With the card out of the box running with latest drivers and NO EVGA utility, the fans do not spin. WHni play wow @ max ultra 200% rez full AA - my card gets up to 75C and the fans are barely turning! I downloaded the EVGA precisionX software and i do not use the custom curve. I just use auto and the fan runs much much faster on auto. The difference being the auto fan control is default in the hardware. but i am thinking 75c is too hot. why do the fans barely move with hardware  automatic control vs 50% with software control? I don't know what to use. I was told that this EVGA utility will auto clock my GPU but, i cant seem to figure it out. I am also not sure what to run the fan at or if i run it at 100% when i am playing games.. if that will shorten te life of the fans. I do understand the cards fans will not come on at all unless the card heats up.Should I run the precision X utility and let it control the fans auto settings? is there a way to get the utility to auto OC? thanks guys

Welcome to the forums jerramie
 
Set a custom fan curve You balance Noise / Temps
 
My EVGA 980 SC with ACX cooler
 
GPU @ 1505, running 24 x 7 at 66 C in a 28 C room, with Full load 99% Folding
 
Your case also has to have good airflow

jerramie
DO you think that the card out of the box with nvidia drivers only can be used without the utility? will the cards hardware fan sensor ever push the fans to an effective rpm and cool the card down while gaming? does the card have the ability to change clocks by load? i reached 75c in 1 minute of flying around in wow. I bet i could get it over 100c.

Yes to first question. No to second question, the cards are configured to prioritize noise over temps out of the box. Yes to third question. Card shouldn't exceed 80c with out of box settings loaded.

Sajin

jerramie
DO you think that the card out of the box with nvidia drivers only can be used without the utility? will the cards hardware fan sensor ever push the fans to an effective rpm and cool the card down while gaming? does the card have the ability to change clocks by load? i reached 75c in 1 minute of flying around in wow. I bet i could get it over 100c.

Yes to first question. No to second question, the cards are configured to prioritize noise over temps out of the box. Yes to third question. Card shouldn't exceed 80c with out of box settings loaded.

+1
Stock fan = low noise but more heat
 
Temps can limit CPU clocks - called throttling
 
kboost button on the utility = 100% CPU --- mostly for benchmark use, let the CPU ramp up as it needs to

Ty.. I do not care about the noise. idk why anyone would... i mean, if you are playing games that is.... u have headphones on or are running in 5.1. However! i have never ever heard a fan go this fast before. Honestly at 100% they sound like they are priming to take off and this concerns me.  I am not new to building my own rigs. The first time i ever moded a puter was my trs-80 color computer to expand the ram with a cartrige! Weare talking 1982 maybe? Before that I had a Timex Sinclair 1000. : ) My first actual "PC" build I upgraded with a GFX accelerator, not a gpu. Anyways, i did enjoy OC'n back in the day but I have learned over the years that if you OC a GPU it shortens the life of the GPU. I am sure this would depend on the hardware the cards were built with. So I am not saying that OC'n your gpu will always slowly destroy it but I am sure you guys would know better then I would., One PC i built back when BF2 came out was an AMD sandiago with a 16 mb cache on the HDD, DDR400, 2 nvidia 6800's running in SLI. Sound Blaster Audigy 5.1 card. THat computer was nice for its time and I could play BF2 at ultra settings. You could OC the 6800s via "Ntune" nvidia. But i only used it to increase CPU frequency to 220 without increasing the voltage. It ran stable with a few hiccups but to get a real stable oc @ 220... i would have had to bump up the voltages. I still have those cards, i never changed the clocks or voltage! they still work! I used that build for nearly 3 years. On the other side of this - my brother buys high end cards and is a big fan of MSI afterburner. He increases voltage and clocks via MSI utility to achieve performance upgrade. But then he gets board and being he makes a good living.. he goes out and gets newer cards that come out. THen he sends me the older cards that he OC'd with MSI utility and they last maybe a year. I am not interested in using a utility to manually increase the voltage and clocks or increase mem speed. But I would like to know what you guys use and why. My next question is this: If running the GTX970 out of the box with nvidia software and drivers (no MSI or EVGA utilities) will the clock speeds change to meet demand? I am going to use the evga utility to control the fans and more then likely use a speed curve or maybe just run the fans wide open. Other then MANUAL OC of the card, is there any other reason to use the utility? SOrry such a long post but I am a noob to these utilities and have not used oen since "Ntune" and even then i never changed anything but fan speeds with Ntune and my CPU FSB. I do not like the idea of fan sound over GPU temp. Wow this post is long and i am getting off task here.. I will summarize my questions.

