New Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti Xtreme issues? Very high temps at 100% usage & 4K

[Ransome]

Just got my brand new Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti Xtreme.
Had 2 GTX 980s before that.

Ran The Witcher 3 in either 1440p or 2160p to test it. Noticed that when MSI AFTERBURNER (which I use for monitoring FPS, Temps, clock speeds, etc) is turned on - the Core Clocks spike to a crazy 1961 and even 2000+Mhz sometimes. I didn't overclock this card

According to this review:
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_aorus_gtx_1080_ti_xtreme_gaming_review,40.html
card should have boost clocks of:
Boost Clock: 1721 MHz
Memory Clock: 11232 MHz
When I turn on the Aorus Graphics Engine software (which I don't want to keep using) it reverts back to 1691 or 1721 depending if I'm on Game Mode or OC Mode on the software.

It's like the system, game or MSI is overclocking my GPU automatically even though I reset my AB to default and there's no OC.
The card that supposed to run at 70~ Celsius degrees, run close to 80 and probably more if I persist in 4K.
And has 100% GPU usage.
My GTX 980 SLI G1 Gaming were 2 cards, and they rarely crossed the 70 C mark, sometimes 72 in a hot day. Now I have a more power efficient card, more space in case, a card with better cooling, 1 card instead of 2 - and I still get such high temps?

Also while standing in some hill with a forest in Skellige, everything set to Ultra except Foliage Very High - I get roughly 60fps - I expected much more - because its almost same fps I was getting with my GTX 980 SLI
This entire behavior is strange.

 

[Ransome]

My PC's specs:
CPU: Core i5-3570K (@ 4.4GHz +0.065 Offset voltage OC)
MOBO: Asus Sabertooth Z77
RAM: 16 GB of G.Skill Ripjaw-X DDR3 1600Mhz (XMP profile)
SSD: 256GB Crucial M4
HD: Western Digital Black 2TB
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14
Case: Corsair CC600T Graphite White Special Edition
PSU: Corsair 850AX Gold

1440p:

4K:

Core Clocks are about 200-300MHZ more than they should be!
Temps are too high! My old GTX 980 was at 60-70c (worst case 72) during heavy load most of the time.
FPS isn't as high as I would expect of this beast of a card.

🙁
Is my GPU faulty?

 

[biglizard]

My Evga Fe clocks to 1911 out of the box(which it will do under volted at 1.000 V). And will easily reach 80c, though not now do to voltage adjustment. Have you adjusted your fans curve yet? How is case air flow?

Run some benchmarks and compare results, At 1440p your result are about what I am getting.

 

[Ransome]

My Evga Fe clocks to 1911 out of the box(which it will do under volted at 1.000 V). And will easily reach 80c, though not now do to voltage adjustment. Have you adjusted your fans curve yet? How is case air flow?

Run some benchmarks and compare results, At 1440p your result are about what I am getting.

My PC has tons of space, its super clean and tidy and has pretty good airflow, l believe.
I cleaned it up today and fixed it up to have even less inside clutter. The clutter is below minium now, its nonexistent and everything is clean and open for air to flow.

I now have another issue with displaying image at RGB Full and Limited and 4:4:4 too- at 4k 60Hz. Even though my TV is Samsung KS 8500, my GPU is brand new 1080 Ti and my HDMI cable (10 m long) is High Speed with Ethernet. TV screen will flicker rapidly like crazy. Or not display image at all.
Also displayed some white flickering dots a moment ago.

 

[biglizard]

Cant speak to the display issue. Stupid question did you update drivers when you installed new card?

Those 180mm fans don't move as much air as I like. I suspect that the noctua you have is just recirculating hot air and creating turbulence disrupting the air flow to gpu. Defiantly would get rid of the hdd tray blocking intake fan if you can.



My basic rule is to flow as much balanced air flow as possible, by balanced I mean between upper and lower case.

I removed the pci covers from my case to flow air around my card and out the case, I have three 140s as intake though.

 

[Ransome]

Cant speak to the display issue. Stupid question did you update drivers when you installed new card?

