Why and where do people use thermal padding when water cooling their GPU?

[Michael_108]

I've recently looked into water cooling my system and I wasn't sure where to put thermal padding on my gpu, and why? Thanks in advance.

 

[Hamperking68]

Hi Michael, There are to places on your GPU that the heat-sink would normally apply too. Your cores and memory chips; In my experience the thermal pads you are talking about would go onto the memory chips and thermal paste would be applied to the main core of the GPU. Just be sure to clean the core first with alcohol before applying new paste.

 

[PacificNic]

Thermal pads go onto VRAM (memory chips around the core) and VRMs (on the back of the GPU) and they transfer heat from the components to the block or backplate. On the GPU core you will only ever use thermal compound.