Maybe not big gaps
It’s not a huge difference — it might even be small — but use liquid metal to reduce the temperature. It will lower it by at least 10 degrees compared to what it is now.
I know because you don’t do it before
Watch the video and you’ll understand — I used to do the same as you, estimating the size of the thermal pads on GPU cards in all my laptops just by eye, without any actual measurements using a millimeter gauge. But when I applied the method shown in this video on one of the laptops I own, I realized that you must calculate the thickness of the thermal pads for each component they will cover before placing the heatsink on the GPU die.
Heat dissipation from the heatsink will be weak with PTM and these thermal pads, as the gap between the GPU core and the heatsink will be relatively large.
Use liquid metal along with properly sized thermal pads, because the GPU’s power is high compared to the heatsink’s performance
Do exactly what’s shown in this video and don’t rely on visual estimation only. Use a measuring tool to measure the thickness of the thermal pads. I know you have experience, but follow this method anyway — I also relied on experience and just looking, but when I applied what’s in this video, I got results I didn’t expect. It significantly reduced temperatures, with a difference of more than 10 degrees between the hotspot and GPU temperature.