention it was added by Nvidia to help with a hotspot issue on the gpu

[@thomaswilson7718]

FE is 1.5mm pads not 2.0 have found this out the had way

[@TheRichMaxwellChannel]

Hoping you are right. I did mine last night with 2mm pads and gpu temperature went crazy high. Got a 1.5mm pad arriving later so hope it works with that. The stock pads look thinner than these 2mm ones so I reckon something must have changed on newer 3080 FE cards.

[@BROADBANNED]

@@TheRichMaxwellChannel The new 3080FE should use 1.5mm Gelid ultimate. The old 3080FE is 3mm + 2mm Gellid Extreme. I have a 3080FE which is 1 week old and a lot of people who have the latest 3080 are watching all these youtube vids of old viedos showing the old card.

[@TheRichMaxwellChannel]

@@BROADBANNED exactly right, I re did the pads with 1.5mm gelid ultimate and worked great.

[@sassanix]

@@TheRichMaxwellChannel Did you do 1.5 mm for back and front?

[@woodcomet7753]

3rd!

[@canyoueventakeit2437]

!dr3

[@canyoueventakeit2437]

pasty

[@mikegos5049]

Too much paste

[@DreDay2000]

Appreciate the video but goddamn bro, you talk to much. Kinda of repetitive, Could've been a 20min video if it wasn't for your rambling lol

[@tancakar8987]

change all the pads lets the problematic pad on. why not change that too, clearly there has been complains thats why nvidia put a shitty pad there too, just get rid of the dam thing.