Hey everyone,
 
I'm the proud owner of a new (factory refurbished) EVGA GTX 1070 SC, and it's a big step up from the R9 270x that I had before. The first thing that struck me in a negative way about this card, however, is how quickly it shoots up into the low 80's temperature-wise under load.
 
It idles in the high 30's/low 40's with the fan being whisper quiet, and that's fantastic. But the moment I launch any game in fullscreen it ramps up into the low 80's within seconds, and the fan kicks up into the high percentage speeds as well. At this point the fans become distractingly loud while gaming.
 
So is this behavior normal for this card running at stock speeds?
 
A few things to keep in mind:

• I live in Florida (high ambient temp, even indoors)
• My case's airflow is good, but maybe not great. A big exhaust fan on top with two rear exhaust fans and one lower-front intake fan.
• I'm currently using the default fan curve (auto) settings
• I am running most games at high framerates (100-144fps) on average to take advantage of my 144hz monitor. When certain game menus lock the fps to 60, my temps drop down into the 60's and my GPU fans quiet down as well.
• My PC is located under my desk, but not in an enclosure.
• My CPU temps are always quite low even while overclocked, so this leads me to believe that my case's airflow might not be the issue. Is this just the price to pay when playing at higher framerates with a more powerful GPU, or should I be concerned?

redleader00
I think it is a bit too hot compared to what I had with my 1080 (I had around 65ºC). Of course, your high ambient temperature does not help, but still I feel it is a bit too hot (don't worry, it is still within spec).
I would try to use PrecisionXOC and set a more aggressive fan curve.
 
As a side-note, your in/out airflow is not well balanced. You should have at least as much air pushed in as you have pushed out. If not, the air will not go thru your dust filters and also it makes it difficult to guess how the air streams are flowing inside your case.

Hm. You're probably right with regard to my airflow (three exhaust with only one intake). I'll check to see if my case allows for a different configuration.
 
What concerns me is the fact that my card not only jumps right up into the low 80's when encountering any sort of serious load (e.g. 120fps in Overwatch), but it has to ramp the fans way up into the high percentages to even keep it there. That doesn't seem right considering the fact that most reviews praised this SC card for its quiet cooling ability.
 
I think I'm gonna do a clean driver install from scratch and then try a more aggressive fan curve. If those don't yield any results, I'll look into my airflow situation next.
 
Wouldn't a more aggressive fan curve just result in lots of noise as well, though? Or would it be able to keep the temps from reaching into the 80's and thus yield a more moderate fan speed?

redleader00
 
What do you mean with "my card not only jumps right up into the low 80's when encountering any sort of serious load"?.
My experience is that if the fans are not spinning fast enough, the cards get around +1ºC per second under load. If your card is going from 40ºC to 80ºC in like 5 seconds, something is not right.
 
Aggressive fan curve will just keep your temperatures lower at the expense of more noise. I would use it just to see if it fixes your temps. You can use that and PXOC's graphs to see the rate at which the temperature rises and what speed your fans are actually getting to.
This way you can have more info so you can be sure if airflow is bad, the card fan sensor or temp sensor is defective, etc ...

Yeah it definitely jumps up from the 40's to 80's within about five seconds after launching a game like Overwatch with a 120fps limiter.
 
No difference noticed with a more aggressive fan curve applied either. See my results below. The spike in GPU usage was me launching Overwatch and letting it render the main menu with Widowmaker at 120fps. The temps jump up to 80-82 within seconds.
 
Is this looking like an RMA situation? 
 

Sajin
What is your room temp? How do temps look with the case door removed?

I live in Florida, so it can get pretty toasty upstairs where my PC is at times. That said, I usually keep the room at 75-77 degrees Fahrenheit.
 
I'm going to remove the case door when I get home and check to see if the temps/fan speeds drop. If they do, I know it's an airflow problem. I have a feeling that it's not, however.

This is manually setting my 1080Ti SC fans to 0% (stopped) and doing the same test with Destiny 2 beta.
 

 
Note my case fans were working as usual, I just stopped the card fans.