Hell fellow miners. Just uploaded a poorly produced step-by-step video of how to replace the thermal pads on the Gigabyte RTX 3080, as well as adding backplate thermal pads. I have found I had to do both in order for the card to be stable and not throttle. I’ve written numbered steps down below as well.
Video: https://youtu.be/5XYGC3PivVM
Step 1: take out all the screws on the back plate. Should be 10.
Step 2: Gently pry off the backplate by holding both ends of the card. You’ll need to use a little pressure because the oil and GPU paste offer some resistance, but don’t rip it off because step 3 requires you to disconnect the fans.
Step 3: Once the housing is separated and you’re holding both sides an inch apart, disconnect the 2x fan clips first, which have come out very easily for me, then open the card up and lay it down on the table so you can access the single fan clip that is notoriously hard to remove. I literally ripped this thing off of the pcb pins on one of the cards because it was so tight, but was able to put it back on without issue.
Step 4. Remove the existing thermal pads on the copper (4 pieces) grab a q-tip or cotton swab and sop up the loads of grease on the memory. I recommend cleaning them with a conservative amount of isopropyl on the tip, then then another once over with a dry cue tip for any residual grease or iso.
Step 4, Install new thermal pads to replace what you took off on the copper, cutting them in roughly the same size and shape as what you took off. Goal is to cover the memory without getting to close to the GPU. You can just take a photo beforehand so you know where to place them or reference mine. It takes 2 packs of thermal pads to do 1 card. I used 1 pack of 2mm and 1 pack of 3mm.
Step 5. Take out the remaining 3 screws on the pcb to separate the pcb from the back plate.
Step 6. Add thermal pads. You can either go by my photos or look on the backplate for the etched outlines, as seen on the copper, of where to place the pads.