How to make a graphics card run cooler in a pre-built PC?

Nord · May 19, 2016

Fasten them with, in order of usefullness: Zip-ties, velcro strips, tape or if all else fails and you feel risky a bit of hot glue.

If you place the fan correctly (arrows on the side of the fan usualy indicate the direction they push the air to), you can do either pull from outside or recycle. Pulling would be recommended, obviously.

Theoretically you can only tape the bottom of the fan somewhere, however not recommended. A fan should be mounted really sturdy, last thing you want is it falling over, get loose or anything and well, damaging itself or worse other components. So w/e home-made mounting method you choose, make sure they stay where you put them, which is why most ppl would just use zip-ties, only way the fan gets loose there is if somebody comes over with a plyer and cuts at least 3 of them.

Dust filters are more of a "addition" that just within recent years have gotten popular and fitting them in a case that dont have them manufacturerd within allready is fairly hard to do. Apart of that PC's have worked fine without them since always and will continue to do so. Regularly cleaning is advices either way, with or without filters.

Personaly my case does not have a dust filter and never had one before either. The next one I get will most likely come with a filter, because 2cats +1dog = lots of hair, but for now I'll just clean the PC more oftten than other ppl would.

If the case has a intake hole on front, which should be located around the red circle: (should be big enough to almost fit your finger throu)

http://imgur.com/I6HXJU8

Thats where the air will come in mainly.

If it does not, effectiveness will be hinderd hard obviously, but air would still find its way in the case throu holes between the 3,5inch bays, sidepanel and such.

hsjj3 · May 19, 2016

Yes, there are intake slots at the bottom of the bezel. Air should be able to come in from there.

Thank you for your help man. I really do appreciate it.

Just to add, last night I removed the side panel and ran a 15-minute 100% load benchmark, and my graphics card reached a constant max of 76C while at the same time maintaining higher boost 2.0 clock speeds, as opposed to the 80C threshold that it hits currently. Also, my HDDs were about 5C cooler and the TMPIN1 (chipset) temperature also was about 4-5C cooler.

Nord · May 19, 2016

That defenatly points to bad airflow within the case, so adding those 1 or 2 fans at the front will most certainly make a difference.

How big that difference will be I can not say, but it should easily be enough to at least make your GPU not throttel down its boostclock anymore, even under constant load.