What temperatures are your ideal temps for your GPU(s)?

Okay so I'm curious. Safety of the card aside since the impact of temperatures doesn't necessarily mean the card will be more likely to fail, what temps do you all consider to be acceptable and why?

Personally, anything over 80C is just too hot in my opinion. It makes the machine unnecessarily loud and just makes me uncomfortable. I guess its the old school thinking in me that heat + electronics = bad.

 

Heat does shorten component lifespan and can kill tech outright. I'm in the same boat you are, anything over 80-85C is unacceptable to me. Heat also messes with overclocks so the cooler the better

 

Yeah if I saw my 780 Ti over 80 for an extended time period, I'd have a cow. I don't see why I'm supposed to think any different between GK104 and GK110 just because one is a desktop part.

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According to Mr. Fox below 85C for extended usage won't cause any trouble, although of course the lower the better.

For me, I will tolerate anything 85C and below, but I would much prefer it didn't go above 80C. Thankfully after modding my laptop and cooler to hell and back I can now manage to not inch past 77C even after 3 hours of Far Cry 3 in a 25C (77F) room.

Also, the VRMs do all the heavy lifting and will run much hotter than the core itself, plus there's no temp sensor there. So I tend to stress out more about the VRMs than the core. This is why I don't feel too comfortable overclocking my cards for gaming (or any extended use).

 

77C... I wish. I might have to do some mods. Since I got the new cards, I actually had them hit 84C on max fans which is way out of my optimal comfort zone.

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If you don't feel comfortable modding your machine, the U3 cooler mod itself should yield some pretty significant reductions.

 

Hell having a notebook cooler period would help, I'm exploring options but they all seem to be poorly made and prone to failure.

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I have the zalman nc 2000 and it's been great to both my Macs and AWs. Just keep the fans clean weekly and it'll last forever, one is about 4 years old and still strong!

 

Notepal U3. Has Mr. Fox's official seal of endorsement.

 

I've been considering that one but I'm nervous that it will let my laptop slip off. I don't have a desk, just a dinner tray table, so if it slides it's on the floor. There appear to be stories about laptops coming off but they don't specify if it's a gaming machine or something like an ultrabook

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I had that concern as well initially, but my P370SM has been sitting on it for a few months at a time without incident.

 

Yeah it shouldn't be a problem. The U3 is pretty great as well, I just liked the neater look of the Zalman.

 

I'm definitely considering the U3 but I don't think the Zalman would be big enough for this machine, its pretty big.

 

Is it larger than the m18x-r2? Mine is on the zalman

 

No, its definitely not bigger than M18x so I take back what I said

 

I ran a single-slot 8800 GT at over 90C for three years without a hitch. Also had a 5870 which I killed within a year running at close to 100C all the time. Some of the VRM's actually blew up and caught fire, burning a sizable area of the PCB on the right side of the card. Thankfully I got a free 6950 sidegrade through RMA. So guess which option I voted for.

 

Sometimes I wonder whether the VRMs (or just power circuitry in general) are more prone to going poof under sustained loads instead of the core. I know EVGA advertises the 780Ti Kingpin edition as being a better overclocker due to improved power circuitry, which leads me to suspect that increased loads on the VRMs is chiefly responsible for OC risks, not the actual core itself. Especially when voltage is involved since power consumption goes up as the square of voltage.

 

I do believe the VRMs are more prone to failure and degradation due to heat or sudden overvolt. In my experience and my numerous disastrous overclocking projects, it's always been the vrm going poof lol.

 

Heat is not an issue with ICs if they're properly accounted and designed for (e.g. leakage). Manufacturing is so good these days that ASIC heat death is rarely the culprit. It is usually fatigue stress on the BGAs, dead support components like microcapacitors etc.
Hotter ASICs actually yield a benefit in that it actually increases the amount of energy that can be dissipated via the cooling system. The real problem is designing a motherboard + support components around an ASIC with 80-90 degree maximum temperatures is much easier and cheaper than designing one around an ASIC operating a 100-110 degrees. The cost of a capacitor rated for 80 degrees is half of the one rated for 120 degrees for example. You can already guess why most manufacturers like throttling ASICs so much, yes, even Alienware. Those chips are actually quite robust, the support components aren't.

My point is, we may never know what the ideal temperature is for an ASIC, if you look at the ratings for the support components like capacitors, you can glean as to what the engineers had in mind at the design phase. Heat is not neccessarily bad if it is controlled. Sometimes we complain a laptop is running too hot, hot is subjective, too often, it usually is poor design but in rare cases, it could also be excellent engineering in utilizing the extra energy dissipation possible with higher operating temperatures (e.g. allowing more compact designs) to deploy more powerful ASICs in smaller form factors.

 

I don't feel comfortable anywhere above 80

never really happens on my 780m tho, with full fans active I'm at 55c playing dark souls 2 or 72c with "default" msi fan settings.

