Figuring out the correct Heat

[Venatator]

Alright, I have a GTX GeForce 970 4GB Zotac. What would be a safe temp for this card? It currently runs 40-50 C idle, and 80C on high end games

 

[Zerk2012]

80C is the temp the card should start throttling down at.

 

[dudeman509]

80C is higher than I'd like to see, so I'd look into improving your case ventilation a bit. My 970 runs about 70C at full load.

Here are the official Nvidia specs:
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications?ClickID=bn61sv1ld6sn1qd61veuekvdfmkkefmf1gyg