GPU Overclocking and Temperature

[Ornamexito]

Hello, i am upgrading from my old geforce 8400gs to a gtx 550 ti (both from asus).

I am planning on overclocking the 550 ti from 900mhz to about 950mhz, which i think its fine as i saw some 550's overclocked to 975mhz by the company.

The thing that is worrying me is the temperature - i have tested overclocking on my 8400gs from 800mhz to 850mhz, Here are the results:
-8400gs 800mhz stock (without a fan next to the card) when running minecraft: 52c
-8400gs 850mhz overclocked (WITH a fan next to the card) when running minecraft: 55c

Yes i did add a 12cm fan from the top of my case to the side next to the gpu when overclocked, and the temperature did rise from 52c to 55c.

so my question is; Is 55c bad or good for a GPU while playing games? What is the maximum temperature for GPU's? Will i be able to over clock 550 ti without reaching over 60c?

 

[patonb]

Most new Nvidia cards start crapping out at 100C.

My laptops 9600m gt idles at 60C, i've run my 2 gtx 260's at 80C 24/7 doing f@h.

If you'[re going to overclock, do it 50mhz OVER the highest sold card. And if you are afraid of heat, set the fan OFF manual and set it at 55%

 

[Ornamexito]

how do i set fans off manual and to 55%?

 

[patonb]

Petty easy, I use Evga Presicion as my Overclocking tool, so it's a simple click for manual control, and then just adjust the slider for your % fan Speed.

 

[PP Mguire]

It's the same for MSI Afterburner. Just click the auto button and move the slider up.

In all honesty you should read up a lot more on overclocking before attempting one yourself. Even though, GPU overclocking is pretty failsafe due to features built in to the core.

Easiest way to do this is download Furmark and install it. Go ahead and set your OC and set your fan to 100%. Run Furmark and wait till your load temp settles (this will take a little bit). If it is reaching or over 75 then you will have to lower your overclock to accommodate for temps. GPUs can reach up to 105C when throttle occurs, but you don't want to run your chip that hot because it heats up the board and other components too which can fail. A safe temp is 75C or below. I'll admit, I ran my 465 over 80c for quite a while OCed but most people don't want to hear a fan at 100% constantly.
If the OC is stable (no artifacts in the image Furmark produces) and the heat isn't too high you can either attempt to raise the clocks or lower the fan speed to reduce noise. Making sure to keep a good balance between clocks, temp, and noise is really up to the person running the rig.

 

[Ornamexito]

ok thanks for your help, when my 550 arrives i will try to increase the fan speed, do some testing and possibly overclock it a bit. i think i will be fine with the GPU fan with increased speed and also i have the 12cm fan next to the gpu.

 

[PP Mguire]

Honestly, you probably wont need to OC. The jump between those cards is massive and you will see a huge increase in FPS.

 

[Ornamexito]

Yeah i know but my CPU is not the best for gaming, and so i wanted to make the GPU a bit faster. P.S my cpu is AMD athlon 64 x2 dual core 4000+ 2.1GHz

 

[PP Mguire]

Then maybe you should concentrate more on OCing your CPU

 

[Ornamexito]

Well i cant because my MOBO is from packard bell. All overclocking on that is disabled :/