Because the nature of the card is so hot due to the weak stock cooling solution, and the hot climate in Malaysia doesn’t help either I decided to crack this thing open. Seriously, I don’t want to FUBAR the card by running it at 100+ degree Celsius during load.

Take a look …

First of all , the default thermal paste isn’t that good and I don’t think the thermal pad(white cloth-like material)  is a good solution at all as they stick dust. Ughhh . So I decided to crack it further and revealed the heatsink and aluminum fins. Do notice that there are some plastic sticker that sticks the plastic case with the shroud, IMO it’s recommended to remove them.

There, the cleaned up version… smooth and shiny.

Further apply better thermal paste (Arctic Cooling MX2) , cleaning off some dust and unwanted  debris.

Installing back to the case ..

The result for the effort

It’s only 75 degree Celcius on load. Same result obtained during a session of playing Prince of Persia. Not entirely groundbreaking, but I’m relieved because it runs off much cooler now and the temperature is perfectly acceptable.

Finally, the process of dismantling the card is a pain in the a$$ because you need to unscrew a total of 12 screws !