Thermal paste for DELL HD 6970m

[evgasr2]

Hi guys , some people reported that IC Diamond damages the GPU die , is it true? can I use it with my dell hd 6970m ?

or should I go with other themal pastes?

thanks.

[mw86]

If your comfortable pasting a GPU or CPU IC Diamond is great. If you want something easy to apply use MX-4. As for actual damage... not technically is your gpu destroyed upon using ICD... I have both my GPUs and my CPU pasted with it. My last setup was too. Temps are great with it but if your not careful upon removal in event of a need to repaste utmost caution should be taken as scratches can occur and due to removal method those who have been careful and do not use a wiping method have not had issue upon repaste. My cpu didn't have scratches after repaste.... SVL7 showed a pic of clear evidence it left a scratch on his 920XM... so it can happen... its this simple if you may end up repasting more than twice then just go with MX-4 or comparable to avoid issue with scratches... but your gpu isnt just going to die using it in fact if you don't repaste after applying the ICD you should have good temps and no scratches

[evgasr2]

Thanks for very fast reply.

btw:IC diamond seems to be good when considering the temps , but when it makes damages when repasting that hurts me, because a scratch in gpu die can kill your vga, so I think the mx-3 or mx-4 should do realy well, um not sure what to pick , I'd say I cant sacrifice my vga card for low temps.

[mw86]

Thanks for very fast reply.

btw:IC diamond seems to be good when considering the temps , but when it makes damages when repasting that hurts me, because a scratch in gpu die can kill your vga, so I think the mx-3 or mx-4 should do realy well, um not sure what to pick , I'd say I cant sacrifice my vga card for low temps.

like I said if you plan to tinker a lot dont even consider ICD if your one to set it as best as possible and leave it for a long time it should be just fine. I've heard an alternative to ICD and MX-4/3 is Tuniq :)you could look into that as it is not diamond or silver based

Let me just say for ICD I saw great temp improvements under load but also even idle temps for me were greatly improved Its all in the application and removal method... if joe shmoe just wipes the entire cured bit of old ICD off in one feld swoop there's gonna be a nice scratch there... but if you careful like most of us on this site you shouldn't scratch it... if your worried Tuniq may be better than the MX-4 but give it credit too its one of the easiest pastes to use and it up there with some of the more advanced thermal materials.

the following are great posts etc on ICD or simply repasting

http://forum.techinferno.com/frontpage-news/912-innovation-cooling-%96-diamond-24-carat-thermal-compound-review.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m17x/1488-tuniq-tx-4-thermal-paste.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m17x/29-[photoguide]-cleaning-replacing-thermal-compunds-gpu-cpu-m17x-r2.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m14x/1186-changing-thermal-compound-what-decrease-temperature-can-i-expect.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/815-innovation-cooling-ic-diamond-giveaway-survey.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/913-ic-diamond-24-survey-results.html

Edited April 10, 2012 by mw86

[evgasr2]

Thanks, I have seen the ICD survey results before. only thing that doesnt allow me to use it is, it damages the gpu die.

and what about PK-1 ? how does it perform? does it damage the gpu die if I do the repaste once a month?

[mw86]

Thanks, I have seen the ICD survey results before. only thing that doesnt allow me to use it is, it damages the gpu die.

and what about PK-1 ? how does it perform? does it damage the gpu die if I do the repaste once a month?

you'll have to see if anyone else has used PK-1 or look for more data and statistics etc on it as I haven't used it and am not sure about its function. If done perfectly everytime no it should not damage you gpu die using any paste... but if you go by Murpheys law lol "whatever can go wrong will go wrong" (or something like that) then one would advise against repasting your gpu as often as 1 month. May I ask why you would need to repaste that often?

Edited April 10, 2012 by mw86

[evgasr2]

Il check reviews about PK-1 and most people told that its a good paste, have to try it my self. lol @Murphey law.

btw: OH I fogot to mention that this dell card goes info my Asus G73 , so would have some problems so I will be stripin it whenever I need, so nothing should go wrong , thats why im thinking of not going with ICD. Most of the Asus G73 owners who tried the hd 6970m upgrade used ICD and now their GPU's are dead , so we are suspecting that the thermal paste did the trick, and with stock asus hd 5870m card , we did the repaste with ICD but nothing happened because it has a cover on the GPU , I think with dell cards , the thermal paste go over the die so it does something, im not sure.

[mw86]

Il check reviews about PK-1 and most people told that its a good paste, have to try it my self. lol @Murphey law.

btw: OH I fogot to mention that this dell card goes info my Asus G73 , so would have some problems so I will be stripin it whenever I need, so nothing should go wrong , thats why im thinking of not going with ICD. Most of the Asus G73 owners who tried the hd 6970m upgrade used ICD and now their GPU's are dead , so we are suspecting that the thermal paste did the trick, and with stock asus hd 5870m card , we did the repaste with ICD but nothing happened because it has a cover on the GPU , I think with dell cards , the thermal paste go over the die so it does something, im not sure.

I don't know of 1 case that had good evidence of ICD ever killing a gpu or cpu based on die scratches from ICD. Maybe the collective forum can elaborate if they have any examples of such an occurrence. Can you find any related posts on the case you are referring to? I know some Asus owners have reassembled and had a non working system and could be related to any number of things from static discharge to a microfracture in a PCB... Still I am not refuting your example and I can only agree that if those are your plans then yes don't use ICD but try PK-1, Tuniq or Mx-4 If there is such a danger using ICD it would be great to show evidence of this for others to heir on a side of caution.

[evgasr2]

here it is mate:

Well the problem could be me aswell I did warm it up but still all the pastes i have used in the past 10 years on desktops and notebooks IC7 is the hardest to clean and really thik. Strange but sad is that all the GPU i used the IC7 on haved died in the end. It might have been low room temperature or i might have rushed to screw the heatsink on...all i know is i will be keeping away from IC7 for a while

My first IC7 repaste on the G73 lasted a good 5 moths after that started the 6970m saga. by DH48

Reason for ICD in G73 lasted for that long can be because , the gpu has a cover over it, so the excess thermal paste will be idleing over the protective firm.

and for Alieware systems, it has a black colour thing in the heatsink , so it mite not allow the thermal paste to spread all over the otherplaces. but G73 heatsink doesnt . Im not sure, just a thought.

[mw86]

I don't even bother warming it up I apply it right room temp from tube. Might be hard to use or maybe apply but a paste is good at what it does if it performs well thermally and even better if it isn't conductive over time a paste isn't going to damage the die in use of the system and if excess bleeds there might have been too much there. Handling the whole setup at all is risky for all of us. I haven't had a gpu die... I had one that needed it bios chip reprogrammed after a bad vbios undervolt. Scratch that I had one die years ago I had fun overclocking to oblivion the chip was back when they didn't even put fans or heatsinks on gpus. How does a low room temperature add to chance of damage in repasting? 5 months is a short time to judge a paste MX-4 is "guaranteed" for 4-6 years. It would be interesting for Andrew from Innovation Cooling to come back and talk of any GPU/CPUs found to die with use of his companies product He's always been very informative and knowledgeable on the subject. He posted so many useful information on how pastes if not designed right can bake out and how application is one of the number one deciding factors of how well a repaste will be often so many myths exist in application procedures. If your repasting on a die with little coverage of the exposed circuitry then moderation is the best policy be it any paste.

Edited April 11, 2012 by mw86