Hello, so I've had my RTX 2080 Hybrid for a couple days now, but I've been noticing that my temperatures in games seem way higher than they should be. I am playing at 1440p 144hz, but I've noticed that temperatures climb steadily when I play games, and take a long time to decrease after I return to the desktop, which is worse performance than my old 980 Classified which was simply aircooled.
 
I'm suspecting this has to do with my radiator fan, which is a Noctua NF-12 fan, which is supposed to be a very good radiator fan optimized for use in high static pressure situations, like with watercooling radiators. It's plugged right into the GPU, as the original fan that came with it was. However, I've heard some fan in my computer slowing and speeding up randomly, and looking at EVGA Precision X1, I get a confusing story. Here's what EVGA Precision X1 reads:
 

 
As you can see, Fan 1 (which I assume to be the fan on the GPU shroud) is running consistently at this consistent percentage. However, Fan 2 (which I'm assuming is the radiator fan) is jumping all over the place for no discernible reason. It's a 4-pin PWM fan with a max RPM of 1500 and minimum of 300, yet here it's shown to be dipping below 300 (I often see it floating at 30, 60, 90, or 120), and just generally going all over the place. At 60%, the fan should be in the ballpark of 900 RPM, not 720 or any of these lower speeds. These are the same model fans that are hooked up to my CPU radiator, and they run perfectly with it, as evidenced by the far lower and more consistent temperatures I get on my CPU, as well as the more consistent fan speeds I see on EVGA Flow Control (CPU idles at 34 degrees, and the fans go at a steady 720 RPM to match my fan curve). 
 
This must clearly be the source of my temperature issues, if these readings are correct.
 
So what's the problem here? Is the fan not compatible with the plug/cable on the GPU itself? Should I plug the fan into my motherboard and control it that way? But if I did that, how would I sync it with my GPU's temperature?
 
Thanks for any help!

What are the temps you're alluding too?  I would just plug it to the motherboard and run the rad fan anywhere from 1000-1500 RPM.  Being it's only a 120mm, I bet it's getting heat saturated and not enough air flow to it.  Find a happy medium and leave it at a fixed speed. 

GTXJackBauer
What are the temps you're alluding too?  I would just plug it to the motherboard and run the rad fan anywhere from 1000-1500 RPM.  Being it's only a 120mm, I bet it's getting heat saturated and not enough air flow to it.  Find a happy medium and leave it at a fixed speed.

So on the first night after I installed it, playing Battlefield 4 at 1440p 144fps Ultra settings, I was getting a consistent framerate, but getting well above 70 degrees Celsius. Modern Warfare at 1440p with medium settings or lower was also running smoothly at 144fps, but also getting pretty warm. Playing the Minecraft RTX beta really pushed the card, hovering more around 90 FPS and maxing out the card. One or two of those three games were regularly hitting the temp limit of 84 at times. I don't have enough knowledge or experience to tell if that's normal or not, but for a watercooled card that I'm not even overclocking, that seems excessive.
 
Earlier today while I was trying to get some more specific notes, before I noticed and diagnosed that the fan simply wasn't working correctly, playing Killing Floor 2 (a game my 980 could run at 1080p 60fps on Ultra settings with rock-solid performance and ~55 Celsius temperatures) at 1440p 144fps on High settings, I was getting 60-64 degrees, but that was after many minutes of gameplay as the temperature slowly built up to that peak area. Out of curiosity, I played another game with the same in-game conditions and settings, but took the glass side panel of my case off, and was getting 55-58 degrees. Halfway through a game, I put the panel back on, and the temperature climbed back up to the 60-62 range.
 
When I turn my PC on, my GPU starts at 30 degrees Celsius, which is a little warmer than room temperature and 10 degrees lower than my 980 was idling. But slowly it builds up to 40 degrees and idles there, which seems odd that it wouldn't stabilize sooner. Like I said, gaming is the same way, with temperatures climbing and descending very slowly and gradually, far more slowly than my 980 Classified ever did, and far slower than my CPU which has a 240mm EVGA radiator on it with the same fans.
 
My case has very good airflow, and the air coming out of my top two exhaust fans is almost always cool, as was my rear exhaust with my 980 before I put in the 2080 with its radiator. Now, the back top exhaust (right above the radiator) is often a little warm when gaming, and the rear exhaust is very warm. The top fan farther away from the radiator is still cool.
 
Besides the logistics of unscrewing the fan and radiator and doing some cable work to plug the fan into the motherboard, my concern is that unplugging the fan and using the motherboard would mean I can't have the fan automatically adjust speed with the temperature of the GPU. If I had to plug it into the motherboard and run it at a higher, unchanging speed, I wouldn't lose any sleep, and I bought these Noctua fans specifically for their performance and quietness, so it wouldn't be an issue. However, I just want to know if there are any other alternatives that might get it to work.
 
