Hotspot to GPU core difference

[DreamCat04]

Hi, I just had a question pop up in my head, I don't know if it's one of the classic ones like "my hotspot gets to 90°C, is this bad?" But my RTX 2060 from my Dell G5 regularly reaches 100°C on the hotspot while the core is usually at 83°C while playing games. At idle, the difference is around 12°C and under load it goes up to around 17°C. Is that still fine or should I consider opening it up and re-pasting it? I've read that 10-15°C should be the difference. My warranty expired 1.5 years ago already, so that's not a concern for me. for reference, the GTX 1660Ti in my gaming laptop never really has its hotspot above 95°C, even if the GPU temp is at 85-87°C.

We are getting a broken PC from a relative that my dad and I are going to fix at some point and we would get some thermal paste for that so that's not an issue either. I'd just have to look for the right thickness thermal pads. Also is there a way to attach a heatsinks to my CPU VRMs? They don't have one at all and are idling in the 50s and getting to the 90s while playing games

[RONOTHAN##]

it's a delta that's higher than I'd expect, usually it's about 10-15C under full load, but it's not that much different than what I'd expect. AS long as the clock speeds look about right for the card, I wouldn't worry too much about it. 

 

That said, if the hot spot is up at 100C, odds are it's throttling at least a bit, so a repaste might be a decent idea. 

[DreamCat04]

35 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

it's a delta that's higher than I'd expect, usually it's about 10-15C under full load, but it's not that much different than what I'd expect. AS long as the clock speeds look about right for the card, I wouldn't worry too much about it. 

 

That said, if the hot spot is up at 100C, odds are it's throttling at least a bit, so a repaste might be a decent idea. 

The max the hotspot reached once was 103°C almost. It is still running above 2000 MHz however and doesn't seem to be throttling. Maybe I might just go for the re-paste because it might make me be able to have the fan turn up less because I hear it from 50% on and from 60% on it's very clearly audible. That said, I have the case fan I swapped loosely in the front to assist with airflow and that overcomes the GPU fan now that I set a custom curve for it

[DreamCat04]

On 5/9/2022 at 11:13 PM, RONOTHAN## said:

it's a delta that's higher than I'd expect, usually it's about 10-15C under full load, but it's not that much different than what I'd expect. AS long as the clock speeds look about right for the card, I wouldn't worry too much about it. 

 

That said, if the hot spot is up at 100C, odds are it's throttling at least a bit, so a repaste might be a decent idea. 

Just got back from a 2.5 hour gaming session. I played MC with a shader and a texture pack. On my second monitor, I had HWInfo64 open and focused on the GPU section. I wanted to make sure that the max temp the hotspot reached wasn't a spike or so. It regularly went above 100°C, it rarely went below it while the GPU was hovering around 84°C. The average hotspot temp was 101°C I think and the average core clock was at 1800 MHz. The average power draw was around 150 watts I think, might have been 155 too

[-rascal-]

The "hotspot" temperature is the hottest part/spot on the GPU die.

The GPU die contains the GPU Cores, ROPs, Shaders, etc.

The GPU Cores may be at 85*C, but another part on the GPU die may be running hotter.

 

For AMD GPUs, the "hotspot" is anywhere on the card (that has a sensor).

In that case, the "hotspot" can be the memory chip(s), VRM(s), etc -- not limited to the GPU die / core.

[DreamCat04]

@RONOTHAN##I just checked some of my older footage because I always have MSI afterburner running and showing the temps and stuff. The temps there never went above 79°C and the GPU was boosting to a constant 2010 MHz since I had a +150 on the core. Now the temps easily exceed the 80s and as I said before, the hotspot pretty much stays above 100°C. It is holding an average clock of around 1800MHz, so I really think it's throttling and will benefit from a repaste. Do you know any good thermal paste?

[RONOTHAN##]

39 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

It is holding an average clock of around 1800MHz, so I really think it's throttling and will benefit from a repaste. Do you know any good thermal paste?

Arctic MX 4 or MX 5 is pretty good for cheap. The stuff I have around is Arctic Silver 5 because it was cheap and does perform pretty well. Most of the good pastes perform within a degree or two of each other, and you only really need to be particular with pastes if you start going sub zero.