8800GTS cooling tweaks?

[Dead Reckon]

I would first like to state that my temperatures are well within a reasonable margin, but I would like to drop them lower. The card, after one hour and twenty five minutes of looping 3dmark06 @1280x1024 did not exceed 160 degrees farenheit. The only reason it got that hot was because I had not yet realized that the card was only running the fan at 60% unless the temperature breaks 212F. I bought this card used, I love it, it's made my system capable of playing many of the games I like entirely maxed out @ 1280x1024. However, when I game, I usually game for hours on end and I would like to hopefully extend the lifetime of this used graphics card I recently purchased by lowering the temperatures.


The GPU core idles at 124F (with the fan at 75% using RivaTuner), usually does not exceed 148F gaming (With the fan at 100% using RivaTuner).
The VRAM temperature of the card is not of concern, it does not get hot, the heatsink seems to be efficiently cooling the VRAM. I understand these are all reasonable temperatures but does anyone know anything else other than better thermal compound and forcing the fan up to 100% when I game to decrease the temperature of the card? I like my computer running cold, my CPU, a core 2 duo E4500 overclocked from 2.2GHz to 2.8GHz, does not exceed 120F while gaming,. Currently my GPU idles hotter than my CPU gets while gaming, as I have said, I understand my card is running at more than reasonable temperatures, but when it comes to cooling, well I force that down with an iron fist and some extra fans. I am using a Tuniq Tower 120, however the stock heatsink on the 8800GTS seems adequate to cool the card a bit more but I can't seem to get it to cool down.


I will be replacing the thermal paste for Arctic Silver 5, think the RAM is cooled by thermal paste too, not thermal pads. Hope that's the case, thermal pads are annoyingly inefficient in most cases.


I have installed RivaTuner as mentioned above, it helps a lot. The card got to 160F running 3dmark06 because the card, from the factory, absolutely will not budge the fan speed from 60% unless the card breaks 212 degrees farenheit, and that, for me, is entirely unacceptable. For the record, I did not test this, I looked at the card's inbuilt fan control with RivaTuner.


This card is absolutely great but I put a lot of strain on it, I run Fallout 3 at ultra high settings, 1280x1024, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, also maxed. Plan to play through Half-Life 2, Half Life 2: episode 1 & 2 again. So, I'd like the card to run as cool as possible.


I know that Arctic Silver 5 will probably be my best bet, what's on there now judging from the heatsink goo visible at the VRAM is just white silicone based nonsense. That, or it's squished thermal pads.

My case, you're probably wondering what my computer case is. It is an Antec Two Hundred mid tower, the top 140mm TwoCool exhaust fan which came with the case has broken, the fan blade was brittle and came off, the fan was so quiet I didn't notice until I put my hand on my computer when I was hooking up a few USB devices and found the case to be vibrating badly. For a second I was wondering just what on earth could cause that. Anyway, so much for Antec engineering, this case has attacked me multiple times and already had three included items break. The only good fans antec makes are the good old fashioned high CFM ball fans, not the TwoCool or TriCool series. I will be plugging the top fan hole somehow, it causes temperatures to go up when it is open, only by a couple or few degrees. Airflow is strange, very, very strange.


I have two 120mm front intake fans, they push a combined amount of roughly 110CFM, i have a 120mm side intake fan which pushes another 40CFM. I also have a rear 120mm TwoCool exhaust fan which pushes 30 or 60CFM. I am trying to create a positive pressure system, more air in than out. The CPU heatsink has a 120mm fan that pushes about 70CFM, which pretty much flows directly out the back exhaust fan. I thought I'd mention that, I'm not certain but I believe the fact that there is only about two inches between the heatsink and rear fan causes some venting problems. The GPU vents hot air out the back of the computer, and the 70CFM 120mm front fan is blowing directly at it, along with the 40CFM 120mm side fan, so the GPU has plenty of air. The power supply in the bottom of the case acts as an exhaust fan (120mm) and I am unsure of its rate of airflow but I know it would not exceed the combined intake amount. It is not close enough to the GPU to be bothered by the hot air it generates, and the power supply its self generates little heat. It seems barely phased by my setup.


Anyway, if you have any idea's or question's, feel free to ask. Oh, and this is the exact GPU I own:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150204&cm_re=XFX_8800GTS-_-14-150-204-_-Product

[Calum]

I know you know this, but those temperatures are perfectly within spec, fairly good for an older, more power hungry card like that.  There's absolutely no reason you'd need to lower them as that will not degrade the lifespan - if it was exceeding 100C regularly, it could be a different matter.  With that said ...
Replacing the thermal paste with AS5, or preferably a better non conductive compound such as MX-2, could help the temps a little, I noticed around 3-4C drop on full load on an 8800GT from replacing the paste.  VRAM is almost always cooled by thermal pads, which are a pain - make sure you don't accidentally damage any while removing the cooler.  There's only so much the stock cooler can do though, only so much heat it can dissipate.  If you're desperate to reduce the temperatures, about all you can do is change the cooler to a better, aftermarket one, but you're talking about nearly doubling the cost of your card then which is plain silly.
Hope this helps.