Those 180mm fans don't move as much air as I like. I suspect that the noctua you have is just recirculating hot air and creating turbulence disrupting the air flow to gpu. Defiantly would get rid of the hdd tray blocking intake fan if you can.



My basic rule is to flow as much balanced air flow as possible, by balanced I mean between upper and lower case.

I removed the pci covers from my case to flow air around my card and out the case, I have three 140s as intake though.

Btw, my case is obviously kept close at all times, just wanted to show the inside of it.

This is how my PC case is situated. (all those towels and mess on the table is because I recently painted the room and made some renovations lol). It's a warm room in a hot country. But even still, today is a cold day, and summer is coming soon. I was SURE I am going to get much better temps moving from 980 SLI to a single 1080TI - not just less power, not just less heat from having just 1 card, but also more space and better airflow- and a card with the BEST COOLING SYSTEM among 1080 Ti's to-date. My old 980s had really good cooling too - but how come I get higher temps now from the card and the case? IT MAKES NO FREAKING SENSE! So disappointing and disheartening. I was looking forward to have less noise and less heat and less clutter by moving to a single well-cooled efficient card... what a bad surprise :/...... Something's not right.

Yes I did installed the latest drivers, using clean removal with DDU and clean install later.

I removed some trays of the cage, how do you suggest removing all of them? I have 1 SSD and 1 HDD.
I also use the cage itself as a holder for the added black/brown Noctua fan. That fan help reducing over 5 degree c when I first installed my 2nd 980 of the 980 SLI. Back then, it was all that was needed to solve the heat problems.
Right now, I am out of ideas.
Care to go in detail about how do you think the flow should work and what is wrong or worth improving?
Honestly I feel like my rig is kept in the absolute best care possible and it is well managed in terms of space, clutter free, and hiding cables with proper cable-management. It's also extremely clean.

The Noctua D14 was recommended for me as the best Air Cooler money can buy and also said it should top many water coolers of the time. Nowdays I do regret having it, because it's rather ugly, takes a lot of space, impossible to clean, and interfere with simple actions like RAM or even unhinging and replacing GPUs. But do you really think it's bad for the air flow? Why would they make it so and why would people even use those if it was the case.

Problem with connecting my new GPU to my new 4K TV at 60Hz 4K is killing me, I can't fix it. I think it might be the 10 Meter cable, but what doesn't add up - is that it WORKED with my inferior 980 SLI at 60Hz 4K RGB FULL - no flickering.

 

[biglizard]

I removed some trays of the cage, how do you suggest removing all of them?

Sorry, not all of them just the lower one.

That fan help reducing over 5 degree c when I first installed my 2nd 980 of the 980 SLI. Back then, it was all that was needed to solve the heat problems.
Right now, I am out of ideas.

I've tried this same thing in the past and found all it did was blow hot air around the case, I can defiantly see how it would help with a dual card setup. Not sure how effective it will be with a single card as there is no real restriction.

Care to go in detail about how do you think the flow should work and what is wrong or worth improving?
Honestly I feel like my rig is kept in the absolute best care possible and it is well managed in terms of space, clutter free, and hiding cables with proper cable-management. It's also extremely clean.

Yes your comp is tidy, take a look here http://www.overclock.net/t/1491876/ways-to-better-cooling-airflow-cooler-fan-data and specifically here http://www.overclock.net/t/1491876/ways-to-better-cooling-airflow-cooler-fan-data#post_22319249

The Noctua D14 was recommended for me as the best Air Cooler money can but and also said it should top many water coolers of the time. Nowdays I do regret having it, because it's rather ugly, takes a lot of space, impossible to clean, and interfere with simple actions like RAM or even unhinging and replacing GPUs. But do you really think it's bad for the air flow? Why would they make it so and why would people even use those if it was the case.

I didnt mean to suggest the cooler was the problem, sorry. Its the additional fan blowing on your card that I was referring to. I use the D15s my self.

Just to be sure we are comparing apples to apples your 980's were they a blower design or were they open air?

