how fast should i set the fan speed for 8800gt

[demon1]

i have the:

EVGA 512-P3-N800-TR GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

my question is: what should i set the default fan speed at?

and if i keep the default fan speed high, lets say 80%. is that bad for my gpu? what if i keep it at 100% all the time?

or should i only increase my fan speed based on how hot i gets?

 

[the_one111]

I have the AKIMBO version of that card and it idles at 50C and under load it gets to about 55-65C and thats with a dual slot fan at 65%..

usually this is the chart for graphics cards heat:

30-40C is great
40-50C is good
50-60C is normal
60-70C is being somewhat worried.

Whats it idleing at usually? And what fan speed do you have it on right now?

 

[demon1]

i havent built my computer yet, but i was just curious.

so should i base my fan speed on the temp? or jus try to keep it low as possible all the time?

 

[the_mystery_gamer]

I'd crank it up until just before the noise gets annoying, and set that as the idle speed. Then pick a higher speed you won't notice during the noise and action of a game, and have that as your load speed. Throw in a setting to put the fan to 100% when it gets near overheating (you can set it to throttle the clocks back as well). You can also toss in a few intermediate settings if you feel like it.


Oh, and no, this will not kill your fan. OK, technically it will, but we're talking "dies after 9 years" vs "dies after 20 years" here. I don't know what it is about PWM fans that make people think they can't be run anywhere near full speed. Somehow running your case fans at full power constantly won't ever kill them, but setting a variable speed for full speed and...OMG TURN IT DOWN IT WILL ASPLODE!!!!!!!!!!!!1111

PWM does not make a fan run faster than normal under load, it makes it run slower than normal during idle. "Normal" is full speed all the time. This is excessive and annoying for most fans, so we have devices to slow them down when not needed. Some laptop and GPU makers go a little overboard setting these, hence the reason for programs like RivaTuner, SpeedFan, and smcFanControl(Mac).

 

[slapdashzero]

These are the exact same cards I have, two in SLI, and I have my setting to take the fans to full bore on Windows boot. They run fairly warm if you don't do that, as the fans spin at about 30%. I've found that the dynamic scaling does not work very well with these cards, so even under load, the fans stay at idle speed; so I'd just set them high and rock out. In terms of noise, I'd say it's "lounder than idle", which isn't saying much; they probably together sound like a 3" case fan. Go all out, all the time, from my experience with those cards, you probably won't see temps higher than 50C (in a decent case.)