 

All depends on the laptop and the card and what's being run. Obviously ideally, lower the better. But I don't get too worked up if it's within the "norm" of the card in comparable laptops. I've had GPU's running in the 80's without concern. 90C is really my tipping point. For some reason as you approach the boiling point of water it just doesn't seem right.

My personal experience with coolers have not shown they improve cooling by much unless the bottom of the laptop case is modified to let in the added airflow. Otherwise you're basically cooling off the plastic bottom cover which isn't doing much for you. My best cooling improvements came with a personal repaste, propping the laptop up a bit to improve airflow underneath, and in some instances, clearing a hole in the bottom cover above the fan intake to eliminate any airflow restriction.

 

At stock I like it under 70c. If I overclock then 80-85c.

CPU on the other hand can be all day 90c+ in games it is and it is fine so long as it doesn't reach 100c and throttles bear in mind though this a robust 45nm nehelem chip not sandy/ivy/haswell.

 

Vents on the bottom cover help, but yeah this is true. And if you mod your cooler to use bigger fans, then you have to mod the cooler too otherwise the cooler itself blocks the airflow lol, although there is still some thermal benefit switching to high CFM fans even without modding the cooler.

 

The cooling for me comes from a combination of the back lifting and a gentle flow of cool air flowing from the bottom. It especially helps if the laptop (AW, Clevo, ETC) has vent holes directly under and can allow direct air flow into the heatsink/fan assembly.

 

If I had to vote, I'd choose between 75C and 80C under full load. But after I re-paste, I rarely see above 75C unless I game for hours on end. At that point the ambient temperature in my room rises because it's small and on the second level of the house. So, the temperature obviously gets higher the longer I game.

I always re-paste my GPU's when they reach above 80C, unless I've overclocked them. Depending on the level of overclock, I adjust my "comfort zone" accordingly. The same thing goes for my CPU but 10C higher.

 

CPU max 85 deg for haswell quads
GPU max 80 deg for high end and 70-75 for mid range like 860M/770M

 

Seeing as the poll asked for acceptable temps, not ideal temps, I voted for under 90. My ideal would be lower, obviously.

I'm prioritising cooling in my next notebook purchase. My Clevo runs hot. I am jealous of the superior cooling of Alienware, MSI and Asus notebooks!

 

Their cooling isn't that superior, Clevo just has terrible heatsinks that aren't flat. Lap the heatsinks and you lose 5+ degrees.

My 880s will run 90C max with a full load (we are talking 95+% load on both GPUs) if they're at 993MHz and I'm finding it hard to accept that reality. I really don't like it at all but that seems to be the story with every machine with 880M when it's running at full boost speeds. I'm just doubtful that they will live long with those temps.

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My 780M is at those sort of temps during periods of high GPU load at 950/3000.

 

Makes sense since the 880M is a 780M with more RAM and higher clocks.

Since I'm not really GPU limited in anything I play until I kick up stupid levels of AA, underclocking is a viable option.

Getting the cards to that temp took over an hour of Firestrike custom maxed to the limit with loop on... Gaming would be highly unlikely to push them to 90 and would likely max out around 87 or 88C on auto fans and 86C to 87C on max fans.

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MSI's cooling is worse if anything. Asus does have good cooling but soldered CPU + proprietary GPU = not even worth considering, especially considering the price they charge.

As mentioned, heatsinks not being flat, and fans being starved for air are 2 mains reaons why Clevos run hot. Cutting out the bottom panel gave me 3C drop, and sanding the heatsink flat gave me another 3C drop. That's 6C right there.

 

whats the max temp for an 880m anyways? i mean before either the laptop shuts off to save itself or until the card melts or breaks or whatever? just for benchmarking purposes?

 

105C is the limit for most GPU's, I think. You never want it to get that hot, lol.

 

I'd be more worried about the power circuitry at that point. If the core is running past 95C, the VRMs must be pulling 110C or something (they're rated for up to 120C I believe, at least in desktop cards).

 

880M throttles by default @ 93C

Its pretty sad that even at 849MHz and max fans, the 880M is still 82C within about 20 minutes.

It fluctuates between 80 and 82 at that point though so 82C is likely the highest that it will go at that clock speed.

 

My 7970M runs at 75C tops when I OC and game...For me personally, that is good... My CPU runs way hotter tbh..

 

Temperatures
Asus > Alienware & MSI GT72 > Clevo & MSI GT70

Noise
Asus & MSI GT72 > Alienware > MSI GT70 > Clevo > GT70 with Turbo fan on

imo

 

Do alienware and asus laptops let you manually control the fan speed? I know with my sager I can just hit fn+1 and the fan goes on blast. Wasn't able to do that with my other two asus laptops

 

I love how Cloudfire puts Alienware over Clevo when Pidge had a brand new AW17 hitting 94C on a stock vbios while I've yet to see a Sager run past 87C with an 82C average on a stock vbios. Jaded against Clevo much? -_-

Its a fact that Clevo has stronger fans than Alienware, its a fact that most Sager models come with IC Diamond right now which is far superior to Alienware's stock goop and its also a fact that Alienware has struggled with fan tables from the start so I fail to see how systems shutting down have superior cooling...

