Not sure that I understand you. My temps are very good, 5c higher than room temps @40% fan speed. My spot cool is very gently blowing near the vrm area, and the gpu cooler pushes air in the same direction (out of my case). I don't see how this will heat up my card, as i have a case fan to the right of gpu sucking air in, spot cool pushing air onto vrm (same direction), and gpu pushing air (same direction) out of my case. This in fact makes it cooler? I think so.
The fan is in the middle of the card so hot air is pushed out both ends of the card. Blowing air in the opposite direction of the hot exhaust will trap the hot air under the shroud, and further warm the VRMs.
Voltage and clock speed is low on idle so it doesnt matter, both of mine idle at around 32-35c too. I'm talking about when the cards are under load and stressed. Having a fan blowing on the back exhaust will trap hot air and warm the VRMs right up.
Is there a tool which monitor's vrm temps? I'm listening to your input m8, and would like to stress that my spot cool is on low setting, and merely caress's my vrm area.
No VRM monitoring on Fermi unfortunately, I put my hand near the back of the card whilst stressing them fully and its mighty hot with the heat coming off the VRMS let me tell ya! You need a fan sucking the heat away rather than blowing I think.
Stress your card with and without the spot cool, and when fully stressed use your hand near the back of the card to test which is best for your system.
Oh life is a bitch. I ordered my Sonic Platinum Version. Tomorrow they'll send one to me. So the main question is: should I ask them to send me different one - Gainward or anything far from Palit? I read this whole thread, and I'm confused. To clarify few things: We all know now, that there is new BIOS for SONIC PLATINUM VER. After flashing the card, people says that GPU is back in business - in terms of noise, heat level, performance? Does it really? IF the only reason for PALIT's **** up is not giving proper sample to the reviewers, I can live with that. OF course if performance is untouched and my card is heat safe.
Hilbert has updated the heat and noise levels of the Palit card, check out the front page news for more info. http://www.guru3d.com/news/updated-palit-gtx-460-sonic-platinum-results/
This is so nice of you guys. Spending all that time just so we, end users can have a better judge on things. I WILL have this card. So as GURU3D said. Ans believe me, I was 1 mm of calling the store.
I clicked on the 'add comment' button and it tells me I need to log in. Logged in, tried again and its logged me out again. I'll post here instead. Nice addendum but I really do want to see how hot the VRMs get. The temps cant be read according to the article, any reason they werent measured externally?
VRM area still looks pretty hot compared to other cards. Been looking at some nice copper heatsinks from Newegg for about 20$. Take a look at the bottom picture from the link. They were taken with a reference board that also comes without heatsinks according to Nvidia. http://www.hardware.fr/articles/747-22/maj-dossier-cartes-graphiques-degagement-thermique.html ps I also tried adding a comment on a story earlier today and I could log in and write a comment, however once I submitted it, it never appeared.
It's not the exact same card, they are showing the default Geforce edition. This one. http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gtx-460-us.html It is a similar build though, short PCB, 2 heatpipes, 1GB, but no OC.
I swapped my Palit Sonic (non Plat) for Gigabyte GTX460 1GB OC (the one with dual fans). I paid the same amount, the card is super-silent, the VRMs have heatsink, the temperature stays very low under load and the fanspeed does not even rise much then! It's cheaper than Sonic Platinum and it overclocks good too. Basically fantastic card - anyone who has means to exchange his card should consider gigabyte.
Oh yeah, got mine just seconds ago (without VRM cooling of course). Pity is, I need to go with my girl for a 3 day trip. Damn, I so wanted to stress my new baby ;-) Well, I'll stress it anyway ;-) - both.
I've updated the BIOS on my Palit GTX460 768MB (non-Platinum, non-Sonic version). Worked like a charm. Downloaded BIOS from here: http://www.palit.biz/main/faq_show.php?pc_cate=vga&id=161 Since my case is very well ventilated, fan rarely goes above 50-55%. Only when there is prolonged use with GPU-heavy game/app. It still is much more quiet than with original BIOS - now I can play without my headphones set to max