8800 GT Temp

How much time is elapsing between when you close or minimize the game and when you check the temps?

My card drops 8c almost instantly upon exiting.

If you are pretty sure on those temps they are very decent. My 8800gtx ( not that much hotter than a GT) breaks 80c when its not water cooled.

Just the time it takes to close and start PCWizard. When do I need to start worring about temps?

I've been trying to avoid water cooling.

The lowest ive ever seen a 8800 based core burn out is mid 90