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What was the worst graphics card for heat?
- Thread starter robfosters
- Start date
Man of Honour
The hottest I've had was the GTX 480 but by god, that card was a beast and lasted a very long time, especially as it was a time when needing a new card every 2 years to keep up was an actual thing.
Soldato
Think my reference Vega is the hottest i have owned, that has hit 81 under load over last few days, running undervolt and memory is at 1050mhz / fans are set to not break 2500rpm though, if I gave it a bit more slack it might run cooler tbh!. However that seems to be nothing compared to what some have suffered with on here!
Soldato
Gtx 480 in sli were the hottest cards I've ever had. I actually burnt my finger on it 
I think the 9800gx2 got pretty hot too. Hard to remember the older cards I've had.
I think the 9800gx2 got pretty hot too. Hard to remember the older cards I've had.
Soldato
Didn't some YouTube reviewer fry an egg on 480 lol?
Soldato
Wouldn't surprise me. Seen some doing it with CPUs
Soldato
i owned a couple of gtx 295's from nvidia, the first was kept on air cooling and would readly hit 90 degrees+ whilst gaming in crysis with everything cranked to max at 1080p, then one day switched on pc and the gpu was no more, so saved up a bit and bought a second one but this time puckered up the cash for a waterblock and after a lengthly install temps were much better around 60 degrees under full load, and lasted a good few years 
Soldato
Soldato
Lol that's the fella!
Associate
I had both cards and did the same to my 6800GT! A copper Zalman cooler, although I didn't flash the BIOS I managed to OC it to near Ultra speeds.
The Sapphire X1950 Pro I had was hot to the extent that I ended up taking the side of my PC's case off and pointing a desk fan at it, to help avoid issues with the Crysis demo (after later getting a 4870 I realised the card had issues, likely from day 1).
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Great stuff.
I had an Arctic Cooling NV5 Silencer on my 6800GT and also ran the side of the case for both cards. I can't remeber why I didn't upgrade the cooling on the x1950 Pro (possibly no room?) but it really needed doing. That style of cooler (very similar to the stock 6800GT cooler) was hopeless.
Soldato
GTX590 which had a pair of GTX580 GPUs in it. It drew so much power,Nvidia had to install a power limiter on it which didn't always work,and remember this was back in 2011,when PSUs were not as well developed as today. When TPU was testing it,their sample blew up:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asus-geforce-gtx-590/27.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/asus-geforce-gtx-590/27.html
To be expected though considering it was a dual card with a pair of 290's on it.
Nope, it wasn't that bad, out of all the recent releases the 290x is probably the hottest. 2900xt was in the 80c range most of the time.
For me 2 x 8800GT in SLI, although I think it was the nForce 680i motherboard they were used on that actually put out the most heat. As soon as Crysis had been completed it was all replaced, as gaming in shorts in December did not bode well for the coming spring/summer.
Associate
Probably not the highest TDP of some of the cards on here, but I had a reference R9 290 that would run just north of 90c, wasn't the best card I've owned, either it ran warm of sounded like a jet engine if you turned the fan up. Never bought a reference blower again after that.
Caporegime
Yea, I had one of these. My god the amount of heat that would shoot out from that radiator. That card needed a 240/280mm radiator. 120 was not enough.