Help a newbie out: 2080 TI thermal throttling?

[Devvie]

Hey everyone,

I bought a used Gigabyte 2080 Ti XTREME just a few days ago, and now I try to solve the mystery of a jet hiding in my PC case.

Here are some screenshots of my "benchmark" results. Maybe someone can make sense of it, what the issue could be: https://imgur.com/a/jzt7vcz

I just launched GTA 5, put it in 4K and mostly ultra settings, then started the prologue, and paused it at a demanding scene. In MSI Afterburner the lows are when the game is in the background, and the highs when it's focused. The same for HWiNFO, only the picture on the left was taken before launching the game.

Now what I noticed:

1. It takes only a few seconds for the GPU to go into some kind of "emergency mode" and ramp up the fans to 4000RPM.
2. The specs say the max temperature for the card is 89C, and as far as I know cards usually start to throttle around 84C, so I don't get it why it tries so hard to keep temps below 79 degree.
3. The clock speed fluctuates between 1500-1800, I guess this is how throttling works and how it deals with high temps.
4. Another weird part is that the GPU usage peaks and sometimes stays on 100 percent, which drastically slows down the system, in the game and outside of it. I wonder if this is something normal, or if it could be avoided/limited somehow?
5. On the other hand, on both charts I can see power limit appearing and being active, is that okay? Since on HWiNFO "performance limit - thermal" was never on, so how is this related to thermal throttling? I have an EVGA G3 750W 80+ Gold, for power delivery that probably should suffice.
6. The last thing is that the core clock reaches 1950MHz, and mostly stays around the 1800s, which is new for me, since the specs only say a 1770MHz boost clock, but I assume this is okay

My only guess (and what other threads I found kinda confirm) is that after a year the thermal compound for this specific model gives up and it's necessary to apply some new. So if somebody could confirm that what's happening is ACTUALLY thermal throttling, I might just go with it, and do it myself soon (no warranty on the card anyway).

Any feedback would be appreciated! Cheers!

TL;DR: Is my GPU thermal throttling? And should I try and reapply thermal paste on it?

 

[Devvie]

just checking online and the fans reving up to around 4k isnt right a common fault on the Gigabyte 2080 Ti XTREME, don't repaste the card as you'll viod the warranty, The fault is most likley in the software side (bios), if your able to try and return it explaing the issues and keep hold of that cash for the next gen cards that will be out in the next few months

Thanks, but I can't RMA it anyway, unfortunately. Bought it under £900 (now I see why..) as a temporary card until Ampere. No box, no invoice, nothing.

So even if it's under warranty I'm out of luck. That's why I thought if I could just keep the temps under 80 I might be okay.

 

[Devvie]

... i'm a bit suspicious of the previous owner, if the card had a fault why didnt they go through the rma process or expalin that the card had the problem before selling it.

That's ___y for you..

... only way around it is to slap a waterblock on it, but if your going for ampere soon it'd be a terible waste to buy a block.

Thanks, I think I'll take your advice and leave it alone. And the funny thing is, that I only have some liquid metal on me, so I was ready to risk putting that on it, that's how upset it made me.

 

[Devvie]

Well, I was restless so I did it anyway, haha. Now it's running at 1980MHz (no idea how lol) and staying at 59C... I guess we found the culprit, the TIM was bone dry and almost non-existent. Mind you, this is not a benchmark I'm running, but at this point it was way over the point of 79C and 4000RPM failsafe on. I'm happy now

 

[Devvie]

does the card's fans rev up now after the tim has been changed?, could have been dried paste all along if the card is working properly now, 1980mhz is perfectly normal boost behavoir for most 2080 ti's so you've nothing to worry about there and the 59 degrees is a very good temprature too

I didn't try making the card reach 80C again, so I can't confirm if it's still happening or not. But I actually ran some Time Spy stress tests in loop, to see what's going on, and it will stay at 76C with 75% fan speed and ~1850MHz core. So ever everything looks fine now! After the problem was solved I instantly moved on to thinking about OC haha