u/braddersladders

My gpu is a rtx 3070 (exact model) purchased 5 years ago and has been problem free. Recently been playing witcher 3 remastered and noticed the fans suddenly ramping up when gpu hit 78 degrees celcius, which was weird, its gone past 80 comfortably . Did some research and learned of hotspots and using hwinfo I can see the hotspot is 105 degrees when playing. I've tested both battlefield 6 and Holdfast and same result, temps go up, the hotspot hits 105, and the gpu fans roar into max speed.

Hwinfo data is as follows:

idle- gpu 38, hotspot, 48.

gaming: gpu 78, hotspot 105.

Are there steps I can run through to test the heat problem, dust check etc, or does this scream ''change gpu thermal paste'' and how much of a balllache is that if I have to?