I have an Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT video card. The card works fine, but
it seems to put out a lot of heat.
Sure, modern gaming video cards are the rough equivalent of
a motherboard with a processor and memory onboard, and based
on how well endowed they are, will produce a proportional
level of heat.
I just replaced the original cooling
fan with a Zalman one, but the heat is still being produced.
A different heatsink doesn't decrease heat production, it
just (hopefully) removes that heat from the part in contact
with the heatsink at a higher rate, or quieter, or more
reliably in the case of OEM video card fans which are often
failure-prone.
I normally
run the computer with the side panel removed to allow the heat to
escape. During game play, the fan goes into overdrive---!
I have two questions:
First, is there anything I can do with this card to lower the heat produced?
1) Underclock it in the nVidia display properties menu.
Google for "coolbits" if you see no clock settings options,
as coolbits is a registry entry that will reveal them.
2) For further heat reduction after underclocking it, you
might find that with it underclocked it will run stabily at
a lower voltage than previously. You'd then want to get the
bios for that card, edit the bios so the formerly temporary
underclocked setting becomes permanent, then flash the
edited bios to the card. Next, reverse engineer the card's
onboard power regulation subcircuit to cause a lower
voltage. Don't drop the voltage too much, a rough guess
would be 0.1-0.2V is all you'd want to aim for.
The first option above is easy enough but will reduce gaming
performance. The second option is probably more involved
and/or risky than you had in mind. Beyond this, the more
prarctical solution is to focus on getting the heat out of
the case more effectively instead of trying to make the card
product less. There are a number of case modifications or
changes that might help depending on what case you're using
or in worst scenario you might need to replace the case with
one having better airflow.
The typical case with better airflow would have both the PSU
exhaust and a larger rear case exhaust fan, that fan not
having an overly restrictive stamped-out metal grill over
it. It would help to know what case you have, some can't
even accomdate a rear fan but those are rarer today. Some
can have their rear metal fan grill cut out.
The case front bezel should have reasonably large intake
area so the rear exhaust fans work most effectively.
If all else is impossible one of the easier ways to
significantly improve airflow around a video card is to take
off the case side panel, marking a spot adjacent to the
video card, and cutting out a large fan hole in which to
install a new fan. By large I mean ideally at least 92 to
120mm diameter, and then you'll have to decide what RPM of
fan to choose (or use a fan controller) to arrive at your
preferred noise:airflow ratio.
This side mounted fan is easier than many fan additions
because with a removable side panel you don't have any
worries of getting metal fragments into the system parts,
don't have to remove everything from the case to cut out the
hole, and no metal fragments left behind in the case after
it's cut. Further, when the fan is directly across from the
video card it certainly puts the most airflow possible on
that hot part. What air comes into the system must then
exit at the same rate, the side panel fan is an intake fan
if this wasn't clear.
Do the newer Nvidia chipsets produce less heat, or will I have the same
type of problem with a new card?
It depends on the specific card you choose. As a group,
gaming oriented video cards do produce more heat. It isn't
usually, reasonable to replace a video card only to aim for
lower heat. A large part of the reason why is that a
replacement card will cost $100, $200 or more and even if it
produces less heat, 20W difference one way or the other may
not substantially reduce your whole case temps because that
20W difference is but a small fraction of total system heat
production in situations where the card is producing a lot
of heat (in gaming, when other parts like the CPU are also
producing higher than average heat). The more reasonable
solution is usually to improve case airflow.
