Corsair 4000X and H150i Elite Capellix with eVGA 3080 12Gb FTW3 ULTRA

[Pratticus]

Hi all,

Concern: 3080 idles too hot.

Summary:

I have subject combination of case, CPU cooler, and GPU.

The H150i is front-mounted with the 3 H150i fans pulling air into the case (so, order would be 4000X front panel -> H150i fans -> H150i rad -> 4000X interior). The 3 SP fans that came with the 4000X are configured as exhaust (2 out top and 1 out rear).

The 3080 is in the normal horizontal orientation in the PCIe slot of the MSI Pro Z690-A Wifi mobo nerest the CPU; I have an i7-12700K CPU.

The issue I am having is with an ambient room temperature of ~24C, the idle temperature of the 3080 hovers ~42C even when the GPU fans are at 80%. Idle CPU package temperature is ~29C.

I have tried different combinations of fan speeds, profiles, and curves and I cannot lower the GPU idle temperature.

Question: can anyone make suggestions on how to improve my GPU idle temperature?

Thanks very much,

Ryan

Edited May 7, 2022 by Pratticus

[LeDoyen]

uhm.. watercooling.

Jokes aside, the case temperature is always different from room temp. your AIO raises the internal temp by a few degrees, the GPU is stirring warm-ish air too, and it's an aircooled GPU so you can only reduce temp that far.

You can also look in the Nvidia control panel and make sure that the GPU is set to "Normal" and not to prioritize max performance (i don't know the exact spelling, mine is not in english). When set to max performance, the GPU never goes to low power in idle and idles at 100-ish watts which indeed causes high idle temps.

in Normal, it should go around 30 - 40W

[c-attack]

5 hours ago, Pratticus said:

The issue I am having is with an ambient room temperature of ~24C, the idle temperature of the 3080 hovers ~42C even when the GPU fans are at 80%. Idle CPU package temperature is ~29C.

This could mean one of two things.  1) Case temperature is in the 30s so the lowest possible temp is going to be around there.  Try to find another data source to compare, like MB temp.   2) That is the normal GPU idle temp for that GPU.  

 

Somewhere out there is a 3080 12GB FTW3 specific review, but here is another with comparable cards.  Note the idle temp chart at the top of this page.  You can't affect this with case airflow except by a few degrees.  80% fan at idle is extreme.  If it's not cooling it down further, then it can't.  For what it's worth, that same GPU will idle at the case ambient temp when in a full water block, but I don't see this as valuable.  There is no great benefit to an idle GPU at 32C vs 37C vs 42C.  While the GPU diode is that temperature, your actual power consumption is minimal and you are not heating the case.  Most people will let it idle in zero fan mode, but the typical 20-30% minimum should fan speed should take a chunk off that.  

[Pratticus]

Thanks everyone!

At 100% load and 100% fans, the card hits a maximum of 78C.

So, the range is mid-40s idle to mid-70s full load, a swing of about 35C when ambient room is 24C.

Sound reasonable?

@c-attack thanks for the references. I was seeing people claim idles of 30C and it looks like the eVGA FTW 3080s run about 10C at idle above the FE card.

[LeDoyen]

my TUF 3090 was idling at 54°C with the fans off which is plenty cool when aircooling.

if i forced the fans to spin a bit it went to the temps you have, but honestly it's not needed. the only measurable difference is power usage in idle. with the silicon running cooler, power usage slightly drops. Like you may save 4 ot 5 watts by killing your fans, which will not pay for new fans when you'll have smoked the bearings.

You'll want to see if there's measurable benefits in having the fans run constantly, but most likely there's none. The only reason i ever found to control the fans myself was to cool the card as much as possible before a 3Dmark run to hold clocks longer.

And just for reference, the card starts throttling beyond 83°C by default if you don't tweak the setting, so, 78 you're good.

[Pratticus]

I think I figured out what was going wrong.

I was attempting to increase fan speed to lower temperatures. While in certain circumstances, this is true, in my case (literally) I believe it was causing turbulence or other air effects that prevented laminar/smooth flow.

I dropped my fan speed to 10% and now at idle, I am 34C.

Lesson learned: it's not just about how fast the air is moving, it's also about the direction!

Edited May 9, 2022 by Pratticus