GTX 460 Hawk Temperatures a bit too high?

[neothaka]

Hi,

So i recently made a new PC but i'm sitting it out a bit before getting a new GPU (Holiday discounts etc).
When i first got my Hawks, I remember it ran quite cool (going up mid 50's under stress). However, a while ago one of the fans broke so i had to take it apart and replace them. That meant reapplying new thermal compound (i used Arctic Silver MX-4 but I might have applied it entirely wrong).

In any case, the card runs about 35 degrees C idle and it hit 67 while playing OS. I do remember it being 30 idle and not going over 60 under stress before.
One thing to keep in mind is that i moved from Belgium to Taiwan, where the weather is a lot hotter and more humid. But right now, temperatures are about 24 degrees.

Is it worth having someone redo the thermal compound or should i just not worry?

Thanks!

 

[renz496]

Even so 67 under load still considered as very good. And you're moving to much hotter climate as well. There is no need to worry. Even 80c+ is fine actually although that is quite high for gpu like 460 caliber. For gpu start worry when the temperature enter 90c territory.

 

[wa1]

Agree with renz496, 67 under stress is completely normal, your card can handle much higher than that. So, no need to worry.

 

[neothaka]

alright, thanks for the replies, i was mildly concerned that it was because i applied the thermal paste entirely wrong (which is probably the case though, i've never done that before)

That actually makes me wonder, I have Arctic Silver MX 4 for my GPU and future CPU cooler. What is the best way to apply that type of paste? I'm seeing so many different guides that all do it entirely different: e.g. dot in the middle and press it down (doesn't cover the entire chipset), credit card method (spread it out over the entire chipset, what i did {wrong}), ...

any advice?

 

[renz496]

What's important is don't use too many paste. It will have opposite effect instead when the gpu fully loaded. This is a mistake that can happen even during factory assembly (happen with one of my GTX 660). Personally i just use small amount of paste and then just let the pressure do it's job

The idea of thermal paste is just there so the cooler flat surface and gpu core are 'connected' without any air space between them.

 

[neothaka]

but it doesn't have to necessarily cover the entire chipset? Cause putting a dot in the middle and then let it spread out through pressure when mounting the heatsink is probably going to create a large cirkel shaped layer rather than nicely cover the entire chip. Apologies if I sound incredibly ignorant about these things, it's just that I want to do them right

 

[renz496]

But then again GTX460 should have somekind of heat spreader (from what i remember with my own 460) instead of bare gpu core. But as long as the thermal paste layer are not too thick it should be fine. And yours already fine.

 

[Brodotron]

You shouldn't have any heat issues around 70 degrees. Its normal for a card to be at 80 Degrees under extereme load. Once you get around 85 and up then you worry. But unless your overclocking or have serious dust/airflow issues you should have no worries.