Nvidia Reference Cooler on GTX 900 Series

[peche]

well, I'll like to know a little bit about GTX900 cooler, have some question for all users and people here that have had or used a reference blower cooler based GTX on 900 series, question about noise, temps and performance, reason ? today I'll be upgrading my loved GTX 680, almost closing deal with a Nvidia GTX 980 4GB with nvidia Reference cooler, so here are the main Questions:

How does the cooler perform? does your card throttles?
Noise levels, since it’s a blower cooler, at high clocks might be loud, so how its it?
and the most important thing, how are your clocks when you OC it?


Thanks in advance for all inputs on this research! also if you have another card with a blower cooler feel free to ad comments!


Regards,

 

[jboydgolfer]

Both of mine work wonderfully still. Idling at low 20 Celsius , Load temperatures around 70C

Neither of mine are loud & they both have modified bios' with increased power limits... I never hear them * they DID throttle @ stock, which is why i reached out to a knowledgable member, to help me with bios modd'ing*

are you experiencing issues with your newly acquired Card?

Spoiler: My Clocks under load provided by GPUz

i reached 76C during this test, but its Furmark, and WAY stressful on ANY GPU.
you'll notice i run older Drivers, i find they provide better Perf than the newer ones.

 

[peche]

Both of mine work wonderfully still. Idling at low 20 Celsius , Load temperatures around 70C

Kick ass temps indeed! and for a blower stock or reference cooler its like a dream !

are you experiencing issues with your newly acquired Card?

im still waiting for the card! a couple of hours moar!

Regards,

 

[peche]

Update: Yesterday picked out my new babe, got it on a pretty hot deal, quite great price, second handed,

Some things to do:

*Take cooler out and perform a deep clean on all cooler parts, specially cooler Fins,
*Repaste GPU, previous owner told that he never took card apart, so have the old factory paste,

so ill be checking the card today stock, without taking apart neither repaste, as soon as ill be sure the card its okay ill start the process,

ill really appreciate all inputs or coments! , ill be posting some pics about process too



Regards,

 

[jboydgolfer]

Just like what I said in your PM use extreme caution and be certain it's a new wrench and take care not to strip those special screws on the shroud. Once you do it's a pain in the ass getting them off

If I recall correctly there torques screws

 

[peche]

Just like what I said in your PM use extreme caution and be certain it's a new wrench and take care not to strip those special screws on the shroud. Once you do it's a pain in the ass getting them off

If I recall correctly there torques screws

all cautions on mind! also several videos already seen to perform a deep clean with all the cautions!

Regards,

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Just popping in to wish you many hours of happy gaming with your new GPU mate.....

 

[peche]

Just popping in to wish you many hours of happy gaming with your new GPU mate.....

thanks mate, ill have plenty of fun doing several monkey stuff on it, also if you have had any experience with stock coolers AMD / Nvidia please feel free to post!

Regards,

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Ive never owned a reference card but i did install a Radeon HD 6950 for someone a month or so ago. The noise was horrendous. When i turned it to 100% my wife came in and asked if something went wrong.

 

[peche]

The noise was horrendous. When i turned it to 100% my wife came in and asked if something went wrong.

wendy being wendy right?

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

She was hoping i was vacuuming and mistook the sound.

Pretty soon after i had to do the vacuuming.

 

[ISI300]

Signed in to caution against reapplying the TIM or even lifting up the backplate, to my knowledge the reference coolers on Nvidia cards have very well applied TIm and high quality material, not your average white blob. Also the thermal pads of VRMs or memory chips could get damaged. You can just take the shroud off the cooler and ckean up the fan and the fin stack and you're all set!
Enjoy it!
edit: also have a reference 780 ti - similar cooler but a vapor chamber

 

[francisw19]

Just to add my experience, I've got a GTX980Ti with the stock cooler. I've got a custom fan curve setup in Afterburner. The fans drop to about 25% at idle with the GPU temp sitting at about 28°C and I'd consider it silent. The fan ramps up to about 80% on full load (a heavy game like The Witcher 3 for example, with GPU use pegged at 99%) and temps settle around 68-70°C. The fan is certainly audible at this point, but I don't find the sound too irritating (granted, the headphones help with this ). It seems like an excellent bearing/fan design IMO - a nice, clean "wooshing" sound (sorry I don't know what to call it LOL!) but no ticking/droning/vibrating/etc noises that would normally bother me.

And for reference, just a light overclock on mine - the GPU boosts to about 1300 MHz and just using stock voltage.

Enjoy the new GPU!

 

[ISI300]

Just to add my experience, I've got a GTX980Ti with the stock cooler. I've got a custom fan curve setup in Afterburner. The fans drop to about 25% at idle with the GPU temp sitting at about 28°C and I'd consider it silent. The fan ramps up to about 80% on full load (a heavy game like The Witcher 3 for example, with GPU use pegged at 99%) and temps settle around 68-70°C. The fan is certainly audible at this point, but I don't find the sound too irritating (granted, the headphones help with this ). It seems like an excellent bearing/fan design IMO - a nice, clean "wooshing" sound (sorry I don't know what to call it LOL!) but no ticking/droning/vibrating/etc noises that would normally bother me.

