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3080 FE

NVIDIA – GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition thermal pad sizes

Required thicknesses changed somewhere in 2021.

Seems like older series of the 3080 FE fits well with 2mm on the front and 3mm on the back. However some of the newer series uses a bit thinner gaps where 1.5mm works better on the front and 2.5mm or 3mm on the back.

Your best bet is to consider by manufacturing date or take apart and measure required pads.

For the backplate, even 2mm works but 3mm may have better contact. With 3mm on the back, you may experience that it gets a little humpy but you don’t have to worry about that. According to this 2.5mm may the best option there.

Watch thermal pad replacement video
Front (from 2021):80x40x1.5mm
Front:80x40x2mm
Back:2 pieces of 80x40x2.5mm (or 3mm)
Suggested brand:GELID Solutions GP-Extreme
Source:willmnorris.medium.com

Sizes guide

  • The scrissor sign next to a size means it can be cut out from that slice of thermal pad. It is not the actual size! Example: 80x40x2mm
  • One dimension size means it’s the thickness of that pad. Example: 1mm
  • Two or three dimension sizes – with no scrissor sign – means it’s most probably an actual size. Example 100x14x1.5mm

About sizes

Sizes you find here come from various sources. Most of them reported by my clients whom successfully replaced their GPUs’ factory thermal pads with high quality aftermarket pads – getting significant results in their temperature drop. Some of these sizes are actual measurements and others just collected from random users on such websites like Reddit, YouTube or official / unofficial forums.

Do your own research

Please note that I cannot take any responsibility for the sizes appearing here. Do your own research as well before buying and replacing anything.

Tips

  • Make sure your pads and GPU die contacts well with the heatsink.
  • Always test your graphic cards and devices in controlled environment.

Share your experience

If you have more accurate information regarding the sizes or anything that worths mentioning please don’t hesitate to share us in the comment form below.

21 comments

  1. CryptoDude1997

    Awesome, thanks!

    All worked well. Running on sttable 100 MH/s now.

    • Zozo

      Szia segíts, lhr milyen core beállítás, és milyen mem beállítással dolgozol? Nb miner vagy milyen bánya program?

  2. nepthys

    I did exactly as you recommended for newer series and see no improvement at all in the temps. Very disappointed!

    • C-Note

      Pads are only a part of it. If your tune is unstable and/or air flow is insufficient pads can’t fix that.

  3. C-Note

    I’ll be doing the same pad conversion in a few days. I have 2x FEs and 2x EVGAs running 110 all the time. It was fine through the winter but starting to throttle on warm days. I’ll post results when complete. Thanks for the diagram.

  4. Csaba

    I found that 1.5mm from GPU, 2mm from the back, and replace the 4 gpu screws with a normal all the way threadded M2x8 screw so you can pull the heatsink closer to the gpu and gives you a better cooling performance. You might need a tiny washer under the screws.

  5. johnny

    This does not work on the late 2021 FEs. You are better off using 1.5 Gelid Ultimates on the inside and 3mm Gelid Extremes on back( i tested, gave me 50c on core and low 80 on memory, not great but will due for now until we find a better solution). This still wont give you the greatest temps like the 2mm extremes on inside and 3mm on the back did on the older 3080 fes. This is due to Gelid increasing the hardness on pads and Nvidia slightly changing the 3080.

    • Brian

      Johnny, I just bought a 3080 FE. Ima solve the inside with a solution from coolmygpu, but what about the outside, I’m a little confused. Do the outside strips need padded on both sides of the PCB and if so, what sizes for each side? Thanks!

    • Thank you, Johnny to clarify this! We’ve just tested and seems like 3mm makes a better contact but then the backplate may gets a little humpy. As far as I see 2mm works there too but less contact obviously. Maybe 2.5mm will be the best.

    • Celsius

      @johnny Do you have a source for “Gelid increasing the hardness on pads”? If you look at the specs on Gelid’s site, the Extreme have a shore hardness of “35 OO” and the Ultimate are “60-70 OO”. Your result is impressive, did you use Gelid Ultimate 1.5mm on the front side VRAM and VRMs? Also which thermal paste on the GPU die? I only want to do this once on my Feb 2022 3080.

  6. Renato

    I bought 3080 ti fe used, dude claims he has changed pads, I’m getting 102c when mining.
    Should I try to change them again ?

  7. Jonathon

    seriously, people are saying so many different things. what is the correct way to do this using a 3080ti fe from 2022???? please help.

  8. Scott

    Any way to find out the approximate date change for the gpu’s? I have one from 12/2021 & another from 1/22/22 and both are not wanting to play nice with the kritical kit.

    • Ethan

      Hey just wondering how you found the manufacture date? I have two 3080 fe’s and I want to change the pads but I can’t figure out they’re manufacture date.

  9. Sebastian

    I have a technical question, do you really need to replace thermalpads on the back of the GPU? Seems like backplate has so little thermal capacity that this is unnecessary, even stock thermalpads are able to deliver that amount of heat. Let me now if someone try to replace only thermalpads on the front of GPU and how was the results.

  10. Rene

    I used 1.5mm on the front and gave me better results. On the back you can use 3.0mm but 2.5mm is probably a little better. On the front, I tried 2.0mm on everything and the GPU die didn’t make contact with the cooler. Then I tried 1.5mm on the memory and 2.0mm on the rest and it worked, but the memory was reaching 96 degrees. Then I tried 1.5mm on everything on the front and the memory temp dropped to 84 degrees.

  11. tesk

    after trying squishing the 2mm gelid extreme maybe too much, now my 3080 FE wont turn on. I see only the fans spinning. I guess I have a newer version
    I changed the cable, the psu and the mobo, repaste the die but it wont turn on.
    what can I do?

  12. Koko Bann

    What about 3070 FE thermal pad sizes?

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