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[GUIDE] on safe GPU temperatures

Dreamonic
Level 12

WHAT ARE SAFE GPU TEMPERATURES?


There is no specific safe GPU temperature for each and every model of notebook. Instead, there is a safe acceptable GPU temperature range.











The acceptable LOAD temperature range for any notebook GPU is:
60-80°C ± 5°C
The acceptable IDLE temperature range for any notebook GPU is:
36-50°C ± 5°C


If your GPU temperatures fall within these ranges, your system is performing
optimally.


Note: If temps are greater than the acceptable temperature ranges causing FPS spikes (thermal throttling) consider (in order) the following below:



  • Are the fans working? (while running a game/benchmark, is air coming out near exhaust vents)

  • Are the fans spinning faster when running a game or benchmark? (do you hear a change in fan speed)

  • Is there anything near the fans exhaust vents? (dust buildup, debris, close proximity to walls, etc)

  • Is the thermostat in your living space set too high? (above 22°C)

  • Are you overclocked using an overvolt? (modified vBIOS)

  • Has the notebook been in your possession long? (air cooling efficiency degrades over time)

  • Are you running games at over 100 FPS? (limiting FPS can greatly reduce GPU load temps)
  • Did you notice high temperatures right out of the box or after some time had passed? (if right away, would indicate lack of thermal paste applied between GPU and heatsink. If later on, could be a bad fan, accumulation of dust or thermal paste efficiency degrading)


If everything checks out fine above but you still want to lower temperatures, you can try the options and mods below in no specific order:



  • Perform a repaste (requires notebook disassembly and appropriate tools) VOIDS WARRANTY

  • Intake mod (skill level = high, depending on how you go about it) VOIDS WARRANTY

  • Full copper plate mod (spans across from one heatpipe to another) VOIDS WARRANTY
  • Notebook cooler (no tools or mods required, just a spare USB port.. and money)

  • Limit FPS under 100 (enable g-sync or v-sync if using internal display. Use frame-limiters in game settings or OC utilities if using 120/144Hz external display)



Note: If you don't feel confident performing a repaste (which isn't always an improvement) and still want to have your warranty intact, then you can choose to RMA your notebook through ASUS or locate an ASUS reseller nearby for the repair work to be completed. Should anything happen in this scenario, you will be covered since you were not the one performing the work to the notebook.

Warning: Attempting to disassemble your notebook without the proper tools, guides, patience and some common sense your first time round could result in broken parts and your notebook not functioning afterwards. Please do the research specific to your model of notebook since the steps in which it's disassembled may vary from other models.

Attempting to do an intake mod or full copper plate mod, even with some experience disassembling and assembling notebooks can still result in a nonfunctional notebook. Remember, every component in a notebook is specific to that notebook, which makes certain parts very expensive and hard to attain should you need a spare to replace something along the way.


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Dreamonic
Level 12

LINKS TO PERFORMED MODS


Note: This section will be updated with relevant and detailed information regarding certain mods.
If you have a mod that you'd like to be listed, PM me and I'll add it to the list.




LINKS TO NOTEBOOK DISASSEMBLY/TEARDOWNS

Note: This section will include very detailed disassembly guides as it's often used for repasting.
I will only include GUIDES that I feel fit the bill.




POLL ON GPU TEMPERATURES

Note: Are you curious about what the GPU load temperatures are in other notebook models?
You can post your own as well.




FREQUENTLY VIEWED Q&A

What kind of thermal paste should I use when I do a repaste?
You can find my answer here but if you want detailed results, go to thermal paste comparison.

Does a notebook cooler really lower temperatures?
Yes! Notebook models where the intake vents are clearly visible on the bottom can have load temperatures dropped anywhere from 3-10°C+ just by using one (dependent on the cooler fans CFM rating). You can find more information about this here.

What does a modified VBIOS do exactly?
A modified VBIOS removes currently set stock VBIOS limits and increases them to allow (user control in some cases) for higher overclocking. I'll list what is commonly applied.


  • Increased overclock limit of +135Mhz to +XXX

  • Increased base P00/P01/P02/P05/P08 voltage limits
  • Increased max voltage limits
  • Increased power tables
  • Increase/decrease base core/boost/mem clock values
  • Increase/decrease temp target values
  • Increase/decrease power limit values
  • Unlocked voltage control
  • Unlocked power limit control
  • Unlocked temp target control
  • Fixed thermal throttling
  • Fixed thermal voltage drop
  • Fixed boost states


What are the risks involved in flashing a modified VBIOS?
Most people who are in the scene of modding/flashing have gone through their share of failures, sometimes at a cost than just their time. It's the years of experience that helps alleviate this risk of flashing, but what does that mean for newcomers? If you have the general know-how, it is still relatively risky because there are many uncertainties that can come forth given the proper precautions that are put in place when regarding anything at a hardware/software level. I'll give some examples below.