 Do the newer cards now drop the clocks and voltage when not being taxed and increase the voltage/clocks to a specific factory max based on usage and temp? If yes, is this done with the evga utility (PrecisionX 16)? I am looking to get the best out of my card without killing it. I know nothing about the utilities special features. All I see is a Microsoft based GUI built by MSI or EVGA with sliders to change values. Had I not seen a cd in the box the gpu came in, i would have never even went to evga site to see what was available. I would still be playing with just the drivers and nvidia control panel with fans barely moving 
 
 

thanks
 

jerramie
Ty.. I do not care about the noise. idk why anyone would... i mean, if you are playing games that is.... u have headphones on or are running in 5.1. However! i have never ever heard a fan go this fast before. Honestly at 100% they sound like they are priming to take off and this concerns me.  I am not new to building my own rigs. The first time i ever moded a puter was my trs-80 color computer to expand the ram with a cartrige! Weare talking 1982 maybe? Before that I had a Timex Sinclair 1000. : ) My first actual "PC" build I upgraded with a GFX accelerator, not a gpu. Anyways, i did enjoy OC'n back in the day but I have learned over the years that if you OC a GPU it shortens the life of the GPU. I am sure this would depend on the hardware the cards were built with. So I am not saying that OC'n your gpu will always slowly destroy it but I am sure you guys would know better then I would., One PC i built back when BF2 came out was an AMD sandiago with a 16 mb cache on the HDD, DDR400, 2 nvidia 6800's running in SLI. Sound Blaster Audigy 5.1 card. THat computer was nice for its time and I could play BF2 at ultra settings. You could OC the 6800s via "Ntune" nvidia. But i only used it to increase CPU frequency to 220 without increasing the voltage. It ran stable with a few hiccups but to get a real stable oc @ 220... i would have had to bump up the voltages. I still have those cards, i never changed the clocks or voltage! they still work! I used that build for nearly 3 years. On the other side of this - my brother buys high end cards and is a big fan of MSI afterburner. He increases voltage and clocks via MSI utility to achieve performance upgrade. But then he gets board and being he makes a good living.. he goes out and gets newer cards that come out. THen he sends me the older cards that he OC'd with MSI utility and they last maybe a year. I am not interested in using a utility to manually increase the voltage and clocks or increase mem speed. But I would like to know what you guys use and why. My next question is this: If running the GTX970 out of the box with nvidia software and drivers (no MSI or EVGA utilities) will the clock speeds change to meet demand? I am going to use the evga utility to control the fans and more then likely use a speed curve or maybe just run the fans wide open. Other then MANUAL OC of the card, is there any other reason to use the utility? SOrry such a long post but I am a noob to these utilities and have not used oen since "Ntune" and even then i never changed anything but fan speeds with Ntune and my CPU FSB. I do not like the idea of fan sound over GPU temp. Wow this post is long and i am getting off task here.. I will summarize my questions.

Please separate the question you have from the story  (add some spaces)
 
Cooler = longer life of electronic in general
 
Current GPUs - you need software to override the Fan speed % --- and you should want to have 30% or 40% fan speed all the time and speed them up with temps.
 
They are designed to work with the stock fan profile; if your case has good airflow

If you had this card, what would you do with it?
 

Thanks. I will do that. I appreciate your experience.