8800 Operation Temperatures

[Achay]

Greetings all.

I've seen a lot of talk about the 8800 GPU temperatures while reading reviews on the card, and have noticed a lot of people stating temperatures they run at and these vary somewhat. Intrigued I decided to get Rivatuner to see just what mine was doing, as it is a BFG OC version of the GTS, and followed a tutorial about setting fans speeds for various states, namely idle and gaming.

After doing this I noticed that even idling, my fan would speed up and down continualy. I decided to use the monitor piece that came with Rivatuner and discovered than even idling my temperature always tried to crawl above 60C, which I has set to 100% fan on the profile. Decided to play a few games and see what happens.

Idle - 59-60C fan changing form 60-100 constantly.
Gaming - 70C once game initially loads to 80C+ during gameplay, fan always 100%

I have noticed other people operating at the same or even higher GPU speeds who don't seem to reach the temperatures I am seeing. While I cannot find definate data on the max safe temp for the G80 I am still concerned about these temperatures, as I know from experience that running components hotter than normal shortens their lifespan, and assume GPU cores operate on the same principle.

So, are these temperatures something I should be concerned about?

I am going to get one of these Antec Super Cyclone Blower as I have noticed that the 8800 has a few exhaust vents that are inside the case, not just the ones that exhaust outside the case. Maybe my cooling is suffering because of heat build up in the case due to these other outlets?

If anyone knows of a better method of getting heat from my case out, or to blow external cold air directly into the 8800 fan would be much obliged for any info. I have never given heat a second though before, and this is a new area for me.

[pullmyfoot]

change the fan and heatsinks? every GPU and CPU is made slightly different, you could just be one of the few who have gotten a bad one that runs a littly hotter that others. either that or your sensors are screwed up, which can happen too