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Worth applying good thermal paste to GTX 980?
- Thread starter t1337Dude
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Are you currently having problems with temps?
No problems at all. I just want to get the most performance out of the card - you know, less thermal throttling, higher clocks, less fan speeds, etc.
This graph shows a night and day difference between Gelic's paste and AS5 when applied to a videocard - and I'm assuming AS5 is even better than what's on the GTX 980. But I could be wrong, which is why I'm asking here...
I mean, even a 5 degree drop allows for a very decent OC boost from what I understand.
Zepher
[H]ipster Replacement
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Well, toothpaste is out.
i remember I used tooth paste in a pinch back in 2005 or so... I'm not proud of it, but I didn't have any issues on my Barton.
Suprfire
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If you have a tube of GC Extreme laying around... go for it!
I have GC Extreme on my 970 from when i put my H55 and Kraken G10 on it.
I have GC Extreme on my 970 from when i put my H55 and Kraken G10 on it.
Nice. Sounds like a plan then. It'll be a few days before it arrives in the mail (for my H-240X cooler), so unless someone comes in here saying that they applied it to their GPU and didn't see any drops in temps, then I'm going for it and will post a direct comparison myself for anyone who wants to know.
Sounds like grade A BS
noobferguson
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It probably wasn't effective for shit, but I don't doubt it still worked. Heck, they even used a slice of cheese in a test on here a while back.Sounds like grade A BS
northfaceseen
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Cheddar or mozzarella?
Ah true, yeah I was just wondering since I've seen these cards idle real low and load not so bad so I was thinking the stock thermal paste isnt so bad. If you have quality paste I would go for it! I think I did that on many of my video cards in the past minus my MSI 770 Gaming since it had that sticker even though people have stated that taking it off doesnt void warranty, it still bothered me lol, but even the temps on them were fine so I didnt bother. On average though my 970 idles around 30C, load about 65C~70C on 1500GHz and 72~74C on benchmarking mode so in my case im fine with mine. But yeah if you have good quality paste it might be worth it, you'll maybe shave off 1-3C
BroHamBone
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Normally there will be a sticker on the screws. Otherwise your will be good
doubletake
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I'm fairly certain no 980 thermal throttles before it hits a power limit, so I doubt you'll see any gain from swapping out the paste unless you plan on going for a crazy overclock with lots of extra voltage on a modded vbios.
For me, I wouldn't mind a card running cooler even at stock speeds just so the fans don't run as fast. GPU is always the loudest thing in my systems.
Unless I turn up the fans past the default curve, my GTX 980 hits 80+ C fast and easy. Pretty sure anyone not running into temp problems while OC'ing simply like their fans loud. My temperatures go 80+ C on Heaven Benchmark even with something as minor as turning my power target to 108% - no crazy overclocked required. I don't like my fans loud, so I like the default curve.
That cheese worked on stock. OC failed though. Heh, if it would be old cyrix cpu, you could make a hot sandwich on it
And before putting new paste, I'd check warranty clauses on your card. Would suck to loose it, because you got 1C less.
Thanks, I'll check for a warranty sticker - you're right that it might not be worth voiding for just this, but I do in fact plan to install a liquid cooling block on this card in the future, so the point may be moot.
atp1916
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Nice graph in post #3.
I'll keep that handy, tyvm.
I'll keep that handy, tyvm.
misterbobby
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Sounds like a waste of time. The GPU is supposed to go to 80 C plus all you have to do is raise the power limit which also lets you prioritize the temp the card throttles. And you can also raise the fan curve just a little bit and that wont be loud. Plus you will hit the TDP limit before temps even matter as again the 80s temp range is just fine as thats what it was designed to operate at under load.
It's entirely subjective, but in my case I don't agree. Even the default fan curve gets a little loud when the card gets that hot - turning it up any more seems unfathomable to me. From my overclocking experimentation, the only limit I've hit was temperature (due to my unwillingness to turn up fan speeds). I know this because for any decent overclock I applied to my GPU, I only saw increased FPS when I turned my fans up much past what I'd normally use. When I reverted from the aggressive fan curve to the normal one, my framerates are only ~1-2 above what I'd have stock settings.
