Whats your GPU's idle temperature? What is safe? 8800

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:07 pm

is 65c a good/safe idle temperature for a 8800 GTS 640MB with passive HR-03plus?

Thanks

Aanea · Post by **Aanea** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:41 am

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:36 am

cool, at what sort of temps do you start reducing the life of the components?

tehcrazybob · Post by **tehcrazybob** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:45 am

I'm not really sure at what point component life starts to drop, but I believe it's got to be so hot that the system is unstable before the lifespan will decrease noticeably. I've seen cards idling at more than 70Â°C or so which provided stable service well into obsolescence. I usually try to keep mine below 80Â°C at full load, but the manufacturers are more confident than that - both companies have thermal safety procedures which don't kick in until somewhere around 120Â°C.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:48 am

Here's the fun part - you are only measuring the temp of one component. You don't know what the Voltage regulation circuitry is running at or how hot the caps are.

65C idle is probably fine. My stock solution idles at 60C. If you have decent cooling for the VRM transistors, then it'll be good. Seconding Bob's comment, artifacts will appear prior to any long term degradation you'd see from the GPU or memory.

Finally, after having a couple of ATI cards go belly up a few years ago, I only buy cards with lifetime warranties. (XFX, EVGA, etc).

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:44 pm

my digital temp gun says that the heatsinks on the ram (that came with the hr03) are sub 50c which is good

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:44 pm

(tho that is on the outside so the chips are most likely still warmer)

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:09 pm

GPU and CPU vendors have radically different standards for longevity.

For example, Intel expects their CPUs, even if abused, to last 10 years (and has a 3-year no-questions-asked warranty). They typically set their throttle temperature at about 100C (lower on P4, higher on new C2D).

GPU vendors, on the other hand, even though using older silicon technology, set their throttle temperatures much higher (120+). This is great for initial reviews, but the lifetime is pretty short. This is consistent with product churn; in the graphics business a 2-year-old card is both ancient and pretty much useless.

If your GPU gets much above 80C, you can expect it to start showing artifacts within a year or two. If it gets over 90C, it might not last a year.

Keep it below 80C, and it will last longer than you want to use it.

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:16 pm

great, that is a relief, thanks guys

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:41 pm

cmthomson wrote:If your GPU gets much above 80C, you can expect it to start showing artifacts within a year or two. If it gets over 90C, it might not last a year.

Keep it below 80C, and it will last longer than you want to use it.

as with anything else untested, this is just an opinion. as is the following:

i dont worry about my video card until i get graphical glitches on the screen, and i've never had a video card fail on me before i replaced it. I've been doin this for 10 years now.

i also run an 8800GT with passive AC S1 heatsink. Only airflow in the entire system is a single 800rpm 120mm fan for exhaust that is located above the video card. Been running rock solid for over a year.

cmthomson · Post by **cmthomson** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 3:08 pm

Not entirely opinion. I've had three of three cards that were run hot have short lifetimes (one to two years before showing artifacts). Of course they still worked, sort of, if I dropped the clock rate or boosted the cooling. But most people (myself included) don't want to be bothered with this kind of maintenance.

What is definitely not opinion, is that running chips hotter shortens their lifetime. A rule of thumb, backed by decades of research, is that each 10C cuts lifetime in half. Also definitely not opinion is that most silicon-based processes start to show significant EOL issues above 105C (lots of AMD processes have had lower thresholds than that).

BTW, I too would have said my most recently replaced card was rock solid, until on a whim I ran ATItool and saw many artifacts that didn't show up in regular usage...

Gryzemuis · Post by **Gryzemuis** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 5:19 pm

I had my 8800GTX watercooled. Ran fine. Then one night I was raiding in WoW with my guild. Framerates slowly dropped from 60-70 to 10-20. Then during a bossfight framerates dropped even lower, to 5-10. I knew something was wrong. But we were in the middle of a fight, and I couldn't let down the other 24 guildies. I played for 2-3 minutes with those problems. Then quit the game, and I saw both my gpu and cpu were at 120C. It turned out rust particles had blocked the flow in my gpu waterblock.

After cleaning the waterblock, I tested my machine for 3 minutes, all seemed fine. The next day the videocard got troubles. Sometimes the screen stayed black after a boot. Sometimes I got artifacts. The end of my 8800GTX.

120C seems too much. Even for just a few minutes.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 9:51 pm

cmthomson wrote:What is definitely not opinion, is that running chips hotter shortens their lifetime.

a very subjective terminology. For all we know, running a specific video card at 100c could shorten its lifespan from 10 years to 8 years. Both of which is likely to be more than enough for anyone.

cmthomson wrote:A rule of thumb, backed by decades of research, is that each 10C cuts lifetime in half.

where is this decades of research you speak of? It would have to be VGA specific. Because obviously it does not directly corolate to all electronics the same way, see'ing how some electronics have a very low thermal limit while others have a very high thermal limit.

Again, try to refrain from using your opinions as factual in nature unless you actually have FACTS to back them up. While i do put forth my recommendations often, i never claim them to be factual, only my opinions based on personal observations.

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 6:30 am

SlaveToSilence wrote:is 65c a good/safe idle temperature for a 8800 GTS 640MB with passive HR-03plus?

Thanks

So long as you aren't planning on using it for anything but 2D mode that's ok.

What you're really interested in is how hot it gets when gaming and if it's stable. There's no point having a fanless card if it's going to crash or artifact as soon as you start playing a game.

Based on other people's experiences using G80 8800GTS 640mb cards with fanless Thermalright HR-03 Plus coolers you should really consider attaching a 120mm fan. Under load the GPU temperature is likely to go well over 100c.

If you have a lot of fans nearby providing airflow to the cooler then it could work but you'll need so much airflow that the computer won't be anywhere near quiet.

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getart ... rticID=557

.

SlaveToSilence · Post by **SlaveToSilence** » Thu Jan 01, 2009 11:32 pm

i have my hr03 ducted so the p180 intake fan pushes air through the heatsink and out the back via the open pci slots
have played grid on maximum then alt-f4'd after a 3 lap race to see the temps in Nvidia MonitorView and i dont think i've seen it higher than 78-80c, is this a safe high limit?

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:56 am

The hardware monitoring section of Rivatuner will give you a better idea of ingame temperatures. As soon as you quit out of a game the temperatures can drop quickly. Being able to look back over the temperatures on a graph is useful.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

A typical 3 lap race on GRID is only going to be 5 or 6 minutes long (or was it the Le Mans circuit?) A longer test like an hour of the Furmark stress test will give a better indication of if the card is stable.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/FurMark-v1. ... -1965.html

The HR-03 Plus cooler should be ok with a duct though. A 78-80c load temperature for a 8800GTS 640mb card is fine and better than the stock cooler.

Whats your GPU's idle temperature? What is safe? 8800

Whats your GPU's idle temperature? What is safe? 8800

Re: Whats your GPU's idle temperature? What is safe? 8800