Thermalright Thermal Pad 12.8 W/mK, 120x120x2mm, Non Conductive Heat Resistance High Temperature Resistance, Silicone Thermal Pads for Laptop Heatsink/GPU/CPU/LED Cooler (2mm)

First, I would like to say why I gave this product a 5 star review, and you can apply this review to all sizes of these pads from this company. Second, I'll write a short message to those giving the low reviews to maybe help you guys out as well.I really enjoy this product. So much so, that I have bought this product twice in some sizes and 3 times in others. I currently own 2 3080's(Gigabyte Aorus Master) and a 3090(TUF Gaming). The 3080's were thermal throttling and hitting 110 C on the memory junction temperature. I watched a few videos online and decided to upgrade the thermal pads that were on the card, and add the missing pads on the back. I measured out the thermal pads, and ordered the right sizes from this company. After replacing and adding the thermal pads my memory junction temps dropped from 110 C to 80 C. Along with dropping the temps, I was able to increase the memory clock and get proper functionality of the card. It wasn't without struggle, and I think that's why some people may write a bad review of this product. So the second part of this review will be to generally help those who are struggling.A couple of things first, be sure to have a program that can report to you the three major temperature sensors on the card. GPU Temperature, Memory Junction Temperature, and Hot Spot Temperature. The GPU Temperature and Memory Junction Temperature are the two most important, as the Hot Spot Temp is derived from several temperature sensors.SCENARIO 1 - Your GPU Temps are good, and your Memory Junction Temps are high. You replace the thermal pads and Your GPU Temps increase and your Memory Junction Temps remain high. This problem can result from 2 different issues. One, you replaced a stock thermal pad with an upgraded thermal pad that is too thick. What happens is you get an uneven amount of pressure from the backplate and the heat sink. The thicker thermal pad can keep the heatsink from making proper contact with the heat sink, and improper pressure on the thermal pads causing the memory junction temps to rise as well. FIIX - Find the thermal pad that is too thick and replace it with a slightly thinner pad. There may be more than one pad that is too thick, so check them all. The other solution to this problem comes from the backplate screws not being properly tightened. Tighten them to hand tight, but don't put too much force, or you may strip the screws.Scenario 2 : Same as first, except when you test your gpu you get good Memory Junction Temps, but your GPU and Hotspot Temps are elevated. This problem occurs when there is an even distribution of pressure on the thermal pads, as the Memory Junction Temps are low, but the Heat Sink is not making proper contact with the gpu, causing the GPU Temps to rise. The solution to this problem is almost the same as above, with a few exceptions. First, check the backplate screws. Again, this solution may be just this simple, and yes, this happened to me twice on the 3080's. The first time i tore the card down, and put it back together and it worked fine. During the tear down, i noticed that two of the spring screws(M2x7mm) were fairly loose. When I put it back together, I didn't make anymore thermal pad changes, just double checked that the backplate screws were tightened properly. On the first test, GPU Temps were at 46 C, and Mem Junc Temps at 76 C... Perfect. On the second 3080, I was getting the same problem, and before tearing it down i double checked the screws, and sure enough one was loose. Tightened the screw and temps dropped immediately. Now, if you check the backplate/heatsink screws, and they are all tight, then you may have a second problem. This problem will be that all of the pads on either the back side of the card, or the front side of the card, or both, are too thick. If the memory temps are all low, but the gpu temps are high, then the thickness of the new thermal pads may be too thick, and the heatsink is not making contact with the gpu. This scenario is different from the first one, because in this scenario the new thermal pads are making even contact with the memory. For that reason, you would need to change all the thermal pads so that you can continue to get that even distribution of pressure on the thermal pads. Just as a tip, if your gpu temps are extremely high, then take off a mm from the thermal pad thickness, if the temps or only slightly elevated, then replace the thermal pads with a thermal pad that's only 0.5mm less thick. For example, if you have 2mm pads, and the temps are extremely high, then replace the 2mm pads with 1mm pads. If its only moderate, then replace the 2mm pads with 1.5mm pads. This is also making the assumption that you applied the thermal paste on the gpu die properly. This, too, can be the problem.Scenario 3 : The gpu temps are low, but the Memory Junction Temps remain high. This problem is caused by not replacing the thermal pads correctly, or using the wrong sizes. A few things to take into account, the manufacturer of the card may use cheap thermal pads, or, and I know this going to blow your mind, no thermal pads at all. On the 3080 Aorus cards, the thermal pads on the backside of the DDR6x memory were missing. And yes, I said cards, so it wasn't just an oversight, it was a flaw in their design. If I were to only replace the thermal pads they had on the top of the memory, then the memory would still overheat from the bottom. So I not only had to replace the thermal pads that Gigabyte had in the card, but I had to add 6 additional thermal pads between the backside of the ddr6x memory and the backplate. So be generous when replacing the thermal pads. Replace all thermal pads on the top and make sure to place/replace the thermal pads on the backside of the memory. Now, if you've done all of this and you are still getting high memory temps, then there is still one more thing to do, check the impressions of the memory on the thermal pads. A properly functioning thermal pad doesnt just need to be touching the component, it needs to have s sufficient amount of pressure on the component. So check the the thermal pad on the pcb/memory side, and make sure that the ddr6x memory is making a visible impression. If there is no visible impression, then the heat will not being getting away effectively. Increase the thickness of the thermal pads on the ddr6x memory, and this could solve your problem. This was the fix for my tuf gaming 3090. I couldn't get the memory temps down, until noticed that one of my thermal pads had no memory impressions. I increased the thickness of the pad by 0.5mm and it solved the problem.Keep in mind, this doesn't cover all problems that may arise. These are only the problems that I have come across, and how I troubleshooted them with my results. I recommend getting yourself some replacement screws, sold here on amazon. My cards have used M2x3mm/4mm/7mm. Be very careful when removing and replacing your screws. I have stripped one screw, which I was able to extract, and since then have replaced all my backplate with a higher quality screw.I wish you all the best of luck, and if you left a bad review, go back and try troubleshooting your card again. You'll find that the thermal conductivity of these pads are amazing!

