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3090 FE thermals and fan noise

WolfHauser

WolfHauser

WolfHauser

Associate
Joined
14 Dec 2020
Posts
49
Location
UK
RTX 3090 FE
Core i7 6700k
32GB ram
Noctua NH-U9S CPU fan
Fractal define R6 with 3 stock fans. Front two fans configured to suck air into the case and back fan as exhaust (default setup).

Hi all, I'm wondering what to expect thermals and noise wise from the 3090 FE. When I play Control on max settings with ray tracing and dlss rendering around 2k upscaled to 3.5k I get sections where the card ramps up to 2200rpm. Temp wise it never goes over 70 degrees C but it's flipping loud! Is this usual? If so, would putting some more/better fans in mitigate this? Kind of feel like Nvidia are asking a premium price for this graphics card so it should be perfect! I mean the game runs like a dream but I'm not able to enjoy it because of the fan noise! Any help would be greatly appreciated! My 970 was pretty much silent. I know it's probably half as powerful.
 
Dude download msi afterburner, invest some time into the power curve of the card.

.950 volts = 1900+++mhz permanent boost clocks.

Enjoy the card with 300W max quiet temp and fastest performance on the market right now.
 
WolfHauser said:
RTX 3090 FE
Core i7 6700k
32GB ram
Noctua NH-U9S CPU fan
Fractal define R6 with 3 stock fans. Front two fans configured to suck air into the case and back fan as exhaust (default setup).

Hi all, I'm wondering what to expect thermals and noise wise from the 3090 FE. When I play Control on max settings with ray tracing and dlss rendering around 2k upscaled to 3.5k I get sections where the card ramps up to 2200rpm. Temp wise it never goes over 70 degrees C but it's flipping loud! Is this usual? If so, would putting some more/better fans in mitigate this? Kind of feel like Nvidia are asking a premium price for this graphics card so it should be perfect! I mean the game runs like a dream but I'm not able to enjoy it because of the fan noise! Any help would be greatly appreciated! My 970 was pretty much silent. I know it's probably half as powerful.
Click to expand...
Custom fan curve maybe? Something like this - https://imgur.com/pqbWZiD

Or as others have said, undervolt

Out of interest what driver are you using fir control? On 460.89s DLSS works but on RTX i get the message “Ray Tracing required DX12 and a graphics card with support for the DXR API”
Im on the latest version of Windows 10 pro, DX12 and 460.89 driver :confused:
 
Nice on thanks all.

RE driver - says I'm on 461.40

I seem to be able to run control with DLSS with ray tracing both on and off with this driver fine

Dontrocktheboat said:
Dude download msi afterburner, invest some time into the power curve of the card.

.950 volts = 1900+++mhz permanent boost clocks.

Enjoy the card with 300W max quiet temp and fastest performance on the market right now.
Click to expand...

Thanks dude. I'm a noob and haven't undervolted before - is it quite straight forward if I set it at .950 v and then I'm good?
 
WolfHauser said:
Nice on thanks all.

RE driver - says I'm on 461.40

I seem to be able to run control with DLSS with ray tracing both on and off with this driver fine



Thanks dude. I'm a noob and haven't undervolted before - is it quite straight forward if I set it at .950 v and then I'm good?
Click to expand...

Control with RT is a very demanding game, one of the highest power drawing games I have found. That said at absolute stock with my 3090FE at 4k with all things cranked up I settle in around 69 degrees but my fan profile tops out at around 45% which is apparently 1150 RPM or so. However this is in a a massive temporary case, phantom 820 with large cutouts, but for me at least does show how good the FE cooler is with air!. Could try with side panel off and see how you fair?

For undervolting, Dontrocktheboat suggestion is good and undervolting works wonderful with this generation. However! the card can still pull as much power as it needs. So for example at the same 0.95v I will pull around 300w in Assassins creed Valhalla. However This game and others like Cyberpunk with Raytracing, can actually pull more. Point being, if you set 0.95v and then fire up control, do not be worried if you see more then 300w still being pulled certain games, usually I find those that engage RT can demand more power. at 0.95v in control at 4k maxed, I find the card wants to pull around the 350w mark still (up power limit to let it draw up to 400w to see where is truly lands) 0.85v for control is where you will draw around 280w-300w maxed with RT + DLSS I find.

