Can You Re-Use Thermal Paste?

[yutubemedia]

Okay Thats not what I mean, like I literally just placed my GPU card on the a VGA cooler with pre applied thermal paste, but the I wasnt able to get the screw holes to lign up so i took it off real quick to fix the heatsinks that are off a little bit. Can I place it back on even though there is now thermal paste on the gpu card ? I havent use the VGA card like in a computer yet or anything, im building a Pc, and literally just pulled it off 5 seconds after.

Thanks

 

[bystander]

Most likely it is fine, as the thermal paste never cured and is still pliable, but there is a chance you created an air pocket, which could degrade it's performance.