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You can't take one bad example and claim the entire product line is inferior. Same goes for proving superiority - one example isn't enough. Of the tens of thousands of laptops produced each year, statistically, at least one will be defective or problematic in some way. This goes for every product.

 

Nah there are problems across the board with all of them but the way Cloudfire makes it sound, Clevo is the worst and that isn't the case. I see many more posts about Alienware issues than Clevo issues. Part of that is definitely the volume that Dell does but things like broken fan tables are universal problems.

Quite frankly, all of them have room for improvement. Both Dell and Sager have sent machines with no thermal paste on the GPU, for example.

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They're not broken, they're just not tuned, so to speak. It's like buying a car and flashing the ECU with a custom profile to improve efficiency and performance. Alienware is at the stage before the tune. It's not problematic unless you have an extreme edition CPU. Even then, the issues are not necessarily problematic for gaming, only overclocking, and a re-paste masks that issue pretty well.

I do agree, though. The Dell paste is cheap and sucks for lowering temperatures. Although, anyone who spends thousands of dollars on a gaming PC should re-paste no matter what, after testing the system to confirm all of the components are working, because, that's just what taking care of your PC involves. It makes sense to re-paste.

There are pros and cons to all products, including Alienware and Clevo. The pros outweigh the cons with Alienware, and that's why I purchase Alienware.

 

Is this based on actual numbers or is this really just "IMO"? Because Clevo and GT70 certainly don't belong in the same category...

 

I love how grumpy you become once Clevo machines are put in a bad light. And you are very quick to defend a notebook brand dude. Whats up with that?

There are many reviews and examples out there that fortify my thoughts about Clevo. Take Notebookchecks review of Alienware 17 and P177SM-A with GTX 880M for example.

P177SM-A:
Stress test:
GTX 880M: 89C
CPU: 90C
Lowest decibel measurement during 3D load: 48.2dB
Highest decibel measurement during 3D load: 52.4dB

Alienware 17:
Stress test:
GTX 880M: 88C
CPU: 90C
Lowest decibel measurement during 3D load: 43.9dB
Highest decibel measurement during 3D load: 50.8dB

This is typical for many Clevo machines. Noisy and not very impressive temperatures despite being a leaf blower.

I`ve seen countless reviews of both brands. GT70 struggled with GTX780M but that was because they put the RPM way too low on the fan. In result, the 780M reached 93C but the fan still maxed out at 46dB. I think that was one of the reasons why they moved on to dual fan with GT72. If they upped the fan speed on the GT70 it would be almost like Clevo. Thats why I put Clevo and GT70 together. They are very alike despite one having two fans and the other one only 1.

Take GT70 and P170EM with GTX 680M for example.

GT70
Stress test:
GTX 680M: 88C
CPU: 78C
Lowest decibel measurement during 3D load: 43.1dB
Highest decibel measurement during 3D load: 46.2dB


P170EM
Stress test:
GTX 680M: 84C
CPU: 95C
Lowest decibel measurement during 3D load: 45.1dB
Highest decibel measurement during 3D load: 52.7dB

Nothing new here.
With GT72 showing great cooling capabilities like Asus G-series, Clevo is on the bottom regarding fan noise and cooling capabilities. Which is why I won`t buy that brand. It is undoubtly GT72, Asus G760 or Alienware 18 it stands between when GTX 980M comes out. Unless Clevo can show they can change.
Clevo have many good qualities, but when it comes to that cooling system, its not exactly the cream of the crop. It sorta do its job, but could do so much better.

Should be enough reviews out there to show that the new AW line is top notch regarding cooling. Good engineering there. Especially the AW18 runs both cool and relatively quiet.

 

I do more than my fair share of complaining about Clevo too, my Sager isn't perfect but it's not bottom of the barrel for cooling like you suggest. CPU cooling sucks because the heatsink has zero contact pressure. Clevo needs to fix their heatsinks. If they do that then they wouldn't have to make any other changes. I just get irritated by you suggesting that anyone else is any better. They all suck in some way. MSI and ASUS both have poor tech when something happens, Dell moved away from enthusiasts and more to just out of the box gamers and their Depot is a death sentence, Clevo doesn't seem to be interested in refining their designs (if they were all designed like the P570WM with proper vents for the fans, that would be a great start).

If I could redo my purchase, I wouldn't do it and just build a desktop. All of these companies have their strengths and their weaknesses. When you consider all factors, they are all a laughing stock and only gamers who need the portability of a laptop should ever consider one over a desktop.

