GPU Overheating, Especially at high FPS

[Ceeharris]

Computer Specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700 3.2GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
• RAM: 16 GB
• OS: Windows 11 64-Bit

As the title states my GPU all of a sudden started to overheat (beyond 80 degrees celsius) at a certain usage threshold. I first noticed this while playing New World sometime last year when my fans all of sudden started to run at 100%. This was the first time my computer fans all of a sudden turned into a jet engine in the 3 years of owning this particular computer. I can now only play games at 60 fps because whenever I set it any higher the GPU usage increase will then start to increase my GPU temp to unsafe territories.

Since then I have intently monitored my temperatures and used MSI Afterburner to control and adjust fan speeds as my first troubleshooting step which has not helped. Yesterday, I did what I have been putting off for awhile which was replacing the thermal paste on the GPU chip. I applied enough that would cover the whole chip after compression and even confirmed it was properly distributed afterwards by dismantling and checking it again. Alas, my issue remains the same and I even did a computer performance check and the results indicated my pc was performing above average so I am now at a loss.

Any and all help is welcome and appreciated. I am quite sad that my $500 graphics card is not able to be used to it's fullest potential. 

[Hinjima]

6 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

Computer Specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-8700 3.2GHz
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
• RAM: 16 GB
• OS: Windows 11 64-Bit

As the title states my GPU all of a sudden started to overheat (beyond 80 degrees celsius) at a certain usage threshold. I first noticed this while playing New World sometime last year when my fans all of sudden started to run at 100%. This was the first time my computer fans all of a sudden turned into a jet engine in the 3 years of owning this particular computer. I can now only play games at 60 fps because whenever I set it any higher the GPU usage increase will then start to increase my GPU temp to unsafe territories.

Since then I have intently monitored my temperatures and used MSI Afterburner to control and adjust fan speeds as my first troubleshooting step which has not helped. Yesterday, I did what I have been putting off for awhile which was replacing the thermal paste on the GPU chip. I applied enough that would cover the whole chip after compression and even confirmed it was properly distributed afterwards by dismantling and checking it again. Alas, my issue remains the same and I even did a computer performance check and the results indicated my pc was performing above average so I am now at a loss.

Any and all help is welcome and appreciated. I am quite sad that my $500 graphics card is not able to be used to it's fullest potential. 

What case do you have?  Does it have enough airflow?

[Dukesilver27-]

7 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

overheat (beyond 80 degrees celsius)

This is not overheat, overheat is when your GPU reaches 95-100C, at which point the performance drops a lot to save the GPU. 80-95C is not unsafe territory, for my 6800 XT with OC, it is normal operating temperatures.

If you want to reduce thermal output, undervolt the GPU or limit power draw or adjust fan curve. Best option is to undervolt and adjust fan curve to your liking, this will reduce thermal output while maintaining the same performance.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

14 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

This is not overheat, overheat is when your GPU reaches 95-100C, at which point the performance drops a lot to save the GPU. 80-95C is not unsafe territory, for my 6800 XT with OC, it is normal operating temperatures.

 

Actually it likely is, but might not be the GPU core so much as the VRMs.

My ASUS 2080 TURBO does exactly this if I leave it on its default vBIOS fan profile, as the hot spot will be a good 20-30C above the GPU core temp, so core is 80C but hot spot 110C.  The vBIOS is set to only ever run the fan at 50% so the temperature will climb until it hits an emergency threshold (seeing as a VRM MOSFET may literally catch fire at around 125C this is a sensible safety measure) and the fan suddenly goes 100%, then almost immediately drops back down as the temperature obviously drops below the threshold.

The core issue I think is the fan profile being so dumb that its let the VRM thermal pads dry out a little due to running so hot, you can see the oily substance on the reverse of the PCB.  The solution was to use MSI Afterburner to create a custom fan profile to allow the fan to run above 50%.  The ideal solution of course would be to do that AND replace those thermal pads, but as I'm only using it effectively to help heat the house over the winter by Folding, I haven't looked into it further.

[Ceeharris]

5 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

This is not overheat, overheat is when your GPU reaches 95-100C, at which point the performance drops a lot to save the GPU. 80-95C is not unsafe territory, for my 6800 XT with OC, it is normal operating temperatures.

 

Thank you for the reply I appreciate it!

