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How high would you let a Gfx run? (570GTX Frozr3)

Xordium

Xordium

Xordium

Soldato
Joined
8 Apr 2009
Posts
12,702
Just wondering as for some reason my 570GTX Twin Frozr III runs very hot in SWTOR - it never goes above 65 in BF3 or Skyrim but load up SWTOR and it goes above 70 straight away on the same settings even with vsynch on. Had a look on the MSI site but can't seem to find an answer and I would rather not have to have the fan running at 100% just to drive down temperatures if they were well within tolerance levels through afterburner.

Cheers for anyone who knows the answer to this on.
 
Far too many times, I've unfortunately forgotten to change my profile in Afterburner, and have had two hour+ stints on games where my 470 has hit 107c :o

I really need a warning light or siren or something :D
 
If You want to protect Your investment running it at 60-70c it should last as long as You want.

If you run it at 100c you are killing it and the motherboard slot etc (anything plastic starts drying out and gets "crispy")

Heat is the number one enemy of electronics and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.
 
When GPU manufacturers give out their temps it is the part ONLY that they are rating for heat.

That means the GPU core itself and not the rest of the components.

Number one cause of GPU death is solder failure. And it happens because the board expands and contracts (it's made of glass fibre). As it expands it puts pressure on the solder points. And, because they are in an array it only takes a couple to fail and you start seeing artefacts and so on.

This is why people bake them.

Sadly it doesn't provide a long term fix, as that would be to replace the solder and that is impossible without very expensive and complex machinery. Most namely - this.

bgaoven.jpg


Lots of methods have been tried to stop the problem, most notably this metal frame around the GPU itself.

phobya.jpg


But sadly as I said to repair them properly you need a small sheet with holes punched in it for your GPU core. That gets laid over the cleaned PCB and solder "screen printed" onto the board. At that point you put the GPU on and put it in the reflow oven (pictured above).

Here is a couple of pics to show what happens to the solder.

workingGPU.jpg


failedgpu.jpg


The culprit? ROHS solder. IE - lead free "green" solder. Something that has been mandatory for a few years now and that has caused GPU makers serious headaches.

Old solder contained lead. Lead is soft and pliable, and when mixed with an alloy (tin) can give and take as the board expands and contracts. Sadly lead is poisonous, so was outlawed by health and safety.

At which point new solder was developed, but now it is all tin. And tin is harder and more brittle than lead, so tends to snap away easier. The cause of it of course is flux. Flux is an epoxy resin that hardens around the solder to keep it in place. Sadly as it gets old it degenerates and yeah, you're screwed. See pic.

brokensolder.jpg


This is why Nvidia changed their minds all of a sudden, and told people that for safe operation a temp of 80c or lower was good to prolong the life of your equipment.

How that will pan out? well, I see far less failures on the 4 and 5 series as I did on the 8 and 2 series. They are plain terrible.
 
Well with the fans at 60% and now I have changed the .ini settings I am now never going over 75 degrees which from what you chaps are saying is quite good for a card I expect to keep no more than another year. And once again thank you to all those who contributed. Especially the post above which was informative - cheers.
 
Xordium said:
Well with the fans at 60% and now I have changed the .ini settings I am now never going over 75 degrees which from what you chaps are saying is quite good for a card I expect to keep no more than another year. And once again thank you to all those who contributed. Especially the post above which was informative - cheers.
Click to expand...

75c is not the end of the world, but as above I personally would trade some fanspeed/noise and consider 70 max ;)

Just always remember to let stuff cool down before shutting of the PC after hard use, Just as You never shut off a turbo engined car without letting the turbo slow down and cool for a couple of minutes.

Lots of the new younger generation don't understand "mechanical sympathy" as people don't seem to be hands on any more, building electronic circuits and engines etc, so never even consider warming things up and cooling things down.
Now You know what can happen to those solder connections try to avoid Thermal shock ;)
 
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