More RTX 50 series owners report thermal gel leakage on Gigabyte GPUs, following official statement
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With graphics cards being the single most expensive component in a PC build, the idea of something being wrong with your brand-new GPU is a nightmare scenario for many PC enthusiasts. Users of Gigabyte RTX 5080 graphics cards have been understandably alarmed to see thermal gel leaking out of their GPUs, though Gigabyte insists it is nothing to worry about.
Only a couple of weeks ago, we reported that an owner of a Gigabyte-branded RTX 5080 graphics card was experiencing thermal gel oozing out from under the heat sink. Though thermal compound is an often-overlooked part of a PC build, it is vital for keeping chips such as the CPU or GPU cool.
- GPU: GB203
- CUDA Cores: 10752
- VRAM: 16GB GDDR7
- Memory Bus width: 256 bit
- Base Clock speed: 2295 MHz
- Boost Clock speed: 2617 MHz
Gigabyte says there is nothing to worry about
Gigabyte claims that the leaking thermal gel is merely a ‘cosmetic variance' and should not affect the performance or reliability of the card. However, more users have reported this thermal gel leaking problem, with increasing concerns about how it might affect their PC rigs.
Two users on the TechPowerUp forums both reported similar issues on the same day. The first, identified by the username TaLL, reported seeing thermal gel from their Gigabyte RTX 5080 slipping down the card and towards the I/O ports. This was due to his Lian Li PC case using a vertical mounting set-up for the graphics card. Shortly after, another user called Vermie22 reported a similar problem, though they didn’t confirm which SKU they were using.
In the previous press release, Gigabyte said its cards undergo thorough testing and should not be hindered by the type of mounting being used. However, this has not calmed user concerns. Owners of these Gigabyte RTX 5080 cards remain unsure how to respond to the leaking problem, especially if the wayward thermal gel starts to get into other components.
Gigabyte should find a way to address these problems before more cases like this are reported.
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