As for the display issue take a look here, http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=413795

 

[Ransome]

the 2 980s were Gigabyte G1 Gaming - both open air, 3-fan design.
Here's the original thread, which I've made when I designed that middle fan set up and manage to lower about 5-11c
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2647742/gtx-980-sli-increases-heat-significantly.html

Disabling HDMI audio? Worth a shot, but I am going to need that to transfer 5.1 audio using the av receiver (4K 60Hz hdcp 2.2 AVR that I ordered and is on the way)...
EDIT: Disabling HDMI Audio didn't work.
Thanks for all the links. Will look at them tomorrow..need to go to sleep

 

[Ransome]

Btw, which PCI covers did you remove and why exactly ? What so you mean?

And what do you suggest I do with the HDD tray? Thought of just plucking the tray and fixing it into the upper built in cage, maybe... I like that part clean though

 

[biglizard]

Btw, which PCI covers did you remove and why exactly ? What so you mean?

And what do you suggest I do with the HDD tray? Thought of just plucking the tray and fixing it into the upper built in cage, maybe... I like that part clean though

I removed all of them, allowing cool air from front intake fan to flow around gpu and exit the case.

That hdd tray is clearly blocking air flow to gpu, removing that and the pci covers may allow more air flow to where you need it.

What case fans are you running and how many?

 

[Ransome]

How can removing those tiny caps covering the PCI slots help with airflow? They are there to protect, cover and hide open slots from dust, and potential damage or rust. They are also keeping things clean looking and aesthetic. They do not surround the GPU, so I am not entirely sure what you mean. Do you mean that removing them will make the slots and the motherboard absorb heat into it and the back of case?..

The hdd tray isn't blocking much. Since the tray and cage overlap so the main thing blocking some air is actually the entire cage itself. The hdd blocks some of it too.

Removed half way to demonstrate.
This case had 2 cages I removed one (was in the middle). Also remove an unused tray. I now lowered my SSD tray to the middle.
I am thinking about removing the tray or the cage altogether, but I have no idea how and where to place and lock the HDD and SSD.
Removing the cae will be optimal, but will also mean the added black Noctua fan- will need an alternative way to hold the fan in place . Perhaps hold it to upper Drive cage and to back of the case - 3 point grip- with one corner hanging in air?
You think the middle fan harms but I don't see how. It creates a wind tunnel and add extra push of intake air from the bigger (weaker) front fan and sides/edges.

I am using the the built in case fans of the 660T Graphite White.
See in pictures.

Don't ever want to return to mesh door- ever. Glass is so much more elgant, cealnable, dust protecting and keeps thencase humming in a much more subtle deep and quiet way.

I think the Noctua d14 CPU cooler's 2 fans also serve as a sort of wind tunnel - sucking cool air from the empty disc drive cage, but I don't know if it's bad or good.
Honestly aside from fiddling with cage or trays- I feel like I am at the maximum case management.

(I can replace the black back exhaust, upper white exhaust or front intake- but it's going to be very difficult and I don't want to mess things up... this isn't a new build afterall.)

 

[Ransome]

After plenty of work and thinking earlier today, came up with an air-flow upgrade solution (hopefully helpful):
Strapped both trays of HDD and SSD together.

Removed cage altogether

And tied them with a "sleeve" to the unremovable plastic platform below.
Cable management improved further, all clean and clutter free, low profile too, and works in a similar way to how it used to be.
Also very cleanable, probably more than before, I believe.

Fan held in the air, with 3 points of grip, yet quite firm. Drives are somewhat flexible but held tight. Basically a makeshift flat drive cage, just below the fan and not blocking it. Yet they should still have some cooling from the fan, I think, and are spaced slightly and separated by the plastic of the tray so (hopefully) it should prevent them from warming each other up.

Initially I planned to place the drives in the only slot seemed possible on the disk drive open cage/slots above, but instead of going up- which involved difficult placement, issues with locking it in place, and cleaning up later - I got it down.
This way all Sata and drive power cables are connected roughly the same way as before, with no cables running inside the main hull of the case. Easy to connect and disconnect from behind. I can even clean the big fan now.
What do you guys think?
Didn't even have time to test it out.