Yeah I'm aware that running 80-90C isn't "unsafe" per se and perhaps I have just been paranoid after hearing my fans on full blast for the first time. I am not sure if the default fan settings were just set to go from below 50% and then to 100% blast after hitting a certain temperature and I hit that temperature for the first time or what, but it freaked me out and left me paranoid from then on out. Now I monitor my games and do not let the temperature go above 85C anymore which it will do if I am running any game above 60 fps leaving me feeling like I cannot fully utilize my card.

Would you say I am just paranoid or is there any merit to me being concerned? Thanks again for the reply!

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

Would you say I am just paranoid or is there any merit to me being concerned? Thanks again for the reply!

So setting the fans to 60-80% didn't stop it?  I wonder if the thermal pads are too far gone.

[Ceeharris]

1 minute ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

See above, install something like MSI Afterburner and create a custom fan profile.  It will be a bit (potentially a lot) louder due to running the fans faster, but should stop it jumping to 100%.

Hey Alex, thanks for the reply.

I installed afterburner and set a custom fan profile immediately after hitting that 100% emergency fan speed a while back but still feel as if the temperatures are getting too high for the amount of gpu usage, but again that could just be a case of paranoia who knows. Do you think it is normal for my particular graphics card to run beyond 85C?

Also, does the below fan speed curve setting seem reasonable or would you recommend something different? Thanks for the feedback and help!

[Ceeharris]

29 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

What case do you have?  Does it have enough airflow?

Hey Hinjima sorry I missed this but thanks for the reply. It's just a standard Omen prebuilt case, I'm not really tech savvy enough to expand into any further details about the amount of proper airflow. With that said I have considered the cooling and airflow to be the potential issue.

[Dukesilver27-]

8 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

hot spot will be a good 20-30C

Based on a quick search, Nvidia'S hotspot temp usually has a delta of 10-15C, so it is 80C core then it might be still be below 100C. Yes it is very hot but it is not unsafe, it may thermal throttle if the core is already at the 90C.

4 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

Would you say I am just paranoid or is there any merit to me being concerned? Thanks again for the reply!

It's quite normal, I mean I was like that at first, but then I found out that as long as they are operating under the safe temps rated by the manufacturer, it is fine.

As I said, in addition to fan curve setting, you need to undervolt as well. Unvdervolt is by far the best way to reduce power draw and heat output which might improve performance.

Fan curve is better set to 100% at 90C, this way you'll prevent it from actually overheating.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

6 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

Hey Alex, thanks for the reply.

I installed afterburner and set a custom fan profile immediately after hitting that 100% emergency fan speed a while back but still feel as if the temperatures are getting too high for the amount of gpu usage, but again that could just be a case of paranoia who knows. Do you think it is normal for my particular graphics card to run beyond 85C?

Also, does the below fan speed curve setting seem reasonable or would you recommend something different? Thanks for the feedback and help!

Depends, if its a blower style card (one fan, exhausts entirely out the back) then 60% may not be enough.  I can get away with 60% when Folding but when loading it up with a game I had it much higher, ended up having to put it into another room with a looooong HDMI cable until I replaced it with a 3080 a vowed to never get a blower card again.

 

1 minute ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Based on a quick search, Nvidia'S hotspot temp usually has a delta of 10-15C, so it is 80C core then it might be still be below 100C. Yes it is very hot but it is not unsafe, it may thermal throttle if the core is already at the 90C.

Normally yes, but its known that on some cards the thermal pads will bleed causing them to become less effective, particularly clear on my card as I had it Folding for a month before noticing the issue.  The hot spot on NVIDIA cards includes the MOSFETs thus why the delta increased so dramatically.

[emosun]

why are you not letting the fans go to 100%

they're fans , they can run at 100% and youre wondering why its overheating.

[Ceeharris]

3 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Depends, if its a blower style card (one fan, exhausts entirely out the back) then 60% may not be enough.

After looking up what a blower style card is I can confirm that is exactly what mine is! I will try increasing my fan percentages and just deal with the louder noise.. I now have a feeling a part of the issue before is that the default fan settings were too low so that is why the temperature reached that emergency fan setting in the first place like you previously mentioned.

[Ceeharris]

1 minute ago, emosun said:

why are you not letting the fans go to 100%

they're fans , they can run at 100% and youre wondering why its overheating.

