Safe temperature for a graphics card?

[Daragon]

Ok, Just fitted my new graphics card with a heat sink after the original fan cooler stopped working. The temperature on my 5900XT reached about 40-50c but my newest card - Geforce 6800GT seems to reaching a core temp of around 60-70, occasionally reaching the low 80s. Now at 120c it will become unsafe. Should I be worried about this and what factors are likely to increase the core temperature?

I had assumed that the temperature would be greater than my older card simply because this 6800GT is alot more powerful.

[Digfox]

No, based on the fact that many people have reported the Nvidia 6800 series of cards on Overclockers forums being around 60-80 degrees with the reference cooler, which I assume yours has?

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious but the core temperature will be influenced by:

1. What you're doing; running 3D intensive games will push the card temperature up, compare to say just using the internet or Windows.
2. The speed (Mhz) you're running the core at; overclocking the card will potentially raise temperatures.
3. The cooling solution; most of the 6800 cards are based on Nvidia's reference cooler (fan and heatsink design). Whilst this is fine, if you're prepared to fit a new fan, although invalidate your warrenty, you will reduce the temps. Both the Artic Cooler and Zalman VGA coolers will reduce the temperatures. A 'guess' of somewhere between 20-30 degrees. Also using Artic Silver 5 as your thermal grease will reduce the temp by a few degrees more.

Try here for more:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17301623

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Other_Coolers_57.html

[Zanza]

Im running a 6600 and it reaches around 67 degrees when just web browsing, so I guess it goes beyond that when Im actualy playing games, probably as far as 80. I wouldn't worry too much, I guess it also depends on the temperature of your case aswell, if your case temperature is hot its going to affect the graphics card aswell.