GTX 780 - Are additional case fans required?

Spirit of Vengeance · Aug 4, 2014

Hello. My PC has a i7-4770 3.40Ghz Processor and EVGA GeForce GTX 780 with an ACX Cooler. Whenever I'm playing recent games like Assassin's Creed IV in highest settings, GPU Temperature goes up to 65C - 70C just by 10-15 minutes. Do I require additional case fans? The system case (In Win GT1) has 2 default fans and 6 more can be added.

legend001523 · Aug 4, 2014

Yes, I'd recommend you get some more fans as these pieces of hardware can generate some serious heat, better be safe and buy some fans than to get all your components destroyed :/

Karsten75 · Aug 4, 2014

When you say "heat goes up" - what location? Case, CPU, or GPU?

More ventilation may help a little, better cooling may help a little. Depends on whether it's a specific component or the general case temperatures.

Also... what cooling do you use on the CPU? Stock or after-market?

What is your ambient temperature where you're playing?

Spirit of Vengeance · Aug 4, 2014

Karsten75 :

GPU Temperature to be exact.
CPU Fan is stock. Will that has to be changed to after-market as well?
Ambient temperature is around 35C.

Karsten75 · Aug 4, 2014

Your ambient temperature, more than anything else is at issue here. With those high ambient temperature, you won't have a very effective cooling delta (each cubic foot of air won't be able to pick up a lot of additional heat). SO you need to move a lot more air through the case.

Noctual and Cougar Vortex fans are my go-to fans of choice for lots of air and silent operation.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835553002

Choose the biggest (120mm, 140mm, 200mm, ettc.) fans your case permits. Bigger fans move more air for the same or less noise than small fans.

If your CPU isn't too hot, no need to buy aftermarket cooling for it at this time. Case ventilation may also help it.

JackNaylorPE · Aug 4, 2014

65C - 70C is quite good. Don't start worrying about GPU temps till ya get above 82C

Karsten75 · Aug 4, 2014

JackNaylorPE :

And here I sit, getting nervous if my GPU temps dare move out of the 50s.

geofelt · Aug 4, 2014

Required??? No.

Graphics cards can run hot, but they are engineered to tolerate such heat. If they get dangerously hot, like 95c. they will slow down or even shut off to protect themselves. Your ambient is high, and I think your temperatures are nominal.
I would locate the two supplied fans in front as intakes.
I suspect that adding fans will only add to your cost and noise with no real benefit like performance.

If you want, take the case covers off and see if it makes any difference.

JackNaylorPE · Aug 4, 2014

Under Furmark, mine hit 39C ..... 44C if I turn down radiator fans to inaudible levels.

My son's boxes however are air cooled and those were overclocked using 82C as the target.....kept raising the OC until Furmark hit 82C .... about a 26% OC

Spirit of Vengeance · Aug 4, 2014

JackNaylorPE :

Yeah but the problem is only took 10-15 minutes in a high graphics game to reach from 35C to 65C. I'm not sure how much heat will build up if I go through my minimum gameplay time which is 1 hour.

Karsten75 · Aug 4, 2014

As the temperature differential between the GPU and your ambient temperature increase, heat transfer (cooling) will become more efficient and slow the progress in temperature. SO maybe you need not worry too much. Keep an eye on it and you'll learn what typical behavior is in your environment.

JackNaylorPE · Aug 4, 2014

Spirit of Vengeance :

When you kick off ya gaming session and ambient is 35C and GPU is just getting started temperature rises sharply because the difference between air and the GPU cooler is small. As temps rise and ambient stays same the effectiveness of your cooling system increases rapidly. Compared to 35C ambient and 40C cooler temp....

When heat sink temp reached 45C it's now 2X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 50C it's now 3X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 55 it's now 4X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 65 it's now 6X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 75 it's now 8X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 85 it's now 10X as efficient.

So being that the efficiency of the cooling system rapidly increases, your GPU will very quickly recah an equilibirum point, Running Furmark at say 23C this spring, I'd hit 36C-37 in 10 minutes.... and then slowly climb to about 39C after a half hour at which point I'd hit an equilibrium point. Keep in mind that I have a huge coolant mass which has to be heated (about 2 liters ~ 5 pounds of coolant) up before equilibrium is reached....

It's a very simple process for you to follow:

1. Download Furmark
2. Install and run it.
3. Watch the FurryDonut for about 15 minutes.... at the bottom of the screen it will graph temperatures. When the temp / time curve levels out, it's not gonna change from there.
4. No game will ever put anywhere near the load on your GPU as this will. Crank up ya card OC till ya hit 82C though I'd wait till fall when temps are more moderate....

