Graphics Card Temperatures

Graphics Card Temperatures

So here we'll have a look at GPU temperatures. First up, IDLE (desktop) temperatures.

IDLE temperatures are always a tiny bit tricky to read out as Windows Aero could have an effect on this. Overall anything below 50 Degrees C is considered okay, anything below 40 Degrees C is very nice. We threw in some cards at random that we have recently tested in the above chart. But what happens when we are gaming? We fire off an intense game-like application at the graphics card and measure the highest temperature of the GPU. 

So with the cards fully stressed we kept monitoring temperatures and noted down the GPU temperature of the hottest card.

• GeForce GTX 970 SLI - The temperature under heavy game stress for the card stabilized at 80~83 Degrees C. Nvidia has set its limiter to that threshold with reference cards. Board partner cards will have lower temperatures in general.

Please make sure your PC is extremely well ventilated at all times, this will seriously help you on the overall GPU temperatures. For SLI installation we recommend to leave as much space in-between the cards as possible. We deliberately place them close together in the review though to emulate a more worst case scenario.