Gigabyte 3080 Thermal Pads are Garbage

BassTek

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jul 13, 2002
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I started mining on my Gigabyte 3080 Aorus Master in my off hours recently and noticed the fans would hit 100% almost instantly with memory temps at 110C. Gaming thermals were actually decent, 70% fan speed and ~65C on the core. I checked around and it seemed to be a common complaint with all versions of Gigabyte cards with most people adding 3mm thermal pads to the back (there are non on the back of the memory) and 1.5-2mm pads on the front.

I ordered some Thermalright 12.8W/mK pads off Amazon and did the swap tonight and it dropped temps on the memory by 22C!

Stock - 100% Fan, 110C Memory
New Pads - 70% Fan, 88C Memory

I can't believe how much of a difference it makes. It does raise the core temp though as now heat is actually getting through to the heatsink from the memory. I strongly recommend replacing and adding pads if you mine on a Gigabyte card, although check with local RMA policies before doing so.
 
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Holy crap that's expensive for the 3mm thick thermal pads.. wonder how it compares to the $6 sheet I got from ebay haha. What MH/s are you getting with the upgrade in pads and lower temps?
 
Hash rate went up a bit, 85 to 94 which is still a bit low for a 3080 I think. I'll have to tweak the memory clocks a bit now that I'm not at risk of burning things up.

From what I've read the back pads only decrease temps a few degrees, the bulk of the improvement comes from better pads on the front. Probably doesn't matter too much for the back what pads you use but I would try and put quality pads on the front.
 
110*c is nearing the upper limit for GDDR6x. 120 is typcially cited as the point of no return :):eek:minous music::).

88c is pretty good for 24/7 mining temps on the memory though.

However, in gaming, you never get remotely close to the memory temps of mining, typically falling 20-30c lower.

Regarding the Gigabyte specific memory temps, yeah, that seems really high at vanilla - my asus 3090 only hits about 100*c max mining, and averages 96*c at +550 mem, with 14 more gb of GDDR6x in essentially the same footprint.
 
Holy crap that's expensive for the 3mm thick thermal pads.. wonder how it compares to the $6 sheet I got from ebay haha. What MH/s are you getting with the upgrade in pads and lower temps?

Most "generic" thermal pads like the ebay variety are 6 W/mK.
 
110*c is nearing the upper limit for GDDR6x. 120 is typcially cited as the point of no return :):eek:minous music::).

88c is pretty good for 24/7 mining temps on the memory though.

However, in gaming, you never get remotely close to the memory temps of mining, typically falling 20-30c lower.

Regarding the Gigabyte specific memory temps, yeah, that seems really high at vanilla - my asus 3090 only hits about 100*c max mining, and averages 96*c at +550 mem, with 14 more gb of GDDR6x in essentially the same footprint.

I found that the Asus TUF 3080 I have stays around 100C without modification.

The 3090FE I have dropped 20C easy from a thermal pad mod.
 
Hash rate went up a bit, 85 to 94 which is still a bit low for a 3080 I think. I'll have to tweak the memory clocks a bit now that I'm not at risk of burning things up.

From what I've read the back pads only decrease temps a few degrees, the bulk of the improvement comes from better pads on the front. Probably doesn't matter too much for the back what pads you use but I would try and put quality pads on the front.

Back pads are more important on the 3090 as there are memory chips on the back of the PCB. You might get a little better heat transfer to the back plate with back pads. I wouldn't necessarily use those 3mm ones though, that seems like a lot.
 
Hash rate went up a bit, 85 to 94 which is still a bit low for a 3080 I think. I'll have to tweak the memory clocks a bit now that I'm not at risk of burning things up.

From what I've read the back pads only decrease temps a few degrees, the bulk of the improvement comes from better pads on the front. Probably doesn't matter too much for the back what pads you use but I would try and put quality pads on the front.
94 is in line for a 3080. I get 101 on my 3080 ftw 3 ultra. Mine is under water tho. My core stays around 40c and memory around 52c while mining. It seem it is a common thing with all 3xxx cards. Most of them seem to use trash pads.
 
I started mining on my Gigabyte 3080 Aorus Master in my off hours recently and noticed the fans would hit 100% almost instantly with memory temps at 110C. Gaming thermals were actually decent, 70% fan speed and ~65C on the core. I checked around and it seemed to be a common complaint with all versions of Gigabyte cards with most people adding 3mm thermal pads to the back (there are non on the back of the memory) and 1.5-2mm pads on the front.

I ordered some Thermalright 12.8W/mK pads off Amazon and did the swap tonight and it dropped temps on the memory by 22C!