You use the voltage curve in MSI afterburner and set the voltage point you want the card to stop at as the higher point on the graph and the rest of the remaining points inline with it. You do set 0.95v but also need to find how your chip performs at that voltage and dial in a clock speed accordingly. Some samples will only do 1900 Mhz or something at 0.95v while others can do 2 GHz + at the same voltage. A matter of finding the sweet spot for your chip and investing some time in it.
 
Hi

I've had my 3090FE for a couple of weeks and here are a few thoughts.

I've got an Asus Helios case which is pretty, but restrictive on the air intake side.
The stock fan curve seems to target 70c or so. The fan speed will go up with gpu usage to keep to the temp target.

I've got a 360 rad as an exhaust in the top, last weekend I changed the no name and very noisy front fans for ML140s. This has made a big difference.

Elite dangerous VR is about 70% usage and the fan is very quiet.
Cyberpunk at 4k with rtx is high 90s gpu usage with the fan at about 1500-1600 rpm, occasionally higher. This is still getting too noisy for my tastes.

As others have said try it with the side panel off, if that brings the fan speed on the 3090 down then you need better airflow.
Try undervolting, it's free and I'll be doing it this weekend.
If you have any spare fans I'd be tempted to try a couple in the top as exhaust fans.

If undervolting doesn't make mine quieter then the front of the case or the front filter are going bye bye.
 
That's great - thanks @newuser and @Radox-0 a good few things for me to try. I do have a couple of spare fans so will stick them on the top of the case this weekend and have a play with the voltage too if the fans don't help much. Will report back in case my findings prove useful to anyone else.
 
The standard fractal fans aren't great. Nor in fact is the R6. You could put some higher pressure fans in there to overcome that front panel but honestly if you can afford a 3090 then I would change the case for a more modern mesh variety and put some decent fans in there. It will cost you a few hundred, but it should make a significant difference to the thermals, which it turn should quiet down the 3090. Often it's best to do the opposite of what you would think makes sense. Despite the lack of sound proofing measures in mesh cases they are often quieter simply because everything is cooler - of course you must have quality fans for the case though. I have a mesh case fitted with noctua fans and all i can hear is a woooosh from the general direction of the PC and everything is very cool.
 
Last edited:
I've got a 3090 in an R6 case, with the standard fans and it's not that noisy, but then I do game with headphones so I don't really notice the case and GPU fans except under heavy load.

I went for the R6 because it's one of the few large cases with a 5.25" drive bay, which I need for my blu-ray drive.

I did have to convert the case to an open format to fit the 3090 so that will have improved the airflow, but you can always open up the front panel door of the R6 to give better airflow.

Temps of the 3090 do go up to around 70 degrees under full load, but with undervolting that drops a bit. I could add a couple of fans on top, but currently my Index Headset is sitting on top of the PC, so I need somewhere to move it first :)
 
@Ravenger Yeah I bought the R6 as I need the drive bay too for work. If you ever have time and wouldn't mind, would you mind seeing what rpm your fans get up to under load with something like Control or that Quake RTX demo? No worries if not but would be interesting to see and would help me out! I'm finding Control is such a stress test for the machine - even when I'm in unreal engine in a ray traced scene the 3090 fans don't go as nuts.
 
WolfHauser said:
@Ravenger Yeah I bought the R6 as I need the drive bay too for work. If you ever have time and wouldn't mind, would you mind seeing what rpm your fans get up to under load with something like Control or that Quake RTX demo? No worries if not but would be interesting to see and would help me out! I'm finding Control is such a stress test for the machine - even when I'm in unreal engine in a ray traced scene the 3090 fans don't go as nuts.
Click to expand...

Sure, I'll try Control this evening. What resolution are you running at? My monitor is 1440p, but I can always supersample to 4k.
Ironically Control doesn't seem that stressful for my PC. It's VR that's causing the card to really stress.
 