For the record, I have an EVGA Superclocked edition - so it's entirely possible that temperatures are less of a problem for other cards than mine.
misterbobby
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Well that really does not make sense as again its only going to drop ONE bin when you hit 80 and your temps and not get high enough to drop another. 13 mhz is less than 1% so it would be within margin of error as for as a benchmark goes. I really doubt you would see the difference between 65 fps and 64.5 fps.
I don't really know what you're talking about. All I know is my card, when overclocked, gets higher FPS avg when the fans are turned up versus default settings. Not .5 FPS better, but more like 3-5.
Would it help if I posted screenshots? My card gets a lot hotter than just 80 during benchmarking with any sort of OC. I recorded this data a couple of weeks after I got the card, I can do it again and take screenshots so we can diagnose why my GTX 980 doesn't get much FPS from OCing without turning up the fans.
misterbobby
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Then you have some other problems as your card would not be going over 83 or 84 even on the stock fan profile which again means you should not be dropping more than one bin. Do you have the power limit raised to 125%, or whatever the max is on your card, like you are supposed to?
When I did the testing, I tested multiple raised power limits, and there was no frame-rate gain going from 108% to 125%, In a little while when I have time, I'll run Heaven 2.0 and take some screenshots at what scores I get depending on the varying OC and fan speeds and we'll go from there.
Also, thanks for helping. This is exactly the sort of reason why I made this thread.
misterbobby
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You should to put in the max of 125% as there is no reason not too. It gives you the max available power headroom for your card so you will not hit TDP limits as much. Even with it at 125%, I still hit TDP limits in games or benchmarks at times even when running clocks no where near my max oc.
There is something seriously wrong with your 980 if your hitting the 80c range. My overclocked Asus strix 980 hardly ever hits 60c even at 1,495mhz core with my fans on using afterburner
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misterbobby
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There is nothing wrong with his card at all as far as temps go as he has the reference cooler and its operating just like it should.
Temperature takes time, I have a Strix 980 that I have the fan curve tweaked slightly - some games it goes up to 70C but I'm also running those games at 3440x1440 with the eye candy. Back to my point however, if you let the card sit there with the fans at default until 60C or whatever temperature the stock curve ramps up at, the heatsink is playing catch up and it will not win. It's a lot harder to drop something from 80C without throwing a jet engine's worth of CFM over it than it is running the fans at a reasonable 30-40% all the time and ramping to 50% at 50C and having itself balance out around 65-70C. Temperature takes time and is a lot easier to manage if it never gets out of hand in the first place.
Anyway good luck with the aftermarket thermal paste, looking forward to the results.
Anyway good luck with the aftermarket thermal paste, looking forward to the results.
Oh Christ, no wonder! Ung.... shitty blower reference coolers FTL....
70c? Jesus, how the hell is your's STRIX getting that hot? Mine rarely gets passed 55c when Dragon Age is maxing it out even at 1200p. I have the fun curve though running at 40% at idle settings as fan noise doesn't bother me
misterbobby
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It is not a shitty reference cooler at all and is doing its job exactly how it was intended.
I figured not getting higher average framerates at 125% vs 108% was a good reason not to have it up that high. The reason why I incorrectly figured I was experiencing thermal throttling was because I assumed I should have been getting higher frame-rates when raising my power limit, but I was getting better frames at 108%, so I left alone. When I saw my temperatures going over 80c, I thought "Well...not much headroom there", and I'd leave it at 108% without manually adjusting clocks from there. I'd only turn on my OC when I'm playing graphically intensive games, which isn't that often.
You guys need to forgive me, I'm many steps behind, I don't understand GPU overclocking ever since the last few generations of cards. I understand that TDP is what's limiting everyone's overclocks, but I can't figure out if I'm hitting that limit or not. EVGA PrecisionX is really confusing to use compared to how it looked years ago - I can't get it to properly monitor or graph anything, the only thing I can get working is the OSD for the temperature.
I documented everything from some Heaven 4.0 I ran, hopefully I didn't waste my time and someone could extract some useful advice for me from this regarding how I should OC my GPU. It's a bit of a mess, I apologize.
Judging from what I learned here - I have no additional room for overclocking unless I set an aggressive fan curve. The aggressive curve for me is too loud, but I might consider some leeway towards making the standard curve a little more aggressive. Am I already hitting TDP at this point? I thought I had to manually boost the clocks a bunch before I was at the point. So this leaves me with a couple of options...