Stock - 100% Fan, 110C Memory
New Pads - 70% Fan, 88C Memory

I can't believe how much of a difference it makes. It does raise the core temp though as now heat is actually getting through to the heatsink from the memory. I strongly recommend replacing and adding pads if you have a Gigabyte card.

I replaced the all the thermal pads completely with thermalright 12.8 W/mK on my aorus master 3080 rev1 and still see memory temps hitting 110c while mining. -200 on the core, 70% Power Limit. Not sure what the problem is. 3mm on the back, 1mm and 2mm on the front.
 
I replaced the all the thermal pads completely with thermalright 12.8 W/mK on my aorus master 3080 rev1 and still see memory temps hitting 110c while mining. -200 on the core, 70% Power Limit. Not sure what the problem is. 3mm on the back, 1mm and 2mm on the front.

It sounds like the pads aren't making good contact.
 
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I replaced the all the thermal pads completely with thermalright 12.8 W/mK on my aorus master 3080 rev1 and still see memory temps hitting 110c while mining. -200 on the core, 70% Power Limit. Not sure what the problem is. 3mm on the back, 1mm and 2mm on the front.

Like kirbyrj mentioned I would double check the pad contact. I only swapped the memory pads and left the stock ones on the power stages.

Did you use the 2mm on the memory and 1mm on power?
 
Interesting, I haven't had issues with my Aorus Xtreme 3080 - at least, I am not seeing the temps or fan usage you are.
 
Interesting, I haven't had issues with my Aorus Xtreme 3080 - at least, I am not seeing the temps or fan usage you are.

Mining? That's really the only situation I've seen memory temps that high.
 
Nah, I haven't done any mining, nor plan to, so that is possibly why.

Did it make any difference gaming at all?

Unfortunately I didn't test gaming before the swap as I never really had issues with the card for normal workloads. If anything it probably makes gaming performance slightly worse as you are adding more heat for the heatsink to deal with resulting in higher overall core temps and likely lower boost clocks.

I wouldn't recommend this if you aren't mining as the risk of a broken card is not worth it. I'm not even sure how Gigabyte feels on heatsink removal and if it hurts your chances of an RMA.
 
Yes 2mm on memory and 1mm on power.

Did you take the plastic off the one side of the pads when you installed?

(I mean I hate to be that condescending, but everyone else seems to have great results).
 
Did you take the plastic off the one side of the pads when you installed?

(I mean I hate to be that condescending, but everyone else seems to have great results).

I should have. Let me double check again. But wouldn't it have messed up other components by now? Its been 1 week since I last installed it.
 
I can't even elucidate the degree to which I'm not fucking around with my gigabyte 3080. I already had to RMA it once due to the power plug issue, now I have 8-pin extension cables just so I never need to unplug it again. I'm not touching that card until I upgrade it one day. I treat it as fragile as a cute little baby duckling with hollow bones.
 
My EVGA 3080 stays around 96-98c mining at 97mh/s. I've thought about doing the thermal pad mod but I've never taken apart a video card before and don't want this card to be the lab rat.
 
Can't you underclock the memory a little bit to control temps? Obviously that will impact speed. Micron GDDR6X TJmax is 110C so 100C is technically probably OK, but I would personally be uncomfortable going much over 90C.
 
My 3090 FTW3 HC memory has never gone above 85°C while gaming. Crazy that some people are seeing 100+ while gaming.
 
They aren't talking about gaming, they're mining cryptocurrency, probably Eth which is very memory-intensive.
 
My EVGA 3080 stays around 96-98c mining at 97mh/s. I've thought about doing the thermal pad mod but I've never taken apart a video card before and don't want this card to be the lab rat.
I wouldn't take the evga 3080 apart if it is a ftw 3 card. They are a real pita and you will have to replace all pads. They use a putty like pad on everything.
 
I wouldn't take the evga 3080 apart if it is a ftw 3 card. They are a real pita and you will have to replace all pads. They use a putty like pad on everything.
I have the XC3 Black (w/o backplate). Are they any easier?
 
Aorus Master and Xtreme (I have an Xtreme) both have bad VRM cooling by default (compared to others like EVGA FTW3 Ultra). Quite a pity for a high end line. At least you get a cool LCD screen to watch as your VRM catches fire. :)
 
You were right ! I had placed 1.5mm pads on the memory instead of 2mm. Now my memory temps are at 72c during mining. But now I observe that my GPU hotspot is at 104c compared to 95-96c previously !

I'm guessing that the newer pads don't allow for quite the same amount of mounting pressure of the HSF on the GPU. I don't know though. I don't have that card.
 
