Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme GTX 1080Ti running a little hot

[SMOKEU]

I've had this card since I purchased it new 4 years ago and it's always run a little warm for what it is. At stock settings it gets up to 80-82C which I know isn't anywhere near dangerous, and this is with plenty of case airflow - 2x 140mm intake fans and 1x 140mm exhaust fan, all running at 1500rpm during heavy gaming loads. This is with 22C ambient room temperature and auto GPU fan speeds which runs the GPU fans around 75%.

I think it's about time I repasted the card but do I also need to replace the thermal pads at the same time? I'm a bit worried I'll kill the card by disassembling and repasting it...

 

[Oldschool_OC]

Hey Smokeu,

I recently had similar problems with my EVGA 1060 6GB. When it was stock it was pushing 75c under heavy load, but had recently been up in the mid 80's. I pulled the 4 screws off the back and cleaned/repasted the GPU/heatsink. Did not bother with the pads as they shouldn't need paste (and appeared to still be making good contact). It was pretty obvious that the paste was done for on mine.

Put it all back together and better temps (74c max now) than when it was stock. That was some months ago and still running max of 74c currently. Used Arctic silver paste.

Just be sure not to get sloppy with the paste as (I have heard) this is more of a concern on GPU's than on CPU's.

Basically if you do a clean job it should be fine.

 

[yoadknux]

I owned this card, it was also high 70s-low 80s. I ended up replacing the stock cooler with Kraken G12 and it worked great.
Regarding your issue, it's pretty easy to take this card apart and change the paste, very little risk involved. 4 years is definitely the right time to change paste. If you're unsure, don't change the pads. They probably SHOULD be changed, but its better to run with old pads than to put new pads that are either too thick and could affect the mounting pressure, or too thin and won't make contact.
That being said, don't expect major temp drops, this is still a 375W TDP card - there's only so much air cooling can do. Even with a thick heatsink and a ventilated case, heat still builds up. 70c-80c temps are perfectly fine

 

[EarthDog]

Seems normal to me. These cards run up to the temp limit by default...

375W card? 1080 Ti is 250W stock....wow