It wasn't always like that either. I loved my M17xR1 and preferred it to desktop gaming and it was a fantastic machine - bought it in 2009 and used and abused it until I got my 17R in 2012 when I started having issues with my 260M that made me have to use the on-board graphics.

Again, they all suck, its just a matter of which trade offs are acceptable.

With Steam streaming taking off, it won't be long before it makes more sense to buy an ultra book and stream your games from a much cheaper desktop system.

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My GT60 is probably the noisiest laptop in existence, but with turbofan on, I manage 70-80 C max temps when gaming, overclocked beyond 880m and CPU with +2x multiplier, both taxed. But I think this is beyond 60 db? hahahaha

Regarding clevo being bottom of the barrel, it is only in comparison to other extremely hot systems, not in total. I mean if we strictly mean worst cooling, I am fairly sure there are a gazillion models from other manufacturers that overheat with much lower end components.

But from what I have read around, of all the qualities I find in sagers, cooling was never one of them. Then again, for me cooling used to be either ON/OFF in the sense it works or it doesn't.

 

Well yeah I agree with you that notebooks in general isnt exactly the greatest cooling wise. Desktops are far ahead of us, but despite that, I think about buying the least sucky brand of them.
I have many cons with my AW18 as well which you probably wont find on Clevo or MSI machines, but cooling wise my AW18 was not a let down. I give them that.

I remember the Asetek presentation video where they used liquid cooling in an Alienware machine. I had great hopes for that, was ready to throw my money on them, but according to some Alienware engineer they didnt go through with it due to reliability issues and such. I wont blame them and I am a little dissappointed anyway because that would have been sooo cool, but it goes to show that a notebook is a notebook. Not many ways to do things I guess. So its about getting the "best" of them, but like you say, I have yet to come across something close to perfect from my years of owning many brands.

Ugh, the turbo fan on those things. It would probably drown out a hair dryer
Hope the 15" get the two fan treatment GT72 get in the future. I`m glad they are moving to dual fan like the rest of the industry. I did not care for their one fan solution.

I should have been a little more specific, I`m sorry. Not all Clevo machines are bad in terms of cooling, GS series from MSI are way worse. Aorus X7 too.

 

Just to be fair that 880M was throttled down to 783MHz in the AW17, while the P177SM-A "only" throttled to 810MHz.

Because of the design of the heatsinks, the Alienware's GPU will always run cooler on the core, simply because there's 3 8mm heatpipes running over it. In a Clevo there's only 2 7mm heatpipes running over the core, with the 3rd heatpipe running directly over the vRAM. Because of the position of this 3rd heatpipe, it also helps to cool the edge VRM circuitry somewhat. So while the core may run slightly hotter in the Clevo, I do believe that the vRAM and VRMs will be cooler compared to an Alienware.

Also, I will agree that Clevo's cooling at stock could use more work, but as I've shown with my various mods, because Clevo uses much stronger fans, there's a lot more benefit to be gained once you fix the existing issues.

P.S. That water cooling you mentinoed wouldn't have given any benefits unless they increased the size of the radiators. I was puzzled why Meaker said the P570WM wouldn't benefit from internal water cooling but now I understand.

 

You guys can say what you want about clevo/sager, but i havent had any heat issues

my cpu even with overclock has never gone over 74c

my gpu maxed at 83c with fans on blast. overclocked 880m

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4810MQ Processor,Notebook P15SM-A/SM1-A

my score is 3rd place and i could push it even higher if i wanted, voltage was at 87.5 added in nvidia inspector. i could have done more if i didnt mind higher temperatures.

i havent even sanded down my heat sinks or cut open the vents at the bottom of the laptop to allow more airflow. i dont even have a cooling pad. if i did all the mods to my sager laptop and got a crazy cooling pad, i'd easily be able to increase the score and overclock.

the whole laptop only cost me around 1,800 dollars. way cheaper than alienware.

yeah the laptop is ugly and bulky and sounds like a blow dryer with fans on max, but i got this laptop for performance, not convenience. if i wanted a nice looking and quiet laptop, i would have gotten a macbook pro with retina display.


the only reason i havent done any mods on this laptop is because i plan on reselling it when the 980m comes out. ill get another sager, sli 980m, and the desktop processor they have. i'll overclock all of those likes crazy and have one beast of a laptop

 

Well yeah once you start modding then the temps will start plummeting:




Valley ran for 10 minutes on Extreme HD preset, Watch Dogs gamed for 30 minutes on Ultra + SMAA. Ambient temp was 25C (77F). Fans set to auto.

That's after sanding down heatsinks, cutting out some vents, swapping in heatsinks, sealing up voids, and using a supercharged U3 cooling pad. Basically all the mods in my sig link.