Ordered a high quality 10m HDMI 2.0 cable from Amazon, with good reviews, to try it with the TV. Think it might solve the flickering/no image issue when "UHD Color" is enabled with the PC and 10 meter cables (in RGB and 444 modes). That's the one
Praying it will help, otherwise don't know what will, it could be the GPU- but that's highly unlikely.

Didn't even have enough time to test the Aorusb1080 Ti GPU. Don't really know of an updated proper benchmark to test it out with, other than just playing games.
Ideas?

GPU Core clocks are -out of the box- reaching 1960-2000mhz in games. Even though they are listed (in reviews) as 1670 and 1761 or something. Is this normal?!

 

[bystander]

I'm sorry, but you do not have a problem. The temps are well within normal range.

Nvidia's cards automatically OC without you having to do anything, if the temps and power draw are below a certain threshold. My MSI GTX 1070 Armor OC is the same way. The normal boost is listed at 1749, but the card routinely hits 1960 Mhz, although I do get lower temps of no higher than 65C. 75C is also quite a bit lower than their reference cards typically get, which is 83C (sometimes in the upper 80's, but 83C is typically the point where they try to stay below).

Don't look for problems that do not exist. Enjoy the extra high boost.

Note about Skyrim: it doesn't run properly past 60 FPS, and short of editing the .ini file, it forces v-sync on, which would be 60 FPS max for most monitors.

 

[Ransome]

I'm sorry, but you do not have a problem. The temps are well within normal range.

Nvidia's cards automatically OC without you having to do anything, if the temps and power draw are below a certain threshold. My MSI GTX 1070 Armor OC is the same way. The normal boost is listed at 1749, but the card routinely hits 1960 Mhz, although I do get lower temps of no higher than 65C. 75C is also quite a bit lower than their reference cards typically get, which is 83C (sometimes in the upper 80's, but 83C is typically the point where they try to stay below).

Don't look for problems that do not exist. Enjoy the extra high boost.

Note about Skyrim: it doesn't run properly past 60 FPS, and short of editing the .ini file, it forces v-sync on, which would be 60 FPS max for most monitors.

Thank you for the reply. Although I don't understand why you'd think I am looking for problems.
Regarding Clock Speeds - I didn't know it is possible for the GPU to reach such a threshold- so far off the turbo and base clock speeds. Read reviews about the card and the always mentioned the Turbo clock of about 1761mhz as the top mark, they never mentioned going up to 1900-2000mhz in full load.

My GPU temps have already reached alarmingly high temps of 80c, and that was after a few minutes, in a rather cold day, with a lot space. If it reaches 80c it could easily bypass that. Other times it hanged around 75-78.
Turning on MSI AB custom fan curve and setting fan curve helped (basically set the default curve but starting at 20c-20%speed).
Thinking that right now aside from the airflow upgrade that I've made above, only thing I have left is to use Default or Custom Auto Fan curve using MSI AB.
I also have an option to increase or lower case fan speed using a dial on the case's top - but I am not sure if it's better to let them spin slowly or fast (more noise). Someone once told me to make the fans spin nice and slow., but I dunno if it makes sense.

Also, the GPU has some feature tied to the software Aorus Graphics Engine called FAN STOP, and has Semi-Passive and Active Fan modes - but it seem to require having the software run at startup - which is something I don't want. Same with the GPU's "OS MODE" - seems to only work if you have the Gigabyte software installed.

 

[bystander]

The only reason some reviews don't mention anything about the max clocks reached, is they don't test for it. They just list what GPU-Z says and call it a day. If the review site tested the running clocks of the cards, they'd show you closer to 2000mhz. All Nvidia's new cards from at least the GTX 1070 or better, automatically OC beyond the listed and there are a few review sites who have tested this, even if others haven't.

Why do you believe 80C is alarming? Like I said before, the reference designs operate at 83C almost 100% of the time. Alarmingly high temps is 90C. It's up to you if you want to try and force it to lower temps by increasing the fan profile, but they chose the fan profile they did to keep the noise levels down, as the cards are perfectly happy at 80C.

 

[VXBlade]

I'm sorry, but you do not have a problem. The temps are well within normal range.