And for reference, just a light overclock on mine - the GPU boosts to about 1300 MHz and just using stock voltage.

Enjoy the new GPU!

Absolutely. Despite the high fan speed at default (2650 RPM at 83c) the cooler on Titan-esqe cards is superb.

 

[peche]

Signed in to caution against reapplying the TIM or even lifting up the backplate, to my knowledge the reference coolers on Nvidia cards have very well applied TIm and high quality material, not your average white blob. Also the thermal pads of VRMs or memory chips could get damaged. You can just take the shroud off the cooler and ckean up the fan and the fin stack and you're all set!
Enjoy it!

i would, the thing its that i got this GTX 980 second handed from someone that have as test sample, then when he was picking out a GTX 1080 for tests and giving back the GTX 980 he realize that the 980 was already gifted, so he sold it to me pretty cheap!
i will use Arctic MX4 as thermal paste, not the average crappy paste, i always try to use great paste with my card, also perform a deep clean on the cooler, fins and everything!

edit: also have a reference 780 ti - similar cooler but a vapor chamber

Thanks for the advise! i just did a couple of tests to my video card,max temp so far 85C, idles at 27-31c and also so far the moar i've pushed clocks:
GPU total power 110%
mem clock + 150mhz ..
coreclock +250mhz ...
played CS:GO stable, ultra, DSR mode activated, 3840x2400 i guess... i gave me like 350fps! what a video card!

Just to add my experience, I've got a GTX980Ti with the stock cooler. I've got a custom fan curve setup in Afterburner. The fans drop to about 25% at idle with the GPU temp sitting at about 28°C and I'd consider it silent. The fan ramps up to about 80% on full load (a heavy game like The Witcher 3 for example, with GPU use pegged at 99%) and temps settle around 68-70°C. The fan is certainly audible at this point, but I don't find the sound too irritating (granted, the headphones help with this ). It seems like an excellent bearing/fan design IMO - a nice, clean "wooshing" sound (sorry I don't know what to call it LOL!) but no ticking/droning/vibrating/etc noises that would normally bother me.

And for reference, just a light overclock on mine - the GPU boosts to about 1300 MHz and just using stock voltage.

Enjoy the new GPU!

GTX980 ti stock cooler? great i couldnt wait to clean mine and re-paste it,

Regards,

 

[EarthDog]

well, I'll like to know a little bit about GTX900 cooler, have some question for all users and people here that have had or used a reference blower cooler based GTX on 900 series, question about noise, temps and performance, reason ? today I'll be upgrading my loved GTX 680, almost closing deal with a Nvidia GTX 980 4GB with nvidia Reference cooler, so here are the main Questions:

How does the cooler perform? does your card throttles?
Noise levels, since it’s a blower cooler, at high clocks might be loud, so how its it?
and the most important thing, how are your clocks when you OC it?


Thanks in advance for all inputs on this research! also if you have another card with a blower cooler feel free to ad comments!


Regards,

Reviews tell you this... all of it in fact, LOL!

Blower coolers are effective but generally louder than most aftermarket solutions.

They all end up overclocking about the same... silicon lottery.

I wouldn't go with it, personally... find one with a better cooler and more robust PCB/VRM.

 

[jsfitz54]

She was hoping i was vacuuming and mistook the sound.

Pretty soon after i had to do the vacuuming.

LMAO. Does she make you wear a uniform?

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Of course, but I'm never allowed to see the pictures she takes, they look something like this

Spoiler

 

[64K]

Enjoy the upgrade @peche

 

[peche]

Reviews tell you this... all of it in fact, LOL!

Blower coolers are effective but generally louder than most aftermarket solutions.

They all end up overclocking about the same... silicon lottery.

I wouldn't go with it, personally... find one with a better cooler and more robust PCB/VRM.

already own the card... thanks for the input!

Enjoy the upgrade @peche

its hard to let pass the chances! this VGa Rulez! thanks again !

 

[P4-630]

already own the card

Congrats with the upgrade!
Enjoy your games even more now.



*Don't forget to update your system specs!

 

[peche]

Congrats with the upgrade!
Enjoy your games even more now.



*Don't forget to update your system specs!

well the card is sat near the rig, used just for tests and appereance, lol, this sunday will be a LanParty on a 1 of my friend's sp0t, so we decided to do some cleaning to my new video card and also we all will be cleaning our rigs! so till that moment i still with my loved GTX 680, then i will decide what to do with her!

As soon as the GTX 980 will replace 680 on the rig i'll update specs also i might swap other hardware i guess!
Thanks again !

Regards.

 

[peche]

Well, decided to give a new finish to this b*tch, so now i own a Black GeForce GTX 980 custom paint job! moar info soon !
New thermal paste added!

Regards,

 

[peche]

here there are some new pics!

 

[biffzinker]

Corner of the bare die is chipped?