Greetings,

Getting plenty done in computer stuff today. This has been on my list for a while and now its time. My GPU is running on an all time new HIGH hot. Last night i hit 78 degrees Celsius and it began to throttle i noticed frame rate drops.

I have a MSI R6870 Hawk twin frozer. Ive repasted many CPU's but never a GPU. Has anyone any experience with this? is it just remove the 6 screws clean up old paste, apply new and put back together or is there thermal pads on the VRAM?

Just a little nervous and im not finding any online guides..  I re-pasted my 9800GT. It's pretty much as you describe; unscrew the cover and remove it and replace the paste. There are thermal pads on other components but I left them in place. I Did find to my DISMAY that it still ran as hot as before- nearly 98 degrees at idle.

I decided to take apart the COWLING itself and found that the air channels the fan BLOWS air through and out the back of the card were completely clogged with dust. I cleaned those out and put the card back together and back in it's PC and it ran at 43 degrees idle.
Some cards have thermal pads on the VRAM, just be careful not to tear them and they can easily be reused - in fact I recommend reusing them wherever possible as it's often difficult to get the EXACT correct thickness pads to replace them.  Other than that, yes, it's usually very straightforward indeed, just remember to unscrew and unplug the fan if needed.