High idle temps

Digideath · July 5, 2022

Hiya. Got a bit of a hot graphics card while idle and im wondering if it's behavour is normal. For reference the card i have is an inno3d rtx 3060 ti twin x2.

So i got this card the other week. For those curious, i got it for around msrp on a special offer. Don't knock this card. It's amazing. It's a monster of a card. And that's probably the issue.

When i first installed this card and ran it, the idle temps gradually rose to 61c I have never seen a graphics card idle at 61c before. So i went into msi afterburner and set quit an aggressive fan curve. I managed to bring it down to 51c idle but now i can hear the fans while it's idle. Here's the weird thing though. It doesn't even come close to overheating under load. I have monitored and logged it continuously with gpu-z since i got it and ive never seen it go above 68c under full load.

One theory i have. One thing i noticed in gpu-z. It doesn't actually clock down while idle. It sits perminantly at its rated boost clock of 1680mhz while doing nothing. That could be why it's so hot while idle. Are rtx 3000 cards supposed to clock up and down based on load?

There's nothing wrong with the card in any other way. It performs like a demon. I upgraded from a rtx 2060 and was only expecting a small performance boost but boy was i wrong. Put it this way, even though the boost clock for the card is 1680mhz, i've logged it in gpu-z boosting all the way up to 1980mhz. And i swear im not overclocking. I haven't got to that part yet. Also im getting almost 12000 in time spy. A wee bit higher than other 3060 ti's. Like i said. This card is a monster.

emosun · July 5, 2022

23 minutes ago, Digideath said:

So i went into msi afterburner and set quit an aggressive fan curve.

do you only have the base driver for the card installed and not nvidias game ready driver thingy or whatever it's called?

zzlttzz · July 5, 2022

Did you set your global setting power management to normal?

xAcid9 · July 5, 2022

Turn on GPU Activity Indicator and check which software is using the GPU.

Software like web browser(Chrome,Edge,Firefox, etc), Steam, Discord, RTX Voice could make your GPU not clocking down to idle state because they use gpu Hardware Acceleration. You can turn it off in setting except RTX Voice.

Digideath · July 5, 2022

56 minutes ago, emosun said:

do you only have the base driver for the card installed and not nvidias game ready driver thingy or whatever it's called?

Yep just the basic driver and control pannel. I'm just not a big fan of geforce experience lol.

23 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

Turn on GPU Activity Indicator and check which software is using the GPU.

Software like web browser(Chrome,Edge,Firefox, etc), Steam, Discord, RTX Voice could make your GPU not clocking down to idle state because they use gpu Hardware Acceleration. You can turn it off in setting except RTX Voice.

I'll have a look in to it.

45 minutes ago, zzlttzz said:

Did you set your global setting power management to normal?

Yep. As you can see. That's what i always run it at.

Edit: Posted the wrong pic Was compairing with browser open and closed. This is the right pic. This is my gpu state after every app closed for 2 mns. As you can see it's stuck at 1680mhz with 0% gpu usage and 51c temps.

emosun · July 5, 2022

48 minutes ago, Digideath said:

Yep just the basic driver and control pannel. I'm just not a big fan of geforce experience lol.

ok it might be worth making sure you have the right driver for that card and not just the general nvidia driver for the 3060 as inno 3d might have a bit of code for fan control so you dont have to use afterburner

Digideath · July 5, 2022

4 hours ago, emosun said:

ok it might be worth making sure you have the right driver for that card and not just the general nvidia driver for the 3060 as inno 3d might have a bit of code for fan control so you dont have to use afterburner

Got it sorted. Just had to ddu the drivers. It's my own fault. This os install has been going on for over a year. I've been installing driver over the top of driver for over a year for a 2060. I don't usually like using ddu. Then when i dropped this 3060 ti in it boosted at all times. But using ddu sorted it for me. Installed the latest drivers and now this is what im getting...

So i'm well happy now Still a bit on the warm side but at least it's clocking down now.