A) Wait until I put everything in my new Corsair 450D case and see if improved ambient temps help my GPU's temperatures significantly. If you think improved temperatures wouldn't help my OC situation much based on the data I've given, I'll just do this.
B) Put on my new thermal paste (arrives tomorrow) when I throw my GPU into my new case. If I can do it without voiding the warranty, I'll likely go with this option.
Sorry if my post is a bit monotone, I need to get some rest. Thanks for the assistance. Yes, my GPU's fan is stock - I bought this card the minute it was available for purchase and it was out of stock immediately afterwards for some time. There's not much I can do at this point aside from add fancy thermal paste (which is for my H-240X, which I'm putting in hopefully tomorrow) or wait until I can expand it into my H-240X Loop (if possible). Shitty or not, it does its job sufficiently (but not amazingly). I'm not particularly concerned about my warranty. I've only had to RMA a card once in my life, and it was because I broke it through blatant fault of my own. I doubt it helps resale value that much either.
Are there any overclockers here with the EVGA 980 SC? I'd like to see a screenshot of what someone else uses for their fan curve (bonus points if it's mindful about noise).
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Theres also something called "doing its intended job" and "doing its intended job WELL" I don't consider reference coolers to be worthwhile when there are much better options available. Spending over $500 on a high end GPU only to be nerfed by a shoddy cooling system with high temperature isn't justifiable in my book.
We get the picture - reference coolers suck, you're preaching to the choir here - if you're trying to start any debates, please take it to a different thread.
Because I'm driving 4.95 million pixels with extra things like AA and other eye candy cranked up and keeping the fans at <50% versus your (assuming a 1920x1200 resolution) 2.3 million pixels. That extra 2.6 million pixels at a higher resolution does matter quite a bit. Very few games reach 70C though, I'm talking the Crysis 3's and shit like that of the world. Most hover around 60-65C.
misterbobby
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You are making no sense at all. Its job is to let the card run to 80 C so AGAIN its doing what its supposed to do. There is nothing getting nerfed as those temps are just fine which is something you are having trouble comprehending. But hey I am sure you know more than Nvidia.
Well that's kinda what happens when you reach out to the public for help and answers, but not everyone is gonna agree with you or see things your way, it's... Well, that's life.
If you wanna cook your gpu at 80c and then complain about cheap temps which is a direct result of a low quality cooling system only to try to put a small bandaid on a much larger problem via thermal paste swap, you go ahead and have fun with that.
It's like buying an super charger for your engine and not upgrading the cooling system and then you wonder why you have heat issues and then try to "fix" it by changing your antifreeze coolant. Farking duh
If you wanna cook your gpu at 80c and then complain about cheap temps which is a direct result of a low quality cooling system only to try to put a small bandaid on a much larger problem via thermal paste swap, you go ahead and have fun with that.
It's like buying an super charger for your engine and not upgrading the cooling system and then you wonder why you have heat issues and then try to "fix" it by changing your antifreeze coolant. Farking duh
misterbobby
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Yep you still cant get through your head that 80 C on the reference card is just fine.
Yep you still cant get through your head that 80 C on the reference card is just fine.
Great, your gpu runs merrily within operating range at 80c. Your happy that. Cool.
So why are you here asking to swap out thermal paste if you don't care about operating temps? It is after all "normal" for your gpu model and cooler.
misterbobby
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You are confusing me with the OP. I suggested not to even fool with changing it.
Hey now, your the one wanting to get "maximum performance" out of your gpu with a shoddy cooler. If you really cared about pushing your gpu to the limit, you would rip that air cooler off and water cool it. Get the right tool for the job son.
Your posts are getting really ignorant and stupid - I don't think you got the gist of this thread or the point. If you haven't figured it out, I'm not trying to push my GPU to the absolute limits - only the absolute limits given my circumstances. People who bought launch cards (like myself) didn't have a ton of choice as to what cooling, you pretty much were just happy to get any card because availability was low. I could very well water-cool the GPU, but that's not the point of this thread. Most people argue that these GTX 980 cards are not limited by their cooling capability as much as the TDP so it might be a dumb idea to pour tons of money into GPU cooling.
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