Replace TIM on gtx275?

[somecanadianguy]

So far I've gotten my gtx275 up to 740/1600/1280... temps running Furmark for 10mins top at 83c with the fan @ 100%.
I've seen a lot of people recommend replacing the stock TIM with something better.
Is what's on there now really no good?
I have some MX-2 left over from my build...
Would it be worth the effort to put some of that on instead?
Right now I don't run the card OC'd for any reason but for the hell of it, but I want to get it folding soon so want to keep it alive and relatively safe.

I saw a tutorial... think the guy used a 260...
He said it was a little tough to get them apart, and I think he actually broke a clip or something in the process.
What should I do here?
Stay with the stock TIM or replace it with MX-2 (if I can get the card apart without breaking it)?
How hard is it to get these cards apart and back together?

[jcmaz]

you should if you can, you could always youtube it.. :)

[somecanadianguy]

Well... I don't really know how.

How many here have done this?
Can anyone tell me what kind of temp drop there might be?
If it's really worth the effort I'll give it a shot.

[aviduser]

In my opinion its not worth the effort. You may see temps drop a few degrees at best. I re-did the TIM on my gtx280 with no change in temperature at all.

The TIM manufacturers are using now a days seems to be pretty decent stuff.

[Prof. Dr. Silver]

I've taken apart all my video cards.... X1900XTX, 8800GTS, 9800GX2 etc.... not really difficult... as long as you do it systematically. Sometimes there's a big drop in temps, sometimes a small one... it really depends on the card and the TIM used...On all my cards I lost at least 5C.... not bad ey?

Good luck and if you have any more questions.... You're in the right place!

[Sagath]

EVGA 275 came apart just fine. Its like 14 screws and pop!

Now running Diamond7 on it under water. Never peaks above 40c

[Realityshift]

The biggest difference seen isnt the quality of tim used but the quality of the application of the tim. With my 2 9800GTXs 1 was down very well while the other had TONs of tim everywhere and when I re applied my own tim it brough the temps down almost 9c at load.

The nvidia cards are fairly straight forward to take appart, remove 1-2 screws that hold the PCI-E plate to the back of the card, then remove up to 15 spring loaded screws holding the heatsink to the PCB, they may not be spring loaded and they wont fly out at you if they are the springs are used more like a washer to hold more tension on the PCB. Probubly the easiest process involving tools ive done in a while and well worth the 10 minutes of effort. Once you get the heatsink off all you have to do is clean off the top of the GPU with an cleaning solution or do like I did and just clean it off with a Q tip and call it good enuf, then reapply the new paste and screw on the heatsink again. The Memory will more then likely use a thermal pad instead of paste and its not recommended to remove these and try thermal paste as it will take far to much paste to bridge the gap left by the thick thermal pads.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...retim-ic7.html

My worklog from when I did my 9800GTXs.