Windows 7: Heatsinks to bring down GPU temps

Hi, as the titles says I was wondering if using heatsinks would help bring down temps a bit my card idle at around 47-50c so I would love to see if I can bring down those temps a bit by using heatsinks, I cant really get a aftermarket cooler because most of them uses 2.5 or 3 slots so they would hit my wireless pci card that I cant move anywhere else because of my motherboard, so if I add heatsinks to the vram I think it is that is not being covered by the current fan would that be a good idea or a bad one, I tried to google a bit and some said it was good some said it would break the card. Picture below is not very good but the best one I could find so if someone who is a bit more into this could maybe help me. And it was not that long ago since I put new thermal paste on it. Oh and almost forgot, what I can remember max temps was around 82c when I last furmark but it could be different now.



Oh and I have 2x 140 mm fans blowing in cold air from the side that should be hitting the card but strangely enough I did not see any difference in temps when I installed those. Sorry for the long text.

Andreas,

I do not have an answer to your question, but I do know that some companies, such as EVGA, sell an Nvidia 680 card that comes with a built in water cooler (minus the actual cooler motor and fan). You can then buy a CPU water cooler that doubles as a GPU cooler and get both CPU and GPU to have excellent temperatures. I am sure there are many different cards and companies that have similar cooling capabilities, and if you were to get a CPU/GPU cooler, it would save on space and perhaps even money.

The only drawback is if you do not want to spend the money to get a new card and water cooler. If that is the case, you would have to look into choosing if you want to get the water cooler and parts for installing it onto your GPU (would need to take the outer shell of your card off if you have one), or if you want to go ahead and just by a GPU cooler (fan, I would guess) which would be a lot cheaper. If you install the cooling fan onto the GPU, you will still need to take the outer shell off (again, if you have it). But for the GPU fan option, I do not know of a good one to suggest to you.

There is the option of buying an interal fan and aiming it at your GPU. Some fans can attach to your motherboard or clip to another location such as the hard rive bay. You could also buy dual fans that you can plug into either your pci-e x1 slot, pci slot, or pci-e slot (keep in mind, these are all different fans, so make sure they will fit properly if you choose this route).

Hope I've helped!

My question is this

Do you have a heat problem, or a reason for needing to get your temps down other than you just want to for the sake of doing it?

Thats a tad extreme and expensive since my case is not watercooled at all and its and old GTX 260, apparently I removed that part for some reason. And to try I actually put a 140 mm fan on the bottom of my case resting on some MB standoffs laying right under the fan = 3 140 mm fans blowing cold air on the card did not change anything at all, and the GPU in the picture is how my card look

The temp just seem high to me and the card is about 4 years old now so if I could get the card to run a bit cooler I would be happy if it would add some more lifespan to the card since my wallet don't really allow me to just go out and buy a new card (I wish I could)

47-50 C isn't bad. 60 C is a tad too much. 30 C is room temperature out here on a good day (Southern California), cards normally run from 35 - 45 C. You may be VERY slowly wearing down your GPU faster than others, but it should still work fine in years to come.

Just to be sure, this temp only happens under graphically intensive programs right, it isn't running that high under normal conditions? If so, completely fine. Best practices are to turn off/put computer into sleep mode when you are finished using it.

Make sure you clean out all dust (canned air is best solution), and have a steady airflow in the case with wires secured out of the way. An extra fan may help, even if it is only by a few degrees lower. Otherwise, a new card or water cooling may be the only worthwhile solution. If your card is 4 years old (thought I read that somewhere?), consider that it may not last forever, but there is no way to know how long it will last. For $150US you could get a Geforce 460 and I know personally that that card is good AND cool.

Depending upon the GPU, this might be right in line with what is normal. My Nvidia 580 GTX will run at 80C or more during gaming sessions with BF3. I want to say it idles in the 40's. That's exactly where it is designed to run.

I've heard good things about coolers like these:
Zalman VF1000 LED VGAGPU Cooler - 80mm Blue LED Fan, 2 Ball Bearing, 4x Heatpipes, Fan Controller at TigerDirect
http://biz.tigerdirect.com/applicati...668&CatId=4027

Make sure you have enough ventilation in your case maybe your not letting out enough air and that is causing those temps because my gpu idles at 41c and my cpu is at 21c. So my suggestion is get some more ventilation if you don't already have some and clean out the case of dust and your components like the heat sink and gpu fan.Amazed nobody suggested that maybe he is not blowing out enough of the hot air anyways i suggest you clean it up, check if it's dusty inside and use a compressed can of air to clean it out.

I use one of these and it works well as long as you can zip tie the outer ring to something.
Amazon.com: Antec SpotCool System Cooler: Electronics

Andreas,

My GTX 560ti SuperClock idled at 50C, I use the fan profile in Afterburner to bring it down to 43C. It does raise the noise level a little bit, but the peace of mind makes it worthwhile.

Relatively high idle and working temps are supposed to be normal for these cards but it seems to me that the cooler we can make them run, the better.

According to HWiNFO, the current temp of my graphics card is 43C and the fan is running at about 1950 rpm with only the web browser open. I was just playing Borderlands, the max temp was 69C and the fan max was 3390 rpm. Noticeable, but not annoying.