MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti Gaming OC Review - Graphics Card Thermal Imaging Measurements (FLIR)

Thermal Imaging Temperature Measurements

A new addition to our reviews will be the inclusion of Forward Looking Infra Red thermal images of hardware. Over the past years we have been trying to figure out what the best possible way is to measure temperatures on hardware. Multiple options are available but the best thing to do is to visualize heat coming from the product or component being tested. The downside of thermal imaging hardware is simple, FLIR camera's with a bit of decent resolution costs up-to 10,000 EUR. Hence we passed on it for a long time. With a thermal imaging camera a special lens focuses the infrared light emitted by all of the objects in view. This focused light is scanned by a phased array of infrared-detector elements. The detector elements create a very detailed temperature pattern called a thermogram. It only takes about one-thirtieth of a second for the detector array to obtain the temperature information to make the thermogram. This information is obtained from several thousand points in the field of view of the detector array. The thermogram created by the detector elements is translated into electric impulses. The impulses are sent to a signal-processing unit, a circuit board with a dedicated chip that translates the information from the elements into data for the display. The signal-processing unit sends the information to the display, where it appears as various colors depending on the intensity of the infrared emission. The combination of all the impulses from all of the elements creates the image. We can seek hotspots on the PCB indicating, for example, GPU but also VRM temperature as well as how heat is distributed throughout a product. We do hope you will enjoy this new technology as it did cost us an arm and a leg to be able to implement it. 

IDLE temperature opertation, all good. Green lights all over. Any graphics card should be hovering in the 30 to 35 Degrees C zone here.
 

We can measure pretty accurate temperatures at the GPUs and VRM areas. So once we start to stress the GPU the thermals quickly change. We can measure thermals down to a 10^th of a degree, our thermal camera is calibrated and does not lie.

• We reach roughly 72 degrees C on M2 and M3, the GPU, which is spot on with what the thermal sensor reports back.
• At M1/M4 (Measure Point 4) the VRM area can be spotted, it runs just close to 80~85 Degrees C on that spot, that is considered to be a very normal temperature. Make sure you have plenty airflow inside your chassis as that will always help. 
   

When we position the thermal camera outwards we can see that the overall cooler design really works well. The hottest point is the top side of the card where there is some residual PCB heat detected. 
 

The majority of heat is exhausted, however at position M1 up to M2 we do see that quite a bit of heat is pushed out on that location, that is directly on top of something very hot, likely VRM and that heat ends up in your PC. There's no heat bleeding to the motherboard PCB. The card obviously produces a lot of heat and does not exhaust, so ventilation inside your PC is a must.