Graphics card temperatures
Graphics card temperatures
So for our test setup we created a dedicated liquid cooling loop for the GeForce GTX 580. We used a Black Ice dual 120mm radiator with two low RPM fans. We fire up the PC and check the idle temperatures and after a while we start to stress the GPU massively.
Now we left the PC IDLING for roughly an hour, you'll notice an idle temperature of 23 Degrees C.
Our stress test is emulating a game, we left it running for roughly half an hour, that way we heat up the coolant quite a bit. We ended at a peak temperature of 41 Degrees C and remember that was after half an hour of 100% stress testing on the GPU.
This very same sample with the default reference cooler would get to 74 degrees C. Obviously I have to note that results can and will vary with different liquid-cooling setups.
We used nothing special BUT the loop is dedicated for the GPU. If you add a second GPU or CPU the dynamics can differ as the coolant will be warmer. The radiator is very important though. My recommendation is that you get at least a dual 120mm radiator and preferable a triple 120mm radiator if you want to connect more components to the liquid cooling loop.
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 affect 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 cards and measure the highest temperature at one of the GPUs. The GPU with the least airflow will run the most hot of course.
We also added the temperatures with our overclock and voltage tweak enabled.
So with the card fully stressed we kept monitoring temperatures and noted down the GPU temperature.
- The temperature under heavy game stress for the card load stabilized at roughly only 41 Degrees C and overclocked it settles at 50 Degrees C. Amazing stuff.
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.
