Graphics card temperatures

Graphics card temperatures

Let's take a look at the graphics card GPU temperatures. First up, IDLE (desktop) temperatures where the GPU is not used or very little. Overall anything below 50 Degrees C is considered fine, anything below 40 Degrees C is very nice and below 30 Degrees C - excellent. 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 card fully stressed we kept monitoring temperatures and noted down the GPU temperature.

• LOAD - The temperature under heavy game stress for the card stabilized at a maximum of roughly 75 Degrees C. We note down the hottest GPU reading, not the average.

With today's graphics cards, please make sure your PC is well ventilated at all times, this will seriously help you on the overall GPU temperatures. Once the card reaches a certain threshold in temperature it will start throttling on the boost frequency as well as voltages and fan RPM.

The card hardly reaches its advertised boost frequency as it throttles downward. A duration test shows the card running at that ~ 1370MHz marker was the starting point, and after a few minutes of stress, the card drops down towards ~1320 MHz.