Ever since I purchased my XFX GTX275 XXX I always thought it ran a little on the warm side and have always ran it with either fan profiles through riva or more recently the far better afterburner. It used to idle at 46-47ish but now has creeped up to 52 with 60% fan and some games load it up to 85c, I know they supposedly have a max temp limit in the region of 120c so its well within the safe zone but I just don't think it needs to be that warm. So is it worth re-timming it, I recently re-did my 790FX GD70 motherboard chipset heat sinks and the temp drops were miraculous but I am a little nervous about removing the cooler from my gpu after seeing some other peoples disastrous consequences. I think its out of warranty now so thats not really a concern. Forgot to add I re-timmed my XFX 9600GSO XXX with MX2 and for some reason it didn't make a blind bit of difference to the temps.
Before you replace the TIM, have you tried giving the fins on the heatsink a good blast with some compressed air? It could just be clogged, if not, replace it man.
Yeh i did that a while back when my neighbour borrowed a compressor so he could oil seal the underside of his pickup truck. It did blow alot of dust out but only helped by a degree or so. I have thought about replacing the cooler but I'm saving up for a SSD and will probably replace the card at some stage as well now that I'm gaming at 1920x1200. (temps were around the same when idle at my old res as well)
FWIW the temps on my 275 are exactly the same as yours so it's not an isolated issue. Most reviews seem to agree it runs a little on the hot side too. Though if you do end up replacing it let me know if it makes any difference.
Anyone know the warranty period for the 275? After doing a little research it seems it might be 2 years and not 1 like I previously thought.
I did it on mine, it had a spoon-full of the stuff out of the box. Unfortunately i don't know how hot it was before i changed it 275's don't have warranty stickers so you have no reason not to do it.
Just added a fan directing air in from a grill in the side of my case and that has dropped the idle down to 48. Think I will re-tim, even thinking about buying one of the recommended coolers from cpc. When you removed your cooler dragonhun did it mess up any of the thermal pads on the mem/mosfets?
Well I am relatively pleased with the results, lower temps and lower fan speed. Result Before After 5c less on idle and a decrease of 6% on the fan speed. Took the heat sink out of the shroud and used a soft brush to clean it and the fan but it wasn't too badly dusted up as I had recntly blown it all out with a compressor as mentioned earlier.
