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ag3nt
207
Sep 16, 2016
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Before you read, know that I replaced the HUGE glob of thermal paste they put on this thing with some Noctua NT-H1 paste due to some reviews of people who saw temp improvements. Idle temps didn't really move, but I completely eliminated the thermal throttling I was seeing initially. I highly suggest you replace the thermal paste MSI uses. One of the cooler screws has a sticker that says warranty void if removed, but you can use pliers to unscrew it without breaking the sticker.
Before changing the thermal paste, I was hitting 85C within 2 minutes when benchmarking. Not good. But since changing the thermal paste, It idles at ~29C when it's cool in my apartment, ~33C if it's warmer. I've seen it dip as low as 27C on its own. I have the power max set to 115% in afterburner, and max temp set to 85C, and now it NEVER goes above 82C, even if I run Heaven three times in a row. Plus, I don't get any thermal throttling at all with my setup, and I've achieved 2000Mhz core clock still without TTing.
Afterburner doesn't let you set the fan speed any less than 33%. I have a fairly aggressive fan curve set up, which gets to 100% by around 77C (which rarely happens under normal circumstances). I generally can't hear the GPU fan if my fridge is running, if that gives you any indication of how quiet it actually is.
Heaven 4.0 on 1080p Extreme scores are about ~3000 even on a cold start (from idle) and ~2900 for a warm start (right after another test), with an avg FPS around 112. I can play GTAV 1080p@60Hz Ultra (every setting maxed) and get around 110fps avg if I don't have vsync on (need it on with my 60Hz monitor though), and after a multi-hour gaming session the temps are usually stable around 72C.
Food for thought: I have it in a Node 202 (really small ITX case), so my temps *probably* aren't a great indication if you have some massive ATX case. I needed a rear-exhaust style GPU so that it doesn't choke my 6700k, since the Noctua cooler I'm using for the CPU sucks ambient case air towards the CPU. I have a 120mm fan blowing directly into the GPU fan (literally less than an inch between them), so it's constantly getting outside air.
I was honestly surprised at how well this thing handles thermals. No, it's not the best for cooling. I bought it knowing that. But it's a testament to Pascal that I am able to achieve these clocks without thermal throttling in an ITX case, just by changing the thermal paste.
CPU: i7-6700K RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws V 32gb (2x16gb) DDR4 3200 GPU: MSI GTX 1080 Aero OC SSD: 512gb Samsung 950 Pro NVME/PCIe PSU: Corsair SF600 Case: Fractal Design Node 202