I'm guessing that the newer pads don't allow for quite the same amount of mounting pressure of the HSF on the GPU. I don't know though. I don't have that card.
Well I am not sure how this is possible, but applying 1.5mm thermal pads on all the memory chips resulted in the left hand side memory chips to not come in contact with the thermal pad. And when I replaced all of them with 2mm, my GPU die wasn't getting contact with the heatsink, hence the higher GPU hotspot. I decided to go with 2mm on the left hand side memory chips and 1.5mm on the rest of them. To my surprise now I had good contact on all thermal pads and the GPU die. Now during mining, my GPU die sits at 64c and memory at max 84c. I guess the mounting mechanism has not been constructed well, atleast for my aorus 3080 master.
 
Well I am not sure how this is possible, but applying 1.5mm thermal pads on all the memory chips resulted in the left hand side memory chips to not come in contact with the thermal pad. And when I replaced all of them with 2mm, my GPU die wasn't getting contact with the heatsink, hence the higher GPU hotspot. I decided to go with 2mm on the left hand side memory chips and 1.5mm on the rest of them. To my surprise now I had good contact on all thermal pads and the GPU die. Now during mining, my GPU die sits at 64c and memory at max 84c. I guess the mounting mechanism has not been constructed well, atleast for my aorus 3080 master.
Sounds like the card is fine and pretty well-cooled for gaming. They did not design these cards for mining. Plus if you stay under 100C on the mem it's within spec.
 
110C actually, on micron GDDR6X. I still wouldn't be comfortable that high, but that's just me.
 
0I started mining on my Gigabyte 3080 Aorus Master in my off hours recently and noticed the fans would hit 100% almost instantly with memory temps at 110C. Gaming thermals were actually decent, 70% fan speed and ~65C on the core. I checked around and it seemed to be a common complaint with all versions of Gigabyte cards with most people adding 3mm thermal pads to the back (there are non on the back of the memory) and 1.5-2mm pads on the front.

I ordered some Thermalright 12.8W/mK pads off Amazon and did the swap tonight and it dropped temps on the memory by 22C!

Stock - 100% Fan, 110C Memory
New Pads - 70% Fan, 88C Memory

I can't believe how much of a difference it makes. It does raise the core temp though as now heat is actually getting through to the heatsink from the memory. I strongly recommend replacing and adding pads if you mine on a Gigabyte card, although check with local RMA policies before doing so.
Funny, had same experience. I received an openbox, beat-up, Gigabyte 3080 Eagle that I expected would be a dud. With factory pads, VRAM TJunc was 108C with fans at 100%. Swapped to Thermalright 2mm, and Tjunc is 78C with fans at 75% and VRAM at +1500 (10751 Mhz). Amazing. It also ended up having a weirdly good roll on the ASIC - its TimeSpy beats all 3080's I've ever benched for custom builds, including TUF's, FTW3, Strix, Suprim, Hybrid's, everything.

These were the pads I bought, they're same as Gelid 2.0mm. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08Y6V5JK6/ $17 so you're paying for convenience of getting them quickly, but if you don't mind waiting 2-4 weeks, you can slow-boat from AliExpress for $5-7.

1617568980405.png
 
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I can't even elucidate the degree to which I'm not fucking around with my gigabyte 3080. I already had to RMA it once due to the power plug issue, now I have 8-pin extension cables just so I never need to unplug it again. I'm not touching that card until I upgrade it one day. I treat it as fragile as a cute little baby duckling with hollow bones.

I can also recommend buying a couple sets of these 180 degree connectors, as they eliminate wear & tear on the GPU's 8pin connectors if you have to unplug & replug a lot. They also make cabling look cleaner.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P5R258Q/

61dQPQMHsZL._AC_SL1200_.jpg

(build in progress but you get the idea)

1617571589260.png
 
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I can also recommend buying a couple sets of these 180 degree connectors, as they eliminate wear & tear on the GPU's 8pin connectors if you have to unplug & replug a lot. They also make cabling look cleaner.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P5R258Q/

View attachment 345146

(build in progress but you get the idea)

View attachment 345153
I'm surprised the EVGA powerlink isn't more popular. I picked up two of them when they were around $5 on sale and I really feel that it makes my builds look way cleaner. (As long a your videocard supports it, of course.)
https://www.newegg.com/evga-model-600-pl-2816-lr/p/N82E16814998143
 
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I'm surprised the EVGA powerlink isn't more popular. I picked up two of them when they were around $5 on sale and I really feel that it makes my builds look way cleaner. (As long a your videocard supports it, of course.)
https://www.newegg.com/evga-model-600-pl-2816-lr/p/N82E16814998143
Problem for alot of folks is the 30 series cards are already almost comically long, the powerlink puts it off the end of the board instead of behind it.
Even in the example above you couldnt fit a powerlink in that sliver of space, but the 180 degree connectors fit.
 
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