Does GTX 1080Ti need space for air?

[tegno]

I have a Gigabyte GTX 1080Ti Gaming OC 11G. For some reasons, I decided to install it in extended form. Now the fans of my GPU is facing toward the glass side of the case. And it's very close to it (about 1 inch away). is it OK? Does it need more room? What if I overclock it?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yxw-uZfnTiLnevgbDoPxKfQDgwiIv3qi/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15WC1E2BB44cTw1PW4UVCKyDsWPwOUjEH/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XJRjSct_u43DBAQ1DvrDWk5YCeKo3KqQ/view?usp=sharing

 

[rhoban]

I suggest testing it with the panel on and off.

See how much temperatures change, if they change at all.

 

[dudio]

I don't recommend that set-up.
What you need to do, is imagine the card in it's 'regular' position (vs this), and visualize how each fan blade of each fan would be 'cupping' at the air available to it, to draw into the card. The air is available to its entire surface quite equally, and it can move and displace effectively.
With the set-up of the card close to the glass case, air in front of it that it wants to grab is quite restricted, with the back and middle fan trying to suck in air from its sides, and the front one doing just barely better.
Running the system at load with the glass cover on, then of (as rhoban suggested) should show you a pretty dramatic difference, although probably it would be best case scenerio vs a 'normal' set up

 

[photonboy]

Hi,
The temperature absolutely will go up, but whether it throttles or not depends on many factors.

The only way to determine what performance loss you are getting (if any) is to:

1) first find your max FREQUENCY you can obtain in a benchmark like Unigine Valley (reported in OSD like MSI Afterburner) with side panel off, then

2) see what the frequency is after... if it throttles down from say 2000MHz to 1850MHz then you've dropped to 92.5% of what you were.

Every game is also different but a benchmark like that is probably best and MAY be closer to the worst-case scenario (try TimeSpy etc too).

Also.. FAN NOISE.
You absolutely will increase fan noise; it is simply a question of how much. If it's not noisy, there's minimal throttling, and you like the looks then fine keep it that way.

UPDATE:
Unigine Valley has INCORRECT VALUES in the upper-right (one is GPU frequency which never changes for me but if I use EVGA's Precision software the OSD value does properly change and fluctuates between roughly 1930MHz and 2020MHz

 

[photonboy]

UPDATE:
You can of course try to compare FPS with side panel off and on but that varies a lot, and even if the FPS doesn't go down it would still raise the fan speed. So the FPS going down would mean you're hitting the throttle point (which may be roughly 82degC).

I'm not quite clear on how Pascal throttles as it seems to start BEFORE the throttle point. I'm at 82degC but it feels like it start to throttle at slightly LOWER than this like maybe closer to 77degC.

Also, don't have the fan higher than needed either so if it was in NORMAL POSITION but you rarely got above 70degC then maybe adjust the ramp a bit to lower fan speeds.