Nvidia's cards automatically OC without you having to do anything, if the temps and power draw are below a certain threshold. My MSI GTX 1070 Armor OC is the same way. The normal boost is listed at 1749, but the card routinely hits 1960 Mhz, although I do get lower temps of no higher than 65C. 75C is also quite a bit lower than their reference cards typically get, which is 83C (sometimes in the upper 80's, but 83C is typically the point where they try to stay below).

Don't look for problems that do not exist. Enjoy the extra high boost.

Note about Skyrim: it doesn't run properly past 60 FPS, and short of editing the .ini file, it forces v-sync on, which would be 60 FPS max for most monitors.

Thank you for the reply. Although I don't understand why you'd think I am looking for problems.
Regarding Clock Speeds - I didn't know it is possible for the GPU to reach such a threshold- so far off the turbo and base clock speeds. Read reviews about the card and the always mentioned the Turbo clock of about 1761mhz as the top mark, they never mentioned going up to 1900-2000mhz in full load.

My GPU temps have already reached alarmingly high temps of 80c, and that was after a few minutes, in a rather cold day, with a lot space. If it reaches 80c it could easily bypass that. Other times it hanged around 75-78.
Turning on MSI AB custom fan curve and setting fan curve helped (basically set the default curve but starting at 20c-20%speed).
Thinking that right now aside from the airflow upgrade that I've made above, only thing I have left is to use Default or Custom Auto Fan curve using MSI AB.
I also have an option to increase or lower case fan speed using a dial on the case's top - but I am not sure if it's better to let them spin slowly or fast (more noise). Someone once told me to make the fans spin nice and slow., but I dunno if it makes sense.

Also, the GPU has some feature tied to the software Aorus Graphics Engine called FAN STOP, and has Semi-Passive and Active Fan modes - but it seem to require having the software run at startup - which is something I don't want. Same with the GPU's "OS MODE" - seems to only work if you have the Gigabyte software installed.

The Gigabyte TI card seems to need the Gigabyte software installed (At this point). I have the card as well, and running out of the box (Actually out of the box and with the default semi-active fan setting) my temps got to over 83c after 3 hours of Andromeda. This bothered me and also didn't fit with that I knew the cooler could do. I HAD to set the fans to active with the gigabyte software in order to fix this issue, now I never top 76, and usually hover around 72c at full load.

 

[Ransome]

The Gigabyte TI card seems to need the Gigabyte software installed (At this point). I have the card as well, and running out of the box (Actually out of the box and with the default semi-active fan setting) my temps got to over 83c after 3 hours of Andromeda. This bothered me and also didn't fit with that I knew the cooler could do. I HAD to set the fans to active with the gigabyte software in order to fix this issue, now I never top 76, and usually hover around 72c at full load.

Hey there! Thanks the reply.
Do you have the Gigabyte software running on startup+minimized (and constantly in the background)?
Or do you have just installed, set your mode and fan once - and NOT running on startup and the background?

I'm using Aorus Graphics Engine 1.06 - is this the same software you are using?
I set it to not run on windows startup. I've noticed that it saves the LED lighting setting, but I don't know if it saves the card's mode (Gaming/OC Mode) as well as fan mode (Active/Semi-Passive).
I'm actually using the Semi-Passive fan mode at the moment - after applying my case air-flow upgrade/fix - seen above.
What's the difference exactly between Active and Semi-Passive?

 

[VXBlade]

The Gigabyte TI card seems to need the Gigabyte software installed (At this point). I have the card as well, and running out of the box (Actually out of the box and with the default semi-active fan setting) my temps got to over 83c after 3 hours of Andromeda. This bothered me and also didn't fit with that I knew the cooler could do. I HAD to set the fans to active with the gigabyte software in order to fix this issue, now I never top 76, and usually hover around 72c at full load.

Hey there! Thanks the reply.
Do you have the Gigabyte software running on startup+minimized (and constantly in the background)?
Or do you have just installed, set your mode and fan once - and NOT running on startup and the background?