Spirit of Vengeance · Aug 8, 2014

JackNaylorPE :

Spirit of Vengeance :

When you kick off ya gaming session and ambient is 35C and GPU is just getting started temperature rises sharply because the difference between air and the GPU cooler is small. As temps rise and ambient stays same the effectiveness of your cooling system increases rapidly. Compared to 35C ambient and 40C cooler temp....

When heat sink temp reached 45C it's now 2X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 50C it's now 3X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 55 it's now 4X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 65 it's now 6X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 75 it's now 8X as efficient.
When heat sink temp reached 85 it's now 10X as efficient.

So being that the efficiency of the cooling system rapidly increases, your GPU will very quickly recah an equilibirum point, Running Furmark at say 23C this spring, I'd hit 36C-37 in 10 minutes.... and then slowly climb to about 39C after a half hour at which point I'd hit an equilibrium point. Keep in mind that I have a huge coolant mass which has to be heated (about 2 liters ~ 5 pounds of coolant) up before equilibrium is reached....

It's a very simple process for you to follow:

1. Download Furmark
2. Install and run it.
3. Watch the FurryDonut for about 15 minutes.... at the bottom of the screen it will graph temperatures. When the temp / time curve levels out, it's not gonna change from there.
4. No game will ever put anywhere near the load on your GPU as this will. Crank up ya card OC till ya hit 82C though I'd wait till fall when temps are more moderate....

Holy cow. That software made the VGA temperature go from 35 to 82 under 2 minutes. It stood at the same temp for another 4 mins before I got too worried about the card and closed program. That was the temperature when my VGA fan was at it's 71% speed (which is by default was set to be the max speed though it can be changed manually) and the 2 case fans (1 intake at front and 1 exhaust at rear) were in full speed via case's fan control. Is that good?

(Sorry for late reply)

Karsten75 · Aug 8, 2014

That's high - I can't get my GPU over (if I recall) about 62C. But then I have much lower ambient temperature and I have probably more effective cooling - I chose my (now old MSI Twin Frozr Radeon HD 7950) for it's cooling and quietness characteristics at that time. My CPU has closed-loop liquid cooling and the case has fairly decent (but quiet) fans front, back and top.

You might want to permit your fans to run up to 100%. The noise may be significant, but it would cool better. As it is, it seems everything is working just fine. When you get to dangerous temperatures, things are throttled back to keep it within the design temperatures. SO while it's hot, it's not going to break things.

Spirit of Vengeance · Aug 8, 2014

Karsten75 :

Oh dang I accidentaly clicked "Best answer" in the email notification even though I'm still seeking through answers. Sorry that was very klutzy of me. -_-

The ambient temp must be with the climate of where I live because GPU don't get anywere lower than 35 even when today was a cold day AND have the room's fans on. BUT I also need to point out that it came to stable temp of 82-83 even though by default the temp target was set to 79.

Karsten75 · Aug 8, 2014

Spirit of Vengeance :

I unset your selection of "Best answer".

Spirit of Vengeance · Aug 8, 2014

Karsten75 :

Spirit of Vengeance :

I unset your selection of "Best answer".

Thanks mate.

JackNaylorPE · Aug 8, 2014

Spirit of Vengeance :

That's what it is designed to do

. First off, the EVGA cooler is considered loud (the MSI one I the best) and my guess is in order to mitigate that, they cut the fan speed..... you should redo the fan curve with MSI afterburner to run at 100% at 82C. Now you are ready to retest. I suggest using a spreadsheet (Open Office is free) to keep ya records, recording time versus temp from Furmark with the new fan curve.

Now off to the case test ..... do you have a desk fan or small window fan ? I use one of these 430s:

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=vornado+air&tag=mh0b-20&index=aps&hvadid=3522084285&ref=pd_sl_8spzrqx3xq_b

Take off the side panel, put the think on highest setting and blow air pointing between CPU / GPU. Record temps at same data points....this will give you an idea what effect the case fans are having.

I'm using 15 of these ..... 5 as case fans, 10 as radiator fans (in push / pull)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709023&cm_re=phanteks-_-35-709-023-_-Product

They have the highest performance / noise ratio on the market according to silentpcreview .com and at $10 a pop, the beat the Noctua $27 fans by 3C

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenteks_f140/3.htm

The are also available in LED version s(white, red, blue)

GTX 780 - Are additional case fans required?

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