I now have 50c idle top card, 35c bottom card. I have two 6970's, any suggestions on thermal pads? I need enough for two. And suggestions on Thermal Paste?
What coolers are you using? You probably can't use thermal pads if the cooler's not touching the RAM/VRM's. You would need heatsinks and thermal tape. Enzotech makes some nice heatsinks that can be cut down to fit with wire-snips (MOS-C1's for the small VRM chips and their ramsinks for the VRAM). For thermal tape, I usually recommend Sekisui. You can get a ton of it on eBay for next to nothing (some guy in VA sells it in strips of 8-12 for a few bucks), and it works great. Avoid 3M thermal tape as it's unreliable.
You can also buy "VRM-XXX" heatsink kits directly from Arctic (or on eBay, jab-tech, or performance-pcs) that will come with thermal glue. This is easier than thermal tape, but you'll have issues if you need to re-sell the card later or send it for RMA.
When installing the tape+heatsinks (or thermal glue and heatsinks), you'd want to remove the coolers for room, and then clean off the RAM+VRM chips with an eraser and 91% rubbing alcohol. Acetone works too.
TAPE: Then you'd apply the tape to the base of the heatsinks (make sure you've cut them to size so they won't block the cooler, and then seat the heatsinks on the chips. Make sure the heatsinks are not bridging any resistors or other chips. Afterwards, you'd want to use a hairdryer set to high to heat-cycle the heatsinks and tape for a few seconds at a time to make sure they'll stay put.
GLUE: If you're using the Arctic kits & thermal glue, apply the heatsink and let it sit for the recommend time period (ideally overnight). Be extremely careful when setting the heatsinks so you don't bridge any chips or resistors. Heat-cycling isn't necessary with the AC kits and thermal glue.
After the above steps are done, reinstall the coolers with new TIM. I like to use non-conductive TIM for GPU's like AS Ceramique (available at radioshack) or MX4 (available at Amazon, etc).
