900mhz//2214//2250@50c,,GTS512mb....HoTRoD the Factory Heatsink/Stock Fan!!!!!!

[Mungri]

Nice mod!

In the past I have been advised to and have replaced the thermal paste on the GPU with AS5 which always gives me a few degrees off my temps. I was going to do this on my new card too, but you disadvise against AS5. Is it really too bad to use on just the GPU?

I decided to try zome Zalman paste on my 3870 because I had some lying around and had a seriously bad noob moment!

I took off my HSF, and on first inspection the stock paste was VERY badly applied. Only the bottom half of the GPU was covered, the top half had no paste on, and there were big clumps of paste on the chipstet die thingy around the GPU! There was actually more paste not on the GPU then there was on it lol.

So I cleaned it off with Tim clean, evenly applied my Zalamn paste, and reinstalled everything. Previously my max temp @ stock was 72 degrees. After testing my temp after putting on the Zalman paste went up to 75 degrees in less then a minute!

I thought, wow, seriously what crap paste and powered down to change it to sme AS5.

Turned out I had forgotten to plug in my GFX card fan ^^

My max temp at stock is now 70 degrees, at 801 Mhz it is 71 degrees (down by exactly 2 degrees from before - 72 / 73 degrees max).

Happy, and I used paste that was supposed to be used on a GPU.

So if you can, just use Zalman paste ^^