Aspire 7720G major upgrade

Sure.

 

Hi all!
A simple question
I've just bought a new VGA card and I'll manage to swap with the broken one.
I'm wondering if I could use a copper shim between GPU and radiator instead of thermal pad, and speculate over its thikness. This could help heat transfer but if too thick, it will be stress the chip, if too less it would not able to dissipate, regardless of the presence of thermal paste.

Or is it better to substitute the thermal pad with a new one? And if yes, which thickness should I use?
I noticed that the VGA card is enveloped into a thick aluminium sheet, over which there are 3 thermal pads, and other 3 pads are glued on the dissipator.
I'll check if that pads are corrispondant to some hot component on the board, but I suppose that aluminium sheet contributes to the overall cooling of these cards, so heat can be easily transferred to radiator. Is it correct?
Thank you in advance

 

OK. Can you be a little more specific? Will the machine run much faster, or a little faster?

Oh, I would use high quality paste.

 

Downloading 2004 via windows update right now to see how the old beast likes it.

 

Sorry, just got this. Yes, I have the GM965. Not sure if that would make a difference or not on if my machine will take 8gb of ram or not. I am going to buy it from a place where I can return it.