I was interested in one of the comments made in one of the recent THG articles "Is the KuFormula VF1 Plus the Formula for Graphics Cooling?". In which the author recommended always replacing the stock thermal compound.
I wanted to know if anyone knew how good the stock on the XFX card was? I got an XFX card as they are overclocked straight out of the box, but is it worth me changing the compound? I've got some AS5 spare that I used for my CPU.
Any help appreciated.
CC

I can't actually help with that, but I was wondering if it would help my old 9800Pro. I still have the stock (somewhat wimpy) HSF on it and was wondering if replacing the stock thermal compound with AS5 would help keep it a bit cooler. It doesn't have a temperature diode so I cant read the temperature, but I know from touching the heat sink (even at idle) that it gets pretty hot. Its no longer a gaming system so I'm trying to make it last as long as I can by reducing heat. I've already underclocked it to 300core/600mem and it still runs pretty hot.

-mcg

On the 9800 Pro, yes if the HSF has never been off. By now it must be quite used up.
I have an XFX 6800 GT and it had a pad on it, which I removed and got about 3C lower temps on the core. I haven't touched the memory and I understand silver isn't the compound of choice with GDDR-3.

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that thermal compound went bad...

Thanks for your comments.
You mentioned not using silver for GDDR-3. Can you recommend which thermal compund should be used for memory? And do you know silver can't be used?
Many thanks
CC

You're very welcome. Just use the white compound , that'll do nicely. The reason is because of the high frequency that the memory chips operate at. The silver conducts and it could cause it to ground out to the heatsink. I know someone that didn't heed the warning and killed a 5950.

When you take it off you'll see what I mean.