Completely resolved my memory temperature issues on my Gigabyte OC RTX 3080. Went from 106-108C @100% fan speed and thermal throttling all the way down to a stable 78-80C @65% fan speed while mining eth. Gigabyte and other manufacturers should have used these pads in the first place. If you have the same card and want to fix your high memory temperature issues you'll need 2mm pads to go between the memory chips and heatsink. For even better results you can add 3mm pads on the back side of the board behind the memory chips to transfer some extra heat to the cards backplate.If you're not satisfied with the results these thermal pads deliver you're using the wrong thickness or incorrectly applying them. These pads really do work.

The 3mm pads seemed to be slightly thinner then my stock 3mm pads on my msi rtx 3080 ventus x3. However I did not measure but every listing / article online said stock pads were 3mm. These were also firmer so didn't clamp around vram chips as much thankfully the ventus backplate is plastic so it did flex. A slightly thinner pad manages to make backplate stick out.Now on to performance. I did manage to get a 12c decrease in vram Temps which was whole purpose in doing this. Also for anyone looking to do this upgrade I will tell you this. You only need half this size to complete the task if u play tetris and don't waste your pad. You will need 3mm for rear memory. 2mm for front gpu side memory. And 1mm only if u decide to do the power caps. I chose to test without changing the 1mm cap pads. So yes you could buy 1 pad of gelid 2mm and 1 3mm and only spend $30ish.

(Picture doesn’t have the two side strips, please do not use this picture as a reference)I’ll take this as a life lesson but these 2mm are either slightly thicker than 2mm or just so not squish down as well as Gelid Extreme.I spent 12 hours troubleshooting “GPU Hot Spot Temperature” spiking to 105c and it turns out it was because of these being used on the die side for the VRAM. For the backplate they seem to work fineFor the GPU die side I recommend going to Gelid 2mm Extreme or possibly try Thermalright 1.5mm Extreme (currently untested by myself). I am awaiting on some Gelid 2mm Extreme now. I replaced several pads with the 1.5mm Gelid Extreme which has me back in a workable state slightly better than OEM.

These pads saved my EVGA 1080ti SC2 and my Aorus 1080 cards. Before I used these pads, both cards were having artifact and shutdown issues. Now I’m able to throw whatever at these cards and they run like new. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test with Amazon’s new world loading screen stress test but I’m sure these cards would have handled it.I've swapped thermal pads on a number of Graphics cards and sometimes I'll have issues after the procedure. These issues have always resulted from the new pads not compressing like the original pads. In these instances, you'll have to swap all the pads and go with a smaller size. For instance, I've swapped a lot of pads that are 1.5mm, but then I'll have shutdown issues with the new 1.5mm pad that I used. Switching to a 1.0mm pad resolves the issues.Honestly, if you spent $600, $800, or $1200 on a Graphics card, then reordering a pack a $40 pads should be a non issue. It makes no sense to complain about the price of a pad if you're doing the procedure on a $600 GPU.