How cool is too cool?

Dirk Diggler · 13 Nov 2019 at 10:39

My current GPU idle temperature is 6C - this is a Founder's Edition 1080ti on air. Considering that this is just the start of the Scottish winter, I'm starting to wonder if I'm taking a bit of a risk?

The PC is in my garage, so I don't get any heat or noise. How low could the temperature plummet before I risked damage to components? I'm thinking that there's electronics everywhere out there like in cars and traffic lights etc.. so maybe there's no risk?

Dirk Diggler · 13 Nov 2019 at 11:51

Thanks for replies.

I can leave it on 24/7 if that's an advantage, although maybe I'm just wasting electricity by doing that? If the PC components are at ambient, then what's the risk when switching on?

Frosty conditions, yea good point. I'm not sure what I can do about that.

pastymuncher said:
I have had a water temp as low as 3.4 degrees C and had no problems with the cpu and gpu that are cooled by it but I only have my rads exposed to the colder air while the actual pc is in my computer room

This was how my setup was, and I moved it to air because well as you can see it doesn't need to be under water to be kept cool - even in summer the fans can be 100% and I hear nothing. Every time winter comes around, I get paranoid about water freezing hence why I switched it.

It seems it hasn't alleviated the paranoia 100%

Dirk Diggler · 13 Nov 2019 at 14:28

@EsaT I can't make it air tight as I need to let cool air in to cool the components.

I can't see the components contacting warmer air as they should "heat" at the same rate as ambient. I think the risk would be when moving into the house which will be 20C, no?

Dirk Diggler · 15 Nov 2019 at 09:06

Last winter I had it under water. The PC was in the office and only the radiators were in the garage. I had to leave the PC on 24/7 to ensure the water didn't freeze, and that's what's prompted me to go to air as I can now leave the PC power plan to sleep after 2 hours of inactivity. I also work away from home and can now switch the PC off for the weeks that I'm not there.

I'm not too bothered about performance as the gains as so low in terms of FPS, it's all about having a silent experience and zero heat being generated in the office.

Dirk Diggler · 18 Nov 2019 at 09:52

Yea, I think I'll move it back in for the winter as even when it's powered up it isn't getting much warmer.