EDIT: I opened up my computer, unplugged the fan from the 2080, plugged it into the motherboard instead, set it to run at 10 volts, which is about 1250 RPM, and now my temperatures seem much more normal. KF2 on the same settings as earlier ran at 50-55 degrees, so that's a 10 degree improvement and seems much more reasonable for what I'm pushing. It doesn't slowly build or decrease in heat like it did before, either. So that solves my temperature problem.
 
ADDENDUM QUESTION: Should I consider getting a second fan to run a push/pull setup? How much would that improve my temperatures? I'd like to push the card higher, as in running higher graphics settings and still maintain cooler temperatures/consistent performance, and adding another fan is doable for my setup.

Luminoth Prime
 
My case has very good airflow, and the air coming out of my top two exhaust fans is almost always cool, as was my rear exhaust with my 980 before I put in the 2080 with its radiator. Now, the back top exhaust (right above the radiator) is often a little warm when gaming, and the rear exhaust is very warm. The top fan farther away from the radiator is still cool.
 

 
Make sure you don't have the radiator positioned in the back with the top fans as exhaust because you're basically pulling the inflow of air away from the radiator to the top.  I would position this radiator in front of the case at the same height of the rear fan.  It helps keep the rad above the GPU so any air pockets in the loop get trapped in the rad and make sure the returns to the GPU are position at the bottom of the rad.
 

Luminoth Prime
 
EDIT: I opened up my computer, unplugged the fan from the 2080, plugged it into the motherboard instead, set it to run at 10 volts, which is about 1250 RPM, and now my temperatures seem much more normal. KF2 on the same settings as earlier ran at 50-55 degrees, so that's a 10 degree improvement and seems much more reasonable for what I'm pushing. It doesn't slowly build or decrease in heat like it did before, either. So that solves my temperature problem.
 
ADDENDUM QUESTION: Should I consider getting a second fan to run a push/pull setup? How much would that improve my temperatures? I'd like to push the card higher, as in running higher graphics settings and still maintain cooler temperatures/consistent performance, and adding another fan is doable for my setup.

That's great news.  A few things could have happened.  The fan's PWM isn't compatible with the header of the GPU/software.  Maybe they were designed and tested mostly with the EVGA fans but I'm not 100% sure but I've seen similar issues where some feel they don't have control of the fan. 
 
The other reason could be that the fan settings kept the fan too low and so by the time it was told to ramp up, the radiator was too heat saturated at that point and your temps stayed in that range. 
 
Sure you could go push and pull.  Just make sure you grab the same Noctua fan and find a splitter cable that only returns one RPM signal back to the header.  It could decrease your temps by a few or more but also position and quality of air is key.
 
The best thermal performance I've seen by other members is doing exactly what you just did while using the front as intake.  They used the MB header, setting up a fix rate and going push and pull.  A member here has done exactly that and gets amazing temps.  Actually close to custom but probably has hit the low point of diminishing returns as I feel he'll need to go to custom to go even lower. 

Your temp limit on the GPU is 89c.  It will throttles down first before it hits that temp wall and will evetually thermal protect itself by shutting down or locking up or what have you.

GTXJackBauer
 
Make sure you don't have the radiator positioned in the back with the top fans as exhaust because you're basically pulling the inflow of air away from the radiator to the top.  I would position this radiator in front of the case at the same height of the rear fan.  It helps keep the rad above the GPU so any air pockets in the loop get trapped in the rad and make sure the returns to the GPU are position at the bottom of the rad.
 
That's great news.  A few things could have happened.  The fan's PWM isn't compatible with the header of the GPU/software.  Maybe they were designed and tested mostly with the EVGA fans but I'm not 100% sure but I've seen similar issues where some feel they don't have control of the fan. 
 
The other reason could be that the fan settings kept the fan too low and so by the time it was told to ramp up, the radiator was too heat saturated at that point and your temps stayed in that range. 
 
Sure you could go push and pull.  Just make sure you grab the same Noctua fan and find a splitter cable that only returns one RPM signal back to the header.  It could decrease your temps by a few or more but also position and quality of air is key.
 
The best thermal performance I've seen by other members is doing exactly what you just did while using the front as intake.  They used the MB header, setting up a fix rate and going push and pull.  A member here has done exactly that and gets amazing temps.  Actually close to custom but probably has hit the low point of diminishing returns as I feel he'll need to go to custom to go even lower. 

Your temp limit on the GPU is 89c.  It will throttles down first before it hits that temp wall and will evetually thermal protect itself by shutting down or locking up or what have you.

Yeah, I thought that these Noctua fans would be reasonably compatible, and they are compatible with my EVGA CPU CLC, but I guess the GPU isn't as compatible. Still, I got these Noctua fans because they're effective and quiet, so I can't even hear the fan at 80% from where I'm sitting, so it's not really an issue.
 