Well.. I have heard them at 100% and would prefer being able to hear myself think.  

You do have a point though that it would not hurt to utilize them more than I have been and see if they maintain stable temps. To be honest with you I ran games fine for several years on the default fan settings with very limited fan noise which is why I assumed they should not be necessary. That said I did not monitor the temperatures before so they could have been running really high that whole time without me knowing it.

Anyways, point taken and thanks for feedback. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

11 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

After looking up what a blower style card is I can confirm that is exactly what mine is! I will try increasing my fan percentages and just deal with the louder noise.. I now have a feeling a part of the issue before is that the default fan settings were too low so that is why the temperature reached that emergency fan setting in the first place like you previously mentioned.

Yeah they are common in compact pre-builts and I know at least one other person on this forum with the same card as me who had the same problem, but he replaced his thermal pads.  Trouble is what he used seem hard to find in the UK so I'm not going to worry about, so long its not doing that 100% thing it should mean the temps while high are safe.

 

4 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

Well.. I have heard them at 100% and would prefer being able to hear myself think. 

Yeah its basically a hair dryer at 100%, its obvious why they locked it to 50% as its pretty much silent to that point, starts to be noticeable at 60% and starts to get a lot louder as you go above that.  At 100% its annoying even from another room.

[Ceeharris]

16 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Unvdervolt is by far the best way to reduce power draw and heat output which might improve performance.

I am not very tech savvy when it comes to this stuff  (just a little more than the average person) and I have not heard of undervolting but I will do some research on this and take it into consideration!

[Alex Atkin UK]

12 minutes ago, emosun said:

why are you not letting the fans go to 100%

they're fans , they can run at 100% and youre wondering why its overheating.

To be fair its the stock vBIOS that locks at 50% and these cards are obnoxiously loud at 100%, even from another room away.

The problem is almost certainly the same as mine, the VRM pads drying out, as mine was also fine when I bought it but happened months down the line after I had left it Folding 24/7 for a month.  Would likely have taken a lot longer on a gaming load but would happen eventually regardless, they ran these cards too hot for those poor pads counting on them lasting past the warranty before developing issues.

[Ceeharris]

7 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

The problem is almost certainly the same as mine, the VRM pads drying out

I am not the most tech savvy when it comes to computer components, but is this the small square pad I found inside my gpu relatively close to the chip with the thermal paste on it? I am honestly pretty proud of myself for successfully replacing the paste and still having a working computer afterwards, but anyways if that is the pad you are talking about that should be replaced I would at least know where it is at now haha 

[SorryClaire]

33 minutes ago, Ceeharris said:

I am not the most tech savvy when it comes to computer components, but is this the small square pad I found inside my gpu relatively close to the chip with the thermal paste on it? I am honestly pretty proud of myself for successfully replacing the paste and still having a working computer afterwards, but anyways if that is the pad you are talking about that should be replaced I would at least know where it is at now haha 

Yeah pretty much. I recommend buying thermal pads of same thickness, for reference edition 2080 that would be around .5 and 1mm.

[Ceeharris]

11 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

Yeah pretty much. I recommend buying thermal pads of same thickness, for reference edition 2080 that would be around .5 and 1mm.

I will look into this then and find the right replacement pad, thank you for the information!

[Ceeharris]

Thank you to everyone that helped me sort through this issue, but it turns out that I have just been oblivious to the fact that when I upgraded my monitor to play Lost Ark on a wide screen monitor I was starting to play other games on 1440p which my card can only optimally run at around 60 fps. I feel quite stupid for not realizing this a long time ago but I guess you live and you learn haha. Thanks again for all your efforts and apologies for my ignorance. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

4 hours ago, Ceeharris said:

Thank you to everyone that helped me sort through this issue, but it turns out that I have just been oblivious to the fact that when I upgraded my monitor to play Lost Ark on a wide screen monitor I was starting to play other games on 1440p which my card can only optimally run at around 60 fps. I feel quite stupid for not realizing this a long time ago but I guess you live and you learn haha. Thanks again for all your efforts and apologies for my ignorance. 

That may be what made it work harder, but it cranking up to 100% from 50% is still an issue of the card ageing, though I don't think its an urgent fix so long as increasing the fan speed stops it happening.