Graphics card temperatures

Graphics card temperatures

So here we'll have a look at GPU temperatures. First up, IDLE (desktop) temperatures.

Overall anything below 50 Degrees C is considered okay, anything below 40 Degrees C is very nice and below 30 Degrees C - CEWL. But what happens when we are gaming? We fire off an intense game-like application at the graphics card and measure the highest temperature of the GPU. 

So with the card fully stressed we kept monitoring temperatures and noted down the GPU temperature.

• Radeon RX 480 - The temperature under heavy game stress for the card stabilized at a maximum of roughly 83 Degrees C. We note down the hottest GPU reading, not the average. The new card works with a temperature target much like Nvidia uses. The base value is set at 80 Degrees C. 

With today's graphics cards, please make sure your PC is well ventilated at all times, this will seriously help you on the overall GPU temperatures. As you can see below, once the card reaches its maximum temperature threshold of 80 Degrees it will start throttling on the boost frequency as well as voltages and fan RPM.

We are stressing with 3DMark FireStrike scene 1 looped. As you can see, the GPU clocks down 66 MHz (variable) to be able to meet the temperature target.