My setup actually is that right now, with the rear exhaust being the GPU radiator and the two top fans above it also being exhaust, as I didn't think about how the top fans would pull airflow away from the exhaust fan. It doesn't seem to be causing any problems, and my idle temperatures are only 1 or 2 degrees warmer than at startup, so it's not starved for air like it was before.
 
I actually wanted to put the radiator in the front, alongside my EVGA CLC AIO 240mm radiator for my CPU that's also in the front, which was the whole intent and design of this PC when I built it months ago, especially since the previous fan at my rear exhaust was perfectly sized and shaped for the job (it's now at the bottom of the front of my computer, still doing a good job as an intake fan). But that's a whole story that played out a few days ago in this thread. My 240mm CPU radiator actually can't fit anywhere else but the front of the case, as it wouldn't fit on the top, so the rear exhaust is really the only place it could go, unless I put it as a mismatched top exhaust.
 
Here's what my computer looks like now with the GPU installed:
 

 
Again, the airflow doesn't seem to be much of an issue, as my GPU is running cooler and more consistently now that I've got the fan running properly. Just played some Modern Warfare Warzone and was running in the low to mid 60's at 1440p 100-144fps, which is about how warm my 980 ran when playing it at 1080p 60fps, so it's definitely where I want it to be. But is there anything to be done that might allow it more air? Perhaps using push/pull would increase airflow in spite of the upper exhaust fans?
 
Also, is there any downside to using a splitter to connect two fans to one header, since it's requiring more power to go through a single header? Or is it just an issue of whether or not your PSU can deliver enough power in general?
 
Thank you for all the help!

When you state that taking off the glass panel and the temps drop tells me there's room for improvement especially when you have the top as exhaust so basically your slightly warmer intake air from the front will exit out the top and some will make its way to the rear but it will have to go past two exhaust fans at the top which I feel will leave not much going out the back.

Is there a filter at the top?  If so, you will be circulating that exhaust air at the top.  Either way, you're just better off flipping the top fans as intake so the rear gets some fresh air.
 
As for the splitter, most MB headers have a 1 Amp limit so two of those Noctuas on a splitter cable should be just fine.

The temperature decrease with the panel off was when the rear fan was barely running or running improperly, so the radiator could ambiently shed heat better since the radiator fan wasn't doing the job. I might test later to see how things compare with it off now, but I don't think it'll be as drastic an improvement as it was before.
 
There is a dust filter above the top two fans on the outside of the case, though from when I tested the temperatures months ago when I built the computer, they have a negligible impact on temperatures. However, flipping those two fans would leave the GPU radiator/rear exhaust fan as the only exhaust fan in the entire PC, as the those three front fans are also intake, which is the concern. Seems like that would create a strongly positive air pressure that would possible make things warmer. And I don't know how I'd arrange those three front fans in a way that would balance the air flow if I flipped the top two.
 
Just ordered a second fan with the splitter and screws to mount it for push/pull, though it'll be here next week. Things are running fine now, but hopefully any deficiencies or inefficiencies could be improved by a second fan.

Yesterday I’ve put Noctua NF-A12 PWM on my 2080 Super Hybrid FTW3 and now I too have this issue. I’ve traced it to use of custom fan profiles in PX1 (for details you can see my thread at https://forums.evga.com/Precision-X1-is-driving-my-fan-and-me-nuts-m3068341.aspx#3068341).
 
Once I experienced it I’ve considered connecting fan to mb header and running it at fixed speed. To get an idea what that would result in I’ve run 3DMark’s TimeSpy Extreme stress tests in two setups (I’m not overclocking card):
 

1. Noctua connected to mb header running at 85%
2. Noctua connected to card but letting card, not PX1, control fan

 
Results when connected to mb were practically identical, so little that it is not even worth mentioning, but to give you an idea:
 
“MB header” had 99% frame consistency rate, 1981 avg clock, 1936 avg mem clock, and 51C avg temperature.
“Card header” had 98.4% frame consistency rate, 1968 avg clock, 1938 avg mem clock, and 52C avg temperature.
 
Only big difference was that when connected to mb fan was relatively quiet but when controlled by card it was practically dead silent vast majority of time. Logging by GPU-Z indicates Noctua never exceeded 1400-ish RPMs (70%).
 
So unless you need custom fan curve you might be better off just leaving your Noctua connected to card rather than mb.
 
But in either case you might want to open a ticket with EVGA for fixing of PX1 like I did today and join me in my effort.

ZoranC
But in either case you might want to open a ticket with EVGA for fixing of PX1 like I did today and join me in my effort.

I did that like a half year ago or so :)

DeadlyMercury

ZoranC
But in either case you might want to open a ticket with EVGA for fixing of PX1 like I did today and join me in my effort.

I did that like a half year ago or so :)

And no result?! @EVGA Is this true, that you have a known bug that is remaining unaddressed for half of a year?!