Guild Wars 2

Hello guys,

I recently tested the performance/temps on my GTX 690 and got a bit shocked with the temp.

Without SS: 64c ( even in WvW with hundreds of players around )

With SS: 83c ! Is this normal ? i know the peak temp on the GTX 690 is 90c and i dont want to stress the card just for supersampling.

Do you guys have a similar experience or maybe is my card ?

Its likely your card isnt under full load with the rendering set to “native” supersampling is extremely GPU intensive, so it will run hotter.

83c is safe (Graphics cards can handle over 100c), so don’t panic

Thanks for the quick reply Refraction ! i knew Supersampling was intensive on the GPU but got a bit shocked by the temp change there

These beasts run hot when put under strain :P If you are really worried, there are several replacement coolers for the Geforce cards which will significantly lower the temperature. I can recommend Arctic Cooling as a good brand, providing decent cooling and low noise volumes. They should get your temps down to roughly 60c max

Why bother using super sampling? There is hardly a difference between that and native. And saying GPUs can handle over 100c is 100% wrong. Certain cards are designed differently. You can find safe operating temps on the GeForce website. GTX480s can run up to 125c whereas another card might not be able to exceed 110c. In the long run, do you really need SS on to really enjoy the game? I would do a screen shot with SS on and then it standing at native and really see the lack of difference.

Victus.9631:

Why bother using super sampling? There is hardly a difference between that and native.

Super sampling makes a very big difference for distance textures, i noticed a huge decrease in jagged lines on distant textures such as wooden plank walkways in Lions Arch with it on (using 1680×1050). If you can do it and maintain a good 30fps throughout, it is nice to have on, but of course native doesnt do a bad job mostly.

Yeah, I can maintain the frames but I’m rarely looking that far in the distance. I’m generally looking at the mobs I’m killing or my mini map for nodes to farm. Certain things that strain the card just don’t seem worth it to me.

These temps are normal for a air cooled card. Just get evga precision or msi afterburner and put your fan speed on around 70% and you stay under the 80C easy.

Mine 690 is watercooled atm but i remember when i used air that even on 80% fan speed it’s hardly notable.

They can take a blowing 95C even but for long life value i suggest keeping it under 80C and not always rely on the automatic fan speed.

water cooling is the way forward but takes some guts to do that with a 800 pound card

Supersampling is an extremely intensive graphics setting, so it will have a major impact on your GPU useage and thus the heat production of the card. If you’re worried about your temps you can increase the fanspeed a bit through certain GPU monitoring / tweaking software like MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision so that the card stays a bit cooler.

If you want to know exactly how hard GW2’s graphics (or the graphics settings of any game for that matter) are pushing your card I would recommend having a look at the OSD (onscreen display) function that both of those tools should also include. It’s a fraps-like overlay that you can turn on and tweak to display all sorts of info as you play the game, including your GPU useage.

This can be really useful to figure out how intensive games and graphics settings are compared to each other, and it should also show why your card is getting so much hotter with supersampling on, since the load should be much higher. The difference in load is usually the result of the fps being artificially limited (whether by Vsync or the CPU bottlenecking performance), which means in both situations you only get a max of X fps, but in the situation where Supersampling is enabled the GPU has to work much harder to render the same number of frames because each frame is more graphically intensive.

Mind you any GPU should be able to work perfectly fine under 100% GPU load for extended periods of time, there is nothing dangerous about it. The reason why some people end up having overheating problems at higher loads is not because the game is overworking their card – their cards are merely doing what they’re designed to do, which is to provide maximum performance – the problem is that their cards are receiving insufficient cooling to operate at higher loads.

You’re already a step ahead of most by keeping an eye on your GPU temperatures – as said, if you think it’s a bit too high, just crank up the fan and see what happens. The only situation where I would worry is if your fan was already running at a really high level and the card was still heating up quite badly – that usually indicates a more serious cooling issue like dust or airflow or a faulty fan.

The 690 is a dual card x2 680’s on one board so it will run hotter than a 680 but 83*c is abit hot but still okish.

If you wanted you could try useing a program like affterburner to make a custom fan profile which might help.

Also a good idea to clean your card every now again, a can of compressed air works the best just take it out of your case and give it a quick blast, or you can use the flexible nozzle on your vacum cleaner to gently run it over your fans and the vents on the back of the card to suck out some of the dust.