I'm using Aorus Graphics Engine 1.06 - is this the same software you are using?
I set it to not run on windows startup. I've noticed that it saves the LED lighting setting, but I don't know if it saves the card's mode (Gaming/OC Mode) as well as fan mode (Active/Semi-Passive).
I'm actually using the Semi-Passive fan mode at the moment - after applying my case air-flow upgrade/fix - seen above.
What's the difference exactly between Active and Semi-Passive?

To be honest, its buggy as heck and I have to reset the fan setting almost every reboot. I run the software at boot up and minimized, doesn't seem to cause any issues. It DOES seem to save the OC setting and the LED setting each time, but the fan setting reverts back to Semi Passive, and then my temps soar after a few hours of gaming. I have no idea why this should be the case, because Semi Passive simply keeps the fans idle at low temps. Active keeps the fans on at all times, even low temp times. The only thing I can think of is Gigabytes fan curve on the semi passive mode is too loose. And in the active fan mode it spins up to a higher RPM at the same temps.
It could be also that the temps on this card spike REALLY fast and the semi active fan can't catch up fast enough to stop peaks of above 80c before the fan cools the card down.
I'm using 1.07 I believe software wise.

 

[bystander]

80c isn't a bad thing with these cards. They purposefully allow it to reach that on all the stock cards. They are safe up to the high 80's, (it's not until the high 90's that there is a problem). I'm not sure why this bothers you so much, but if it does, set a fan profile with MSI Afterburner.

 

[VXBlade]

80c isn't a bad thing with these cards. They purposefully allow it to reach that on all the stock cards. They are safe up to the high 80's, (it's not until the high 90's that there is a problem). I'm not sure why this bothers you so much, but if it does, set a fan profile with MSI Afterburner.

Depends how long you intend to keep it. 80 - 90c will degrade the silicon faster than lower temps. At $800 I intend to run this for a half a decade. Some people upgrade like their cards like cell phones every year, then who cares.
Also, I've noticed throttling in my logs if the CPU temp peaks above 80c, if I keep it below 78c I never see a frequency drop. 79c and above it throttles with out custom OC settings.

 

[bystander]

80c isn't a bad thing with these cards. They purposefully allow it to reach that on all the stock cards. They are safe up to the high 80's, (it's not until the high 90's that there is a problem). I'm not sure why this bothers you so much, but if it does, set a fan profile with MSI Afterburner.

Depends how long you intend to keep it. 80 - 90c will degrade the silicon faster than lower temps. At $800 I intend to run this for a half a decade. Some people upgrade like their cards like cell phones every year, then who cares.
Also, I've noticed throttling in my logs if the CPU temp peaks above 80c, if I keep it below 78c I never see a frequency drop. 79c and above it throttles with out custom OC settings.

People say that, but there is little evidence that it's true. The high 80's might be an issue, but many people have run their cards many years at 85C and lower without issue. Eventually they might have to replace the thermal pads and TMI, but that happens at any temp. The most common failure are VRM's, which are not cooled by the HSF.

Anyway, if it bothers you, use a higher fan profile, but 83C is not an issue, and no where near alarming. And if you plan to use the card for 5 years, you'd likely be best off buying lower end products and upgrade more often. You'll have better performance over the 5 years at the same cost.

 

[Sinisterecho6985]

OMG Dude, do you know anything, of course your card will go up to and beyond 2000mhz!! Yes in OC mode it states 1746 BUT if you know anything at all and actually attempted any of your own fact searching and research you would see that with NVIDIA Boost then it does allow the card to reach those numbers - Go and check some YT videos on the card bro!! Lots of techies have reported those clock speeds out of the box - I have the exact same card and I never hit above 71c with the Aourus software and with MSI and a custom fan curve never above 65c - If you're temps are bothering you then use some common sense and create custom fan curve!

