Sudden GPU Temp Spike when launching a new game

Forceflow · April 17

Hey there,

Been happily running a Asus TUF 4070 TI in my system.

Today, I started a new game for the first time (the rumoured crappy-but-so-crappy-it's-good "Wanted: Dead"), and something occured that I've never seen before: my GPU, for just a few seconds, instantly shot to 83 degrees, fans on full blast, instantly thermal throttling. It's the first time I've ever seen this behavior, and something that i cannot replicate again on subsequent launches.

I thought my card might be broken, so I ran the following tests:

OCCT 3D standard test: 78-79 degrees, 30 minutes, no errors
Furmark: 75 degrees
Superposition benchmarks: 3 or 4 runs, nothing out of the ordinary
Cyberpunk Path Tracing: Let it sit for 30 minutes on a busy intersection, 99% GPU usage: 70-72 degrees
Alan Wake Path Tracing: Let it sit in the forest section of the game for 15 minutes: 99% GPU usage, 70-72 degrees

What can be the cause of this weird spike? Am I being too concerned?

DreamCat04 · April 17

5 hours ago, Forceflow said:

Hey there,

Been happily running a Asus TUF 4070 TI in my system.

Today, I started a new game for the first time (the rumoured crappy-but-so-crappy-it's-good "Wanted: Dead"), and something occured that I've never seen before: my GPU, for just a few seconds, instantly shot to 83 degrees, fans on full blast, instantly thermal throttling. It's the first time I've ever seen this behavior, and something that i cannot replicate again on subsequent launches.

I thought my card might be broken, so I ran the following tests:

OCCT 3D standard test: 78-79 degrees, 30 minutes, no errors

Furmark: 75 degrees

Superposition benchmarks: 3 or 4 runs, nothing out of the ordinary

Cyberpunk Path Tracing: Let it sit for 30 minutes on a busy intersection, 99% GPU usage: 70-72 degrees

Alan Wake Path Tracing: Let it sit in the forest section of the game for 15 minutes: 99% GPU usage, 70-72 degrees

What can be the cause of this weird spike? Am I being too concerned?

How big is the initial jump if you suddenly fully load your card when it's cold? The bigger it is, the worse state your thermal paste is in. 79 degrees seems a bit hot considering how overbuilt the coolers for all 40 series cards are (unless your card is a dual-fan card, but even then that's a lil on the high side)

Forceflow · April 17

1 hour ago, DreamCat04 said:

How big is the initial jump if you suddenly fully load your card when it's cold? The bigger it is, the worse state your thermal paste is in. 79 degrees seems a bit hot considering how overbuilt the coolers for all 40 series cards are (unless your card is a dual-fan card, but even then that's a lil on the high side)

Launching the Superposition Benchmark sees it climb from 30C idling to 73 degrees over about 5 seconds

DreamCat04 · April 17

2 minutes ago, Forceflow said:

Launching the Superposition Benchmark sees it climb from 30C idling to 73 degrees over about 5 seconds

That's quite a quick climb. I would say that your paste is starting to dry out. My 3060 Ti takes much longer to get to 73°C. If I force its fans to stay off and fully load it, it still takes over half a minute for it to reach my temperature target of 87°C. The initial jump is from around 52°C to around 63°C. That idle temp is thanks to me now using a 0RPM custom fan curve when I was using a constant 43% before.
I'd consider opening up the card if you're comfortable doing so and have a look at the thermal paste.

I tested how quickly the temp would rise on my laptop's GPU and it took around 20 seconds to get from its 52°C idle to 73°C at full load

Forceflow · April 17

10 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

That's quite a quick climb. I would say that your paste is starting to dry out. My 3060 Ti takes much longer to get to 73°C. If I force its fans to stay off and fully load it, it still takes over half a minute for it to reach my temperature target of 87°C. The initial jump is from around 52°C to around 63°C. That idle temp is thanks to me now using a 0RPM custom fan curve when I was using a constant 43% before.
I'd consider opening up the card if you're comfortable doing so and have a look at the thermal paste.

I tested how quickly the temp would rise on my laptop's GPU and it took around 20 seconds to get from its 52°C idle to 73°C at full load

Not comfortable opening up my card.

It was just this one game doing a very specific workload doing this.

I've let it sit on Cyberpunk busy street with path tracing right now, which never crosses 71 degrees at 99% usage.