Running at a higher voltage generates more heat even if the clock and memory speed remain the same. Sometimes the amount of voltage your card uses is set higher than it needs to be to allow your card to function correctly. If the additional fan noise is too much to handle, there is one more solution to your thermal throttling woes: undervolting. Noise levels will increase, perhaps significantly, but your GPU will be able dissipate heat much faster and maintain performance. With reference cards, this balance often leans more towards noise suppression and can lead to thermal throttling. From the factory, the fan speeds are optimized to strike a balance between noise and performance. By setting the fan curve manually, you can set the fan speed for a given temperature to something a bit more aggressive. With utilities like MSI's Afterburner or EVGA's PrecisionX, a custom fan curve can be configured. If changing or adding hardware is not an option, you can still reduce temperatures using freely available tools. (which can lead to lower temperatures and less noise) Typical reference design cards: stylish but single fan It should be noted that your case needs to provide enough airflow to handle the hot air pumped out by these types of graphics cards as their coolers do not directly remove the heat from the case. The additional fans-sometimes as many as three-provide enough airflow to significantly reduce or even eliminate throttling. When choosing a graphics card, it's often ideal to pick one with a multi-fan cooling solution.

This design is efficient but the single fan holds back performance. Cool air is drawn through the rear of the graphics card and exhausted out of the end with the connectors. Reference designs-which are blower-type fans-typically use a single fan to keep the card cool. The brand of graphics card you choose may come down to personal preference, but the cooling solution it uses is an important decision. It also lowers air temperature inside of your case keeping other components, such as your CPU and memory, much cooler. Being able to mount additional fans in your case is especially beneficial if your GPU manufacturer has used a custom cooling solution that dissipates heat into your case instead of directly removing it, like with reference designs.Īdding additional fans to the top of your case ensures that heat generated by your GPU is removed from the case efficiently. Choosing a larger, well laid out case can provide more fan mounts and options to optimize airflow. Case selection, cooling solution, and airflow are the three main factors to take into consideration.Ī small case with no open space traps heat and inhibits airflow, which makes it harder to keep your GPU cool.

There are a variety of scenarios that determine the impact thermal throttling has on your system. In order to maintain performance, you need to control heat, but not all graphics cards experience throttling to the same degree, or even at all. And, while thermal throttling itself doesn't cause any damage, the underlying cause of throttling, heat, can cause damage and shorten the lifespan of your video card. Unmanaged, thermal throttling can have a big impact on performance. All modern GPUs have this feature in place to protect the electronic components from damage. The core and memory frequencies begin to drop-along with your framerates-until temperatures drop to a safe operating range. When your cooling solution can no longer dissipate heat fast enough to keep temperatures within a safe range, your graphics card starts to dump performance to shed heat. When your GPU takes on a heavy workload, such as gaming, it generates a load of heat.

But when these solutions aren't working, your GPU has one more way to beat the heat: thermal throttling. When it comes to graphics cards there are many ways to manage heat, from passive cooling, to fans and even water. Heat is also prevalent in electronics where it can be more difficult to manage and can be detrimental to their continued operation. It's generated when you start a car's engine, go for a brisk walk or anything else that generates friction.

Throttled meaning in computer