After a considerable time of usage I decided to reaply some thermal paste on my MSi RTX 2070 Armor (non OC).

The thermal paste choosen was Arctic Silver 5 (just because I already had some) and I'm definitely not satisfied with the results on the GPU. While playing The Witcher 3 I'm getting almost 80° C with fans opperating above 1900 RPM.
For the record, my pc case has decent air circulation.

Does anyone know why is that happening? Should I try another brand? I've read on other forums that Arctic Silver 5 needs 200 hours of cure time to start to show good results but I've also read some people saying that's bs.

I've applied the same thermal paste on my CPU (Ryzen 7 2700x stock) and I'm having good temperatures with it.

….

I heard that recent Nvidia drivers are kinda messed up. Are you certain the reported temperatures are the correct ones? I own an AMD card, so it could be that what I heard about the Nvidia drivers, might just be AMD fanboys making shit up. So take it with a grain of salt.

Why would anyone match that card with an AMD processor? Or any processor, for that matter? o.O


For OP: if the card isn't catching on fire you should consider yourself lucky.

Oh wait. Ray tracing. Whatever that is.

Armor is (or at least was) notorious for being one of the worst models for a few years now. Especially when it comes to cooling. That is why they are usually noticeably cheaper than others.

Yes, 78°C it's a bit high, but it's not an alarming temperature for GPUs and CPUs. You can use RTSS Rivatuner Statistics Server, which is included with MSI Afterburner, and limit the FPS to your monitor's refresh rate. That will reduce the load on the GPU. Maybe disable Nvidia HairWorks - that's a big resource hog.

Note what settings are you using now and compare the current temps with the temps after the paste curing is done, using same settings ofc. If they are not any better, then you might wanna try a better thermal paste, like ​Noctua NT-H1 or Cooler Master MasterGel Maker. Don't get other thermal paste from Cooler Master, because they are not as good as the two already mentioned.

Seeing that you're located in Brazil, if your room temperature is above 25°C, then those GPU temps might not be that bad.

seems about right with temps, I have room temps of 19c with the AC on in Canada during summer and my temps of my old 1080 ti and my new 2080 and 2080ti always hit 70 at max load. so you are actually very lucky to get those temps in that region. another way to reduce is use a liquid cooler on that GPU and you can stable it to 67 to 70 with it.

tbh dont know anything 'boot this, but it does remind me every summer when teh heat rises my office 'puter basically groans with exertion, lol. poor thing.

Hope one day heat will be not an issue for anything tech, that and dust.

Hi WillianJohn.

First of all your PC specifications are ones befitting of a killer PC, for this game at least, and do not cause any noteworthy performance bottlenecks. Your CPU is way over what this game needs and is certainly not used as much as your GPU does. You are practically future-proof on hardware for at least three (3) years, if I might say.
I am guessing you are playing on a 2K+ resolution, so please let me know on that regard.
Concerning the temperature climb, 80-90 degrees of Celsius are the maximum tolerated temperature of any PC component. Anything above 90 degrees of Celsius is lethal to your hardware and will probably fry it in a matter of weeks of utilization.
"Cure" time is specifically used for testing faulty hardware and troubleshooting graphical artifacts/glitches, when the GPUs chip is considered the culprit. Other than that, it just strains your hardware for no reason and limits its lifespan. Advised only for over-clocking enthusiasts, who can frequently upgrade their hardware.
You have already checked for tower airflow and dust residuals, so I suggest opening up the case's side "flaps" and let it breath, especially in the summer. This will reduce in-box temperature by about 2-3 degrees of Celsius.
Assuming that the thermal paste was pre-applied for you, or that you applied it correctly I have a few suggestions to make sure it was indeed properly applied. Avoid using too much thermal paste on top of the chip. The exact perfect quantity is about one and a half (1.5) the size of a pea. Once it rests on the chip, use a soft plastic card, like a credit card, store card e.t.c., to distribute it evenly on the chip's surface. Too much thermal paste is as bad as too little.
Taking into account the displayed FPS on the screenshot you uploaded, you are probably playing with "V-sync" or "frame capping" turned off. What I suggest is for you to cap the FPS around the value of 60, either from the in-game settings or the "Radeon Settings", by creating a game specific profile. Currently your GPU is working on its max capacity, to produce as much frames as possible, wasting rendering resources and heating up considerably more. Doing that will reduce the temperature of your GPU around 5-8 degrees of Celsius and save you some power consumption.
Lastly, but most importantly, if the environment were you rig is suffers from high temperatures, above 25-30 degrees of Celsius, or there is a heat wave on your country, then you should consider keeping the room where your PC is cooled enough, around 20-25 degrees of Celsius, or buying a new cooling solution, not based on air-cooling but on water-cooling (A bit pricy for GPU implementations but most effective, dropping the temperatures about 5-10 degrees of Celsius. Be aware though of posible liquied leaks, even though they are really rare, provided you handle the tubes gently). Also try to avoid any unnecessary over-clocking.
Hope this helps you so far. Please let me know if it does and don't hesitate to contact for further advice or P.M. me.

Best of luck and cheers.

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I'm not tech savvy, so my question may be pretty dumb, but when you say you already had that paste at home...could it be that it is too old (assuming that thermal paste loses its effect after some time of storage)?

Hi BreOl72.

It really doesn't, if stored in a shaded place with room temperature. Improper storage can cause the dissolution of certain substances and deprive it of its thermal conductive properties though. In that case the paste would probably turn a bit of a bright green, depending on the brand.

Cheers.