Worth re-applying thermal paste?

I just bought ICD7 off amazon to put onto my GPU. After running Kombustor for about 9 minutes with the stock paste, my GPU reached 90 degrees C and usually only goes to around 80-82 while gaming. Is it worth using the ICD 7? I've heard of people's temps actually rising after doing it themselves so if I got a good factory paste job I might just stick with it for a while.

PS: I also plan to OC my card fairly soon.

EDIT: Clarification.

 

I would give it another shot you might have been to generous or stingy, you will find perfect balance with some practice

 

Certainly have another go as above you do not always get the correct result first time round you may have a bubble or grease on the DIE or even a hair so many things can effect the cooling. Make sure you are cleaning with alcoholic swabs and apply a pea sized blob of ICD dead centre and when reseating the heatsink try to lower it down dead on to not smudge the compound and then screw it in quick. The 675M should be below 80oC I only hit 79oC max on my 6990M and it should easily beat that.

 

I'd recommend a repasting, mine was 15c hotter out of the factory than it was after repasting.

 

Got 5C drop here with Prolimatech PK-3 vs the factory ICD7 paste job (paid $35...).

 

Oh wow sorry my initial post was unclear. My stock paste was getting those temps off of Kombustor.

I went ahead and did the ICD7 and got to about 88 with Kombustor, but I didn't really let it cure before I did so. Going to run it again in a little while to see if there's a difference. Playing Guild Wars 2 I was around 83 (about 2 deg lower than last time). Went down to 77 max while playing BF3 from 80. One thing I did notice is that it seems to take the GPU a bit longer to cooldown now, despite not reaching as high a temperature. Idle temps seem 1-2 degrees lower as well. If what people say is true and they're getting -5C after using ICD7 I'll probably try to do it again. It appears to have helped, but not that much.

 

Yeah give it another go, bit more practise and you'll be right. I hit about 80 max playing crysis 2 with 90% and higher GPU utilisation (running in dx9 mode). BF3 for me doesn't go above 75 with its current under utilisation.

 

Has anyone tried putting 2 smaller beads next to eachother on the GPU instead of just one in the middle?

 

I use IC Diamont 24 and it lower my temp.Repaste and foil is a must.
Now I have only 73C max in games.Before 85C.

 

I reapplied 3 times.
realized that you barely need to use any. never spread just put one tiny dot and it will flatten out to cover the whole surface area.
you put too much over heats.

 

Small Pea sized blob OP and you do not need to let ICD cure 10 minutes and it should be set.

 

Hmm I started using my 7970m as soon as I repasted, is this bad? Should I have let it set for ~10 mins?

 

Application

 

nope, i've always done that myself

 

No Once the compound is on its working straight away just to reach optimum performance compounds have to cure around 200 hours and TIMS needs a few minutes to set.

 

Is this for all compounds? I'm using IC Diamond.

 

IC Diamond does not need to cure, apply it and enjoy.

 

IC Diamond is quite special

 

I quit using ICD7 after I see scratches on my GTX675M.

 

Thanks for the replies all, going to try repasting again today. The problem I found after checking the paste the secon time i did it is that since the 675M is a rectangle, the paste would not make it all the way to the sides, but would cover it top to bottom. I'm pretty sure I was using enough as well. Is there some way to fix this or is this just how it works?

Yeah same here, but do the scratches really matter? Unless you are returning it, it shouldn't make much difference.

 

Yes the diamond in the IC does cause some side effects, I swear by the stuff but if you value the mirror reflection on your DIE try not reapply too many times or if you like your Copper staying the colour of Copper stay clear of it or expect a purple stain.

 

Well, it's a permanent damage since it cannot be removed, let's say if you want to upgrade and sell this card in the future, you can't sell it because of the scratches.

 

True, but it shouldn't affect performance right?

EDIT: After this last repaste, BF3 maxed out at 78 C usually staying around 77. Opinions on these temps? About 3 degrees lower than stock paste so I guess I'll just leave it as is and maybe do the foil method.

 

It won't affect performance. That temperature looks about right, my GTX675M max temp OC'd to 700/1500 is around 82C after 2 hours of BF3 on both team deathmatch/conquest large mode.

 

IC Diamont 24 with foil
BF3 ultra 4AA 73C,ultra no AA 68C
Before 85C

The best paste I ever use.

 

So your overheating issue is fixed?

 

Those temps sound great! I would definitely recommend doing the foil thing to the heatsinks as it will certainly help direct the air out of the laptop properly.

 

Yes,foil and ic diamont 24 fix it
now 83C in Furmark,before 90C
Kombustor is only 78C now

Im thinking to go further,drill holes in bottom cover where gpu is and use quiet cooler.