[Dead Reckon]

Yeah I agree about using a aftermarket cooler, it's not needed. I was just hoping I could get a slightly lower drop. I"m just fickle about making my computer run ice cold.

Right now, I'm testing my CPU heatsink's passive thermal capabilities. I forgot to plug the fan in when i cleaned out the fan filter built into the front of my case and realized it was idling a mere 6-7F hotter... I've got it maxed using a system stress test built into Everest. If it runs cool enough I won't even switch the fan on unless I'm gaming. So far, 8 minutes, the CPU heatsink only climbed from about 83F to 106F, without it's fan spinning. I'll probably post a recommendation for this computer case and the tuniq tower 120 CPU heatsink.

[Dead Reckon]

I have decided to take advantage of my GPU running cold, I have overclocked it to the factory overclock settings of some other similar 8800GTS's.

GPU Core: 648MHz (513MHz stock, 26% overclock)
GPU Core (Shader Domain), 1512MHz (1188MHz stock, 27% overclock)
GPU Memory 999MHz real, 1998MHz effective, (792 real and 1584 effective stock)

Idle temperature went from 118 degrees farenheit to 124 degrees farenheit. I will test this later to see how stable it is while rendering 3d applications.

For the record, I used RivaTuner, I recommend it for nVidia graphics card tweaking.

[Calum]

Nice overclock you got on that - if it's stable, I'll be very impressed.
Good to hear about your heatsink doing well passively too, I'm surprised at that.

[Dead Reckon]

Yeah I looked up the factory overclock settings, roughly 26%, so I overclocked it to that. It's working fine, 100% stable, this system is rock solid. I wish I had better RAM, I could then get this CPU to at least 3.2GHz, a 50% overclock.

As for the passive cooling, it's great, no more dusting out my heatsink and getting my fingers sliced in the extra-sharp super slicer cooling fins 

Oh, the VRAM, it's running about 3 degrees hotter, as is another ambient temperature since I overclocked the card, the card its self is running about 6 degrees hotter on idle. I did not check the gaming temperatures but I will soon, not tonight, I'm exhausted. I had to do lawn work today, and battle through the scourge at wal-mart for food.

[Calum]

Sounds like it's going well for you as far as the overclocking goes.
The trouble with lower FSB CPUs is that you do need better/faster RAM, if the RAM you have won't clock well.  You may want to look at your motherboard temps though, I'm surprised you haven't mentioned those as every Nvidia board I've ever seen has been a furnace.  If it's running hot, slapping a fan or better cooler on there, or just replacing the TIM if you haven't already, could help your CPU clock.

[Dead Reckon]

My motherboard cooling is adequate, it has a heatpipe connecting the north and south bridges as well as the MOSFET, there's also a 40mm fan on the north bridge, as well as a 50mm fan blowing out the back through the MOSFET fan and the vent holes in the rear IO shield. My motherboard is currently running at 90F. Every other nVidia motherboard I have ran horribly hot, but this one seems adequately cooled. I would, however, like to put a heatsink on the SATA controller that's built onto the motherboard, it gets a bit warm to the touch with two SATA drives in there throwing data back and forth.

this is my motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130133&cm_re=P6N_diamond-_-13-130-133-_-Product

[Calum]

Yes, I'm familiar with your board.
Glad to hear your board is running nice and cool, I've never seen an Nvidia board that was anything less than toasty no matter what kind of air cooling was thrown at it.
Which chip is the SATA chip you're referring to?  Is it not on the southbridge?

[Dead Reckon]

No, the SATA chipset is separate, sorry for the delay, I've been gaming the *censored* outta my 8800GTS.



You can see the SATA bus chip on the bottom left corner near the SATA ports, that's a naked shot of the motherboard, no heatsink. I'm considering putting a heatsink on the SATA bus, it doesn't get too warm but I like to make everything I can ice cold.

Here's a shot of the motherboard with the heatsink:

[patio]

Even with the piping the last build i did with that board ran hot...
I replaced the southbridge fan with a beefier one and all was good to go....

[Dead Reckon]

Ah, alright, the north bridge fan seems to suffice, though I do have one exhausting air out through the I/O shield, blowing through the mosfet heatsink. I haven't had any heat issues out of this computer really.

[Calum]

Ah, I see the chip you mean now, if it does get hot I'd definitely slap a heatsink on there and it should work wonders.

[Dead Reckon]

Yeah, a cold SATA bus is a happy SATA bus. I love the hot swap ability of this motherboard, can hot swap any SATA drive that's plugged in when it's booted. Only has two ports to support RAID, however, which is strange on a modern motherboard, but alright for me 'cause I'd rather be able to hot swap than RAID. Even stranger still is seeing the C Drive show up as a hot swappable drive.