XFX AMD HD 6970 card seems to be overheating

i have an amd 6970. i took it apart to clean it and reapply more thermal paste because the card runs so hot whenever im running any game. runs right at 90c when playing any game. after taking off the stock cooler, i noticed right away that all the pads were pretty much melted! is this normal? should i talk to technical support? im going to order more pads so is there a certain brand i should get so this wont happen again. btw i never overclocked the card so i dont understand why this happened.  any help or info would be awesome.