Turning up fan speed vs leaving them low and having higher temps - which is better for my GPU?

[Karnosiris]

A friend of mine recently recommended I turn up the fan speed on my XFX 7950 Black Edition. I was getting roughly 50-55c with one or three programs running (firefox, Steam, that kind of thing). When under load it jumped up to anywhere between 55-70c (depending on the game), which is the highest I've seen it go. This was with fan speeds on 20%.

I've screwed them up to 45% now and my temps have dropped by about 10c, but after doing a few google searches I've read that stressing the fans can decrease the lifespan of a GPU even more than high temps due to them breaking earlier. I couldn't find a clear answer on which is preferable though. Can anyone here help me out?

 

[nukemaster]

You will never get a 100% answer.

The card maker decides that the card can take a certain temperature span and then programs the fans for. I have never had a problem with this.

You will also have people who tell you the cool to hot transition is worse for the card that just keeping it cool or hot all the time. Again, these stresses may well hurt solder joints(expansion/contraction with temperature) on some devices, but the designer of the card should have taken all this into consideration.

Fans do last longer at lower speeds, but how much depends greatly on the fan. I have only ever had a single video card fan start to fail and by that time, the card was long obsolete.

 

[doubletake]

Yeah no, better cooling for your card is in no way worse for it than letting it heat up excessively. What you read was definitely about the lifespan of the graphics card's FAN, which yes, could have a decreased lifespan if constantly run at near or max speed at all times. The GPU itself can only BENEFIT from increased cooling. You really have nothing to worry about. As long as you aren't running the fan at 80%+ at ALL TIMES, it should be able to last as least as long as the graphics card itself .. Even if it doesn't, you could always return it for a warranty replacement, or just buy a replacement fan cheap off ebay or something.

 

[17seconds]

Leave your fans on Auto, the way the engineers designed it. You think random people on public forums know better than the people who designed and built the card? If you're getting 70c maximum with fans on Auto, that's a pretty outstanding temperature. All you're getting by turning up the fans is more noise. If you were having temperature problems, like temps up around 90c+, then you would adjust them yourself manually as a remedy, but not while everything's already running nice and cool on Auto.

Now if you are going for a maximum overclock, that's a different story. You might need to manually adjust the fans for that. But even with normal overclocking, Auto fans will also work fine, again the way they were designed.

 

[Deuce65]

A friend of mine recently recommended I turn up the fan speed on my XFX 7950 Black Edition. I was getting roughly 50-55c with one or three programs running (firefox, Steam, that kind of thing). When under load it jumped up to anywhere between 55-70c (depending on the game), which is the highest I've seen it go. This was with fan speeds on 20%.

I've screwed them up to 45% now and my temps have dropped by about 10c, but after doing a few google searches I've read that stressing the fans can decrease the lifespan of a GPU even more than high temps due to them breaking earlier. I couldn't find a clear answer on which is preferable though. Can anyone here help me out?

Believe it or not, the people manufacturing graphics cards actually know a thing or two about graphics cards (yes even XFX!!!). Shocking, I know. And believe it or not, the people making video cards, the guys that actually designed it and put it together and everything even know more about them than random people talk to on the internet! Even more shocking, I know.
Anyways, the moral of the story is, unless you know what you are doing and have a specific reason to, don't f with the thing. Really. The people building it actually do have a clue, and if for some reason you don't trust them, buy a different brand.