WolfHauser said:
RTX 3090 FE
Core i7 6700k
32GB ram
Noctua NH-U9S CPU fan
Fractal define R6 with 3 stock fans. Front two fans configured to suck air into the case and back fan as exhaust (default setup).

Hi all, I'm wondering what to expect thermals and noise wise from the 3090 FE. When I play Control on max settings with ray tracing and dlss rendering around 2k upscaled to 3.5k I get sections where the card ramps up to 2200rpm. Temp wise it never goes over 70 degrees C but it's flipping loud! Is this usual? If so, would putting some more/better fans in mitigate this? Kind of feel like Nvidia are asking a premium price for this graphics card so it should be perfect! I mean the game runs like a dream but I'm not able to enjoy it because of the fan noise! Any help would be greatly appreciated! My 970 was pretty much silent. I know it's probably half as powerful.
Click to expand...

All of the undervolting and airflow suggestions here are good, but I'm fairly sure the stock fan curve is not meant to hit 100 percent at 70 degrees!

This reminds me of an issue I had with a 2080ti I bought second-hand. The issue with my 2080ti was poorly applied thermal paste. After reapplying with thermal grizzly the issues was totally gone and it behaved normally. It seemed that although the main temp readout was in a safe zone, some other, hidden temp sensor was screaming and telling the card to give max fans.

Try the easy solutions first but keep this in mind if you still have issues later.
 
WolfHauser said:
@Ravenger Amazing thanks so much I really appreciate it. I've been rendering at 2293x960 super sampled to 3440x1440.

@TT158 That's really good to know. If that is the case then I don't really feel comfortable doing that with such an expensive card I'll have to RMA it. Seems like on Nvidia's forums there are people with similar issues.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforc...cards/5/401115/thermalfan-issue-with-3090-fe/
Click to expand...

Fair enough, mate. The EVGA 2080ti I had was really easy to disassemble (4 screws and you're there, if I recall correctly), versus these 30xx FE cards which require a bit more work and forcing according to the Gamer's Nexus video.

I don't think my 3090 FE has hit 70 degrees, barely breaking 60 at 50 percent fan speed, when drawing near 400w constantly. If I get a chance this weekend I'll try forcing the fans really low and see what happens, but like you've found on the NV forum, it seems you're not the only one with the issue. It's annoying when such things happen to you! Hope you get a solution or at least an acceptable workaround soon!
 
WolfHauser said:
Thanks dude. I'm a noob and haven't undervolted before - is it quite straight forward if I set it at .950 v and then I'm good?
Click to expand...
This video will walk you through it (you can skip to 8:35 for the Nvidia bit):


It's very easy to do and very much recommended for the Founders Editions, since they have pretty strict power limits. You'll get better performance than stock out of the card by dropping to around 950mV, or really drive down temperatures and fan speeds in exchange for a couple of percent performance by going to 850mV or so. An example of the clocks and drop in power draw (numbers might not be identical for you since silicon lottery plays a role):

graphlyk71.png


As you can see, with that particular card they shaved off 57W of power draw whilst only dropping 15MHz from the stock clock, which is great really.
 
Aretak said:
This video will walk you through it (you can skip to 8:35 for the Nvidia bit):


It's very easy to do and very much recommended for the Founders Editions, since they have pretty strict power limits. You'll get better performance than stock out of the card by dropping to around 950mV, or really drive down temperatures and fan speeds in exchange for a couple of percent performance by going to 850mV or so. An example of the clocks and drop in power draw (numbers might not be identical for you since silicon lottery plays a role):

graphlyk71.png


As you can see, with that particular card they shaved off 57W of power draw whilst only dropping 15MHz from the stock clock, which is great really.
Click to expand...
WolfHauser said:
Nice on thanks all.

RE driver - says I'm on 461.40

I seem to be able to run control with DLSS with ray tracing both on and off with this driver fine



Thanks dude. I'm a noob and haven't undervolted before - is it quite straight forward if I set it at .950 v and then I'm good?
Click to expand...

No worries dude. Above is a good guide but each card is different.
Mine does 1965Mhz @ 881mV which keeps it nice in the termal zone.


here is another good guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4mnDo11xhU&t=220s
 
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