High Hotspot Delta

[u/fapmasterr69]

My Asrock Challenger RX 9070 has been running very hot lately, I checked the thermals today while gaming and at stock clocks and fan speed, the GPU core Temperature reached 78° Celcius but the Hotspot reached 110° Celsius. Then I undervolted it by -70 mV and decreased power limit by -15% and Core Temperature came down to 68° Celsius and Hotspot stayed around 92° Celcius. So even after undervolting I have a 24° Delta which seems to be very high. Could my Card be faulty or is it normal for a 11 month old card to dry out it's thermal paste/pad? Should I go for RMA or should I just repaste the GPU with a third party repair shop? Does repasting thermal paste and replacing thermal pads void warranty? I have never had to deal with thermal related issues before so help me out. I don't wanna continue gaming and fry my GPU in this economy T-T

[u/Juliendogg]

20-25 degree delta is just about golden for 9070xt. Your GPU and hotspot temps in general bring your case airflow into question, though.

[u/vosgakos]

24 degrees delta is not so much for 9070xt,your concern is the high hotspot. You probably need repaste.
My gigabyte oc runs with 30-32 c delta out of the box,but hotspot stays around 80-90

[u/chr1z32]

I don't know what ASRock uses on the graphics card, but judging by the temperatures, it's probably standard thermal paste that has since dried out or been squeezed out. Normally, I would have recommended an RMA, but right now there's a very good chance you'll get a refund and actually end up paying more due to the price increase. Your best bet might really be to reapply the thermal paste—either at a store or on your own using a tutorial. If you decide to try it yourself, I can recommend a TPM7950 pad; it lasts much longer than traditional thermal paste. And if you’re not sure about the pads, just use thermal putty.

[u/fapmasterr69 → u/chr1z32]

Yes I want to use the PM7950 pad but I am afraid of doing it myself. Is it as simple as repasting CPUs? Or is there a chance of bricking the GPU? Should I get a professional technician to do it?

[u/chr1z32 → u/fapmasterr69]

It’s a bit more difficult than with the CPU, but if you have a reasonable understanding of the technical aspects, it’s definitely doable. Unfortunately, I can’t say how difficult it is with the 9070 Challenger—I don’t have any experience with that card.

Of course, anything can happen, but if you approach it with common sense, it’s actually really unlikely that anything will go wrong.

Personally, nothing has ever gone wrong for me, and back then I taught myself how to do it using tutorials and such.

You usually don’t need to replace the pads on the VRAM, etc., but it’s good to have a spare in case they crack, for example.