  • Do you know how your system is setup and configured?

  • Will it randomly restart or have unexpected shutdowns?
  • Is your CPU overclocked/undervolted?
  • Is your battery AND AC adapter both being used?
  • Did you verify the modified VBIOS you are flashing is correct to your GPU?
  • Do you understand how blind flashing works?

  • Have you researched recovery solutions for failed flashes with plans for a recovery, should anything happen?
  • Do you realize what could happen if you can't recover from one?
  • Are you willing to accept all the risks?


These are the kinds of questions that must be asked in order to be prepared for a successful flash. It should be said that it's very important that you do your research before flashing anything,
since you are taking all the risks!

Dreamonic
Level 12

GUIDE TO OVERCLOCKING GPUs



Tools: GPU-Z | GPU Tweak | NVIDIA Inspector | MSI Afterburner

Note: You will want to run GPU-Z and go to the "Sensors" tab and keep GPU-Z running throughout this process. GPU-Z can be used to log values from these sensors or for the sake of simplicity, finding either the max/min/avg values instead. The most important ones are "GPU Temperature", "GPU Load" and "VDDC" but also watching to see if your increased core/memory clocks are being applied too. To find the max/min/avg values from your sensors in GPU-Z, simply click on the current (real-time) values displayed for them.

Now, open up your favorite overclocking utility. I should add that if you choose to use MSI Afterburner and have a notebook NVIDIA GPU, you will not have any voltage control as you would on GPU Tweak, EVGA Precision X or NVIDIA Inspector despite still having a modified vBIOS, unless you enable voltage control for MSI Afterburner here.


TEMPERATURE: Typically, load temps on air cooling vary around 65-92°C (ambient temps play a factor also) depending on the form factor of the notebook chassis used. Some gaming notebook models like that of MSI, Razer and Gigabyte (even ASUS) use these slim portable chassis which are great in theory, but often executed poorly thermally which cause their GPUs to under perform next to identical GPUs in thicker and bulkier chassis. So what's worse, louder fan noise for higher temps in a slimmer chassis or lower fan noise for lower temps in a thicker chassis? So how does this affect the GPU overall? The thermal interface material (TIM) or as we call it, thermal paste, can only do so much in terms of efficiency on a poorly designed heatsink assembly. This results in load temps to creep up slowly and ultimately triggering a throttling point. The core clock or boost clock will most likely throttle (underclock) because the temperature is reaching what's known as the preset temp target value. Some GPUs in their form factor chassis leave little to no headroom in terms of overclocking and result in a lesser performing system due to the temperatures reaching implemented limits already.

Artifacts here are a bit more involved. If you had already gone through overvolting and overclocking until you found what was stable and what wasn't with your GPU, you'd have likely seen your share of artifacts associated with testing it. The artifacts that arise when the temperature is higher is all those that associated with you earlier but now happen much sooner and at values known to be stable for your GPU. This can lead to terrible FPS, overclock stability and will result in constant core clock throttling, indefinitely, until temperatures are under the preset temp target values again.


TDP/POWER LIMIT: This is the main root of evil that is core/boost clocks and why they're not able to hold their values. Your FPS can drop suddenly when the power limit is reached. How do you monitor what's happening? By using GPU-Z, specifically on the sensors tab. There you will see in the PerfCap field as "Pwr" which indicates reaching the set power limit values of a stock vBIOS. If modified however, then the power limits are raised to allow the core/boost clocks to go higher paired with adequately increased voltage (and hold) without being limited or underclocked based on the modified power limit values used now, but this also introduces another problem called black screening.

Artifacts that result in a display driver to crash and become unable to send out a GUI error to the system for recovery. This is known as black screening and is often caused by an extremely high core/boost clock and amount of voltage unstable for the card at the currently set power limit. It's more likely to happen as you raise your core clock and voltage beyond controllable temperatures, toward the point when sporadic stability begins occurring. As is the case with some cards, it can happen at a lower OV/OC ceiling rather than higher.


CORE/BOOST CLOCK: You first want to establish how high you can overclock your core before your display driver crashes, without increasing the voltage yet. I usually start at 50Mhz intervals until I start crashing, then I lower it by 25Mhz and fine tune it from there until it's stable. When you do begin crashing from an overclock (usually from a high GPU load game or while benchmarking) your overclocked values will be defaulted and the card will be running back to its stock clocks again. This tells you that the core clock you set was too high given the current voltage, so you must lower your core clock and rinse and repeat this process until you find what is stable. The reason we do this without just increasing voltage right away and just maxing the core/memory sliders, is A.) we want to set a base for how high it did go (from the results) and B.) you'd crash almost instantly and receive nothing beneficial to work with as all you know now is it crashed, but which value(s) had caused it? Setting a base first helps better determine what your temps, your ceiling and your overall stability in performance at the end is going to be at.

Artifacts that are stretched/protruding or is an assortment of multicolored textures or horizontal/vertical lines flashing which are scattered all over the screen, indicate too high of a core clock at the current voltage used or the GPU is overheating (reaching triple digits) because it's not throttling.


MEMORY CLOCK: Usually, the memory clock is increased somewhere from 200-1400Mhz depending on the memory ICs used (vRAM) as well as the model (and architecture) of the card. Increasing the memory clock allows for even higher bandwidth (increases fps slightly) for faster data transferring, but increasing the memory clock too high can result in decreased performance as well as making the card unstable to even the lowest memory allocated program or game. When increasing the memory clock, it's best to start at 200Mhz intervals until you start crashing, then lower it by 50Mhz and fine tune it from there until it's stable.

Artifacts that are black/white or multicolored flashing shapes of various sizes (dominant one) which are scattered over the screen in patterns, indicate an unstable and too high memory clock. Higher memory allocated programs or games can cause the memory ICs to overheat, which will also display these artifacts as well.


VOLTAGE: When increasing the voltage (accompanied by increasing the core clock) start by around 50mV (testing it) and increasing it by 25mV until 200mV (max on most mobile cards) is reached as this is usually enough to go up 250-600Mhz on the core clock (taking notice on the load temperatures each time you test). This is obviously dependent on the bin quality of your die, as your result from the OV (overvolt) with the overclocking headroom will differ from that of another. It could be bad or it could be good. Searching what others get using the card you have can help you figure out if it's considered (by you with the research or by someone else) a good overclocker!

Artifacts that are solid or flashing red, green or black vertical bars on the screen, indicate too much voltage is applied to the card. There has also been times where these particular artifacts mean there isn't enough voltage applied, but at the edge of becoming unstable itself.

Dreamonic
Level 12
Reserved

uprisetv
Level 7
with vapor cooling and such, shouldn't the ROG (g752 at least) be maintaining Lower temps than this? Or is that asking too much?

Dreamonic
Level 12
There are 4 main things at play here.

1. The profile of the fans determine your low/med/high load temperatures. Regardless of everything else, there is still a trade-off, and that's noise verse temperature. Something ASUS decided on their ROG G-Series notebooks by having quieter fan operation instead. There are 3rd party utilities that can allow user control of fan speed, but again, it's still limited by the fans ASUS used.

2. The surface contact of the entire heatsink, cooling fin array and heatpipe assembly. How long and short are they. Do they overlap or span across onto other hardware that generates heat, etc.

3. 3D Vapor Chamber cooling in notebooks where physical limitations prevent for larger cooling systems to be used, is a step in the right direction, however, since the difference can vary by up to as small as 5% (guesstimate) in improved system cooling efficiency, it's not going to be a HUGE leap in temperature improvement as to traditional heatpipe assemblies. It's all in the design the company (in this case ASUS) decides is adequate enough for their gaming notebooks.

4. You may be expecting too much because of the name and marketing used to fish up the "technology."

Dreamonic
Level 12
There are 4 main things at play here.

1. The profile of the fans determine your low/med/high load temperatures. Regardless of everything else, there is still a trade-off, and that's noise verse temperature. Something ASUS decided on their ROG G-Series notebooks by having quieter fan operation instead. There are 3rd party utilities that can allow user control of fan speed, but again, it's still limited by the fans ASUS used.

2. The surface contact of the entire heatsink, cooling fin array and heatpipe assembly. How long and short are they. Do they overlap or span across onto other hardware that generates heat, etc.

3. 3D Vapor Chamber cooling in notebooks where physical limitations prevent for larger cooling systems to be used, is a step in the right direction, however, since the difference can vary by up to as small as 5% (guesstimate) in improved system cooling efficiency, it's not going to be a HUGE leap in temperature improvement as to traditional heatpipe assemblies BECAUSE It's all in the design the company (in this case ASUS) decides is adequate enough for their gaming notebooks.

4. You may be expecting too much because of the name and marketing used to fish up the "technology."