 

[Ransome]

Ok so it seems playing at 4K 2160p with this card, even with all the incredible air-flow and case upgrades and cleanliness, the temps will hug the 80s. In a warm day, when GPU usage nearing the max (85-100% usage), and in a graphically demanding game like TW3.
There's simply no escaping it.
I tried both the default automatic fan curve (out of the box semi passive) and applying my own MSI Afterburner manual fan curve:
The manual fan curve that I've used was basically the default AB manual fan curve - only starting at 20c with 20% speed and going up 1:1. So for instance 78c will be 78% fan speed, etc.
IT DOESN'T WORK For example, if my GPU hit 80c when playing The Witcher 3 at 21604K with 99% GPU load, in a packed area- whether I have the default (semi-passive) fans which are about 60% speed at 80c iirc, or 80% speed at 80c with a custom fan curve - it will still hang on 80c. So applying a custom fan curve doesn't help much at all.
So I actually don't see any real reason of using it unless I want to make my case more noisy and draw more power.
Unless you guys / I should - use more aggressive fan curve. If so - please let me know what kind of fan curves.

OMG Dude, do you know anything, of course your card will go up to and beyond 2000mhz!! Yes in OC mode it states 1746 BUT if you know anything at all and actually attempted any of your own fact searching and research you would see that with NVIDIA Boost then it does allow the card to reach those numbers - Go and check some YT videos on the card bro!! Lots of techies have reported those clock speeds out of the box - I have the exact same card and I never hit above 71c with the Aourus software and with MSI and a custom fan curve never above 65c - If you're temps are bothering you then use some common sense and create custom fan curve!

Woah, calm down.
I figured it out shortly after making this question (which is only part of the thread anyway) after making further research, but I wasn't 100% sure about it. Just because this not-so-known information slipped my mind, you don't have to be utterly nuts and jerk about it.

I found your 65c and 71c statement hard to believe. If you never cross 71c with default "semi-passive" fan, than you are:
1) probably playing at 1080p and/or 1440p.
2) playing non-demanding or mid-demanding games. 1440p and 2160p at highly demanding gaming will spike the temps by like 5-15c more than others.
3) you are playing with a wide open case, without doors or something.
4) you live in a really cold country or have some crazy super-expensive cooling system.

I already tried applying custom fan curve that is 1 to 1 temps to fan speed: so for instance 20c will be 20% speed, 60c 60%, 70c 70% etc. That didn't help. It only "slowed down" the heating for a few minutes, as I've mentioned above. So even with the default MSI AB custom fan curve: 79c will fixate itself to 79c even with 79fan speeds.
Unless you are using a far more aggressive fan curve which works for you. If you do, please let me know.
I honestly don't see how it is possible for you to have the card working at 65-71c, unless those games are really light weight, 1080p, cold chilly room or wide open case.
You can see photos of my current case and airflow and I dare say it doesn't get any cleaner and clutter free than that and the airflow improved dramatically.

So yes - I have reasons for concern, I need to know if my GPU and/or GPU cooler is defective. Because right now it is not cooling as well as it should.
Especially as before than I had 2 GTX 980s G1 Gaming cards- which means more power, more heat, less airflow and inferior cooling - and yet the temps on BOTH were on the low 70s at worst case.

I would have to point out that I live in a really warm humid country, the room doesn't have a lot of airflow. We have occasional heat waves that comes with dryness and summer is super steaming hot and humid. April and May brought summer early, and it only going to get worse.

80c isn't a bad thing with these cards. They purposefully allow it to reach that on all the stock cards. They are safe up to the high 80's, (it's not until the high 90's that there is a problem). I'm not sure why this bothers you so much, but if it does, set a fan profile with MSI Afterburner.

Depends how long you intend to keep it. 80 - 90c will degrade the silicon faster than lower temps. At $800 I intend to run this for a half a decade. Some people upgrade like their cards like cell phones every year, then who cares.
Also, I've noticed throttling in my logs if the CPU temp peaks above 80c, if I keep it below 78c I never see a frequency drop. 79c and above it throttles with out custom OC settings.

You were totally right about Aorus Graphics Engine being buggy as hell. I removed it from startup using both it's settings and CCleaner.
I've noticed a really annoying bothersome issue between Aorus software and MSI Afterburner - they seem to constanly clash between each other - and force their own parameters - namely fan and clock speeds - over each other!
So using MSI AB to apply fan-curve with Aorus GE to apply "OC Mode" is a big NO GO.
You notice that when you switch between them - and you would see the fan speed going haywire - from 60% custom to 0 auto and back. The clocks will also switch from Aorus to AB oc settings.

So I've made up my mind at this point to use only MSI AB - and mimic Aorus OC mode - by applying:
125% power limit, +25MHz core, +100MHz. But then I noticed that 100 MHz memory isn't stable so I am using +50MHz. I still had some artifact and flickering issues when playing games or even at the desktop last Saturday (last time I used my PC) - not sure if it's the OC settings or not. I might just use the card at reset default settings, because they are already OC to an extreme.

I have another annoying issue with this GPU where it has trouble with dual monitors. I have 1 pc monitor (Asus ROG Swift PG 278Q) over DisplayPort port 1, and Samsung TV (KS8500) over HDMI 1. And sometimes the PC monitor won't be detected at all until I disconnect and reconnect the DisplayPort cable or reboot the pc. The other problem is that I often can't Project my screen to "Screen 2 only" (my TV) - until I use "EXTEND" - which makes Windows detect the 2nd TV screen, and then swap it to "Screen 2 only". Which may create issues. I wonder if it's a Windows 10 Creator's version issue or GPU problem.

 

[Ransome]

If I'm to sum up my frustrations and uncertainties about this card so far, it's:
1. GPU gets too hot to frequently. Much hotter than my 980s SLI setup - which makes no sense to me whatsoever.
2. GPU takes 3-slot (or 2.5 not sure) on the motherboard.
3. GPU has trouble with detecting monitor and TV using both HDMI and DisplayPort. The issue affect Bios and pc boot- it boots on the TV screen even if it's turned off - so I can't access my Bios with my mouse&keyboard and PC monitor, then loads up windows on either the DisplayPort PC monitor or the HDMI TV.
So basically I need to disconnect the HDMI cable if I want to see the boot and access BIOS using my PC monitor. Never had that problem with my 980s SLI.
It will not allow switching between monitor 1 to monitor 2 using the project -unless I change it to EXTEND first. Which usually forces settings of the PC monitor on the TV and causes issues.
It will often not detect my PC screen at all, not even in device manager! Which is the worst issue.
4. I got some stability issues, CTD.
5. I get some flickering - like patches of image flicker and appear over the current image - as if someone cropped a piece of the image in static and pasted it for a second on the screen. Sometimes few rapid blinking at once.

Never had any of these problems with my 980SLI.
Problem is, it's already virtually impossible to track and detect where the issue comes from, and trust me I am very good at rooting out and solving PC issues of the worst kind, and already spent so many hours and my free time for days now, hardly played a few hours of actual gaming since I got the card 3+ weeks ago.
I don't want to return a working card, because it will be really hard to convince the damn store to take it back - they might mess around with it in some shabby backdoor lab and give it back to me, and they will never do proper testing to find out what's causing the issue. I also like to believe that there are not issues at all with the GPU. Just compatibility issues with Windows 10 Creators, the card, the new TV, the Asus PC monitor and so on..

this is the custom OC that mimics OC Mode. Had a crash to desktop just now. No reason. [Could it be CPU oc issue ?]

 

[surya13]

I will try to address your issues and provide solutions as far as possible.

The card runs about 200 MHz above the specified boost clock. This is Nvidia GPU Boost 3.0 in action. It boosts the GPU clock well above the mentioned boost clocks.

The GTX 1080Ti runs hotter than 2 GTX 980s in SLI. Maxwell cards have core clocks within 1200 MHz. But Pascal cards run at clock speeds greater than 1800 MHz (above 1900 MHz in your case). So Pascal cards must naturally run hotter than their Maxwell counterparts. They can run at 83°C without any issues.

Solution
Your temperatures and clocks speeds are nothing to be worried about. But if you don't want your temperatures to go that high, set the temperature limit to what you want in MSI Afterburner. The clock speeds will automatically throttle down once the set maximum is reached.

Frame rate remains at 60 despite the upgrade from 2×GTX 980 to GTX 1080Ti. This is because vsync is turned on. This helps to prevent any frame tearing that would occur when you frame rate exceeds your monitor's refresh rate. That is the maximum your monitor can display.