How sizzling is your PC’s graphics card temperature? During regular operations, your GPU temperature shouldn’t matter a lot—your graphics card ought to merely drive displays and play video games with out overheating and shutting down. But you probably have an older PC, or if you wish to try your hand at graphics card overclocking, with the ability to monitor your GPU temperature is important.
The excellent news? Checking your PC’s graphics card temperature is useless easy, particularly now that Windows lastly features a native method to hold tabs on temps. All types of free GPU monitoring instruments are additionally out there, and lots of of them might help you check your PC’s CPU temperature, too.
Let’s dig in.
Updated July 2, 2019 to incorporate Windows 10’s new native GPU temperature software.
How to verify your graphics card temperature
You can now discover your discrete GPU’s temperature within the Windows 10 Task Manager.
Microsoft lastly answered our prayers with the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, including a GPU temperature monitoring software within the Task Manager. Sure, it took 24 years, nevertheless it’s right here now!
To see how sizzling your graphics card is operating, open the Task Manager by urgent Crtl + Shift + Esc, by urgent Crtl + Alt + Delete and choosing “Task Manager,” or by right-clicking on the Windows Start menu icon and choosing “Task Manager.” Once you’re in, merely head to the Performance tab and search for your present GPU temperature listed within the GPU part, as proven within the picture above. This solely works you probably have the Windows 10 May 2020 Update or a more moderen model of Windows put in; older variations lack the potential.
It’s a bare-bones function, nevertheless, solely exhibiting the present temperature somewhat than monitoring it over time. It may also be a ache within the butt to maintain Task Manager open whilst you’re gaming or fine-tuning an overclock. While we’re very glad to see the choice lastly included in Windows itself, third-party instruments provide extra sturdy GPU temperature choices. Read on for alternate options in case you want extra oomph.
Other GPU temperature monitoring instruments
Gordon Mah Ung/IDGIf you’re operating an AMD Radeon graphics card with an up-to-date model of the Radeon Settings app, maintaining tabs in your graphics card temperature is straightforward. In 2017, AMD added the Radeon Overlay, which offers handy-dandy instruments to tweak your recreation’s visible settings whenever you summon it. It additionally features a Performance Monitoring software that shows your GPU temperature and different essential info whilst you’re enjoying video games.
To activate the software, summon the Radeon Overlay by urgent Alt + R and choose which efficiency points you’d prefer to hold tabs on within the Overlay’s Performance Monitoring part. Once it’s arrange, you possibly can carry up the Performance Monitoring software alone by urgent Crtl + Shift + 0.
What in case you’re not actively enjoying a recreation? You can nonetheless verify your Radeon GPU’s temperature by wading into the Wattman overclocking software in Radeon Settings. Right-click on the Windows desktop, choose Radeon Settings, after which head to Gaming > Global Settings > Global Wattman. After promising to not blow up your graphics card in case you apply a wild overclock with the software, you’ll achieve entry to Wattman, which tracks GPU temperature and different key statistics in graph kind. Done!
AMD The Radeon Overlay’s efficiency monitoring software tracks GPU temperature by default.
But what in case you aren’t packing Radeon {hardware}? Nvidia’s GeForce graphics comprise a whopping 75 % of all GPUs in gaming PCs, in line with the Steam hardware survey, and Nvidia’s GeForce Experience software program doesn’t provide GPU temperature monitoring. That’s the place third-party instruments come into play.
Many graphics card makers provide specialised software program that allow GPU overclocking. These instruments normally embrace persistent on-screen show (OSD) choices that present your graphics card’s most crucial measurements, just like AMD’s Radeon Overlay. Tons can be found, however we are inclined to suggest MSI’s Afterburner tool for its versatility. This long-popular utility works with each Nvidia GeForce and AMD Radeon graphics playing cards, and offers a number of further options players will welcome.
EVGA EVGA’s Precision X1 enables you to verify your GPU temperature both in-app or by way of an on-screen show whereas gaming.
If you like a extra polished-looking app, we love EVGA’s Precision X1, which was overhauled from the bottom up for the discharge of Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 20-series graphics playing cards. It’s significantly slick, although EVGA’s software program solely works with Nvidia-brand graphics playing cards.
You’ll have to dive into the settings choices of every of these packages to activate and fine-tune their OSD efficiency monitoring instruments, which show very useful certainly whenever you’re making an attempt to dial in an aggressive overclock. As with AMD’s Radeon Wattman, you can too open Afterburner and Precision X1 exterior of video games to verify your graphics card’s temperature exterior of video games.
What in case you’re not a gamer or don’t care about checking your GPU temperature in-game? Then you’ll wish to set up {hardware} monitoring software program that faucets into your system’s temperature sensors. HWInfo is our go-to monitoring program, as a result of it offers a snapshot of just about each facet of your PC (click on the Sensors icon to see temps), however SpeedFan and Open Hardware Monitor are stable choices, too. Open Hardware Monitor additionally helps Linux.
Brad Chacos/IDGHWInfo’s sensor information contains GPU temperatures and much more. A entire lot extra.
If the sparse, information-dense look of these enthusiast-focused apps don’t be just right for you, NZXT’s superb CAM software performs the identical job, even in case you don’t have any NZXT {hardware} in your PC. It provides a clear, easy aesthetic and a useful cell app for distant monitoring, however you’ll have to create an account to make use of CAM.
What’s an excellent GPU temperature?
So now you recognize what instruments might help you monitor your graphics card temperature, however numbers on a display imply nothing with out context. How sizzling ought to your graphics card run?
There’s no straightforward reply; it varies from GPU to GPU. Google is your good friend. Most fashionable chips can run at temperatures within the mid-90 levels Celsius, although, and also you’ll usually see them hit these temperatures in gaming laptops. In desktops, nevertheless, a graphics card operating at 90-plus levels is screaming for assist. In single-GPU programs with first rate airflow, your graphics card temperatures shouldn’t wander above the 80-degree vary. Custom graphics playing cards with a number of followers usually hover within the 60s and 70s, even below full load, and water-cooled GPUs can run even cooler.
Gordon Mah Ung/IDGSome graphics playing cards, like this iteration of the Radeon Vega 64, embrace built-in closed-loop liquid coolers for even cooler temperatures.
If your graphics card was launched within the final 5 years and runs hotter than 90 levels Celsius, otherwise you’ve noticed a steep incline in your GPU temperature over a number of weeks or months of monitoring it, contemplate taking steps to assist cool it down.
How to decrease your graphics card temperature
If your graphics card temperature runs sizzling, there’s not a lot you are able to do to enhance it apart from paying for {hardware} upgrades. But earlier than you make investments extra money into decreasing your GPU temperature, just remember to actually need to. Again: Graphics chips are designed to deal with sizzling temperatures. If your PC isn’t shutting down in the midst of intense gaming or video enhancing classes, you in all probability don’t have a lot to fret about.
First, double-check your system’s wiring to ensure the GPU is getting good airflow out of your followers. Assuming your PC isn’t a rat’s nest of cables, you’ll probably want to think about including extra followers to your case to enhance airflow. Every PC ought to have at the least consumption and outtake followers for optimum efficiency, and that goes doubly so for gaming PCs. You can discover primary case followers for under $10 on Newegg, or swankier fashions with options like RGB lighting and mag-lev suspension for rather more if you wish to get fancy.
Brad Chacos/IDGYour sizzling graphics card may calm down in a extra spacious case.
Small kind issue programs can ship a giant punch today, however the constrained house can ship {hardware} temperatures skyrocketing. If you’ve a very small case, and your graphics card retains overheating and shutting down, contemplate upgrading to a extra spacious mannequin. Even bigger circumstances can strangle airflow in the event that they’re poorly designed, nevertheless. Our information to picking the perfect PC case might help.
Finally, generally the thermal paste between the GPU and the heatsink can turn into dry and lose its effectiveness, mostly in graphics playing cards which are a few years outdated. And generally, graphics playing cards ship with poor thermal paste software, although it’s very uncommon. You may attempt to exchange it if all else fails, although the method is extremely technical, varies card-by-card, and voids the hell out of your guarantee. Our information to making your old graphics card run like new is a number of years outdated, however the primary approach nonetheless applies to at present’s GPUs.
If you actually needed to get adventurous in your quest for decrease temperatures, you might swap out your graphics card’s cooling system for a liquid-cooling possibility whilst you’ve received it disassembled, although it’s overkill for most individuals. We’ve received a information to water-cooling your GPU, and hot-running fanatics with nothing to lose may discover the improve worthwhile. “I saw significant reduction in heat and noise by going with liquid, and none of the throttling I saw on air cooling,” {hardware} editor Gordon Mah Ung wrote after utilizing a Corsair bracket to connect a CPU closed-loop liquid cooler to a reference Radeon R9 290. “For a 20-minute project with a $35 bracket, that’s not bad.”
Just you’ll want to Google a disassembly information on your particular graphics card mannequin earlier than you begin tearing your treasured, dear {hardware} aside willy-nilly. And in case you don’t wish to go to all that trouble, our continuously up to date information to the best graphics cards for PC gaming might help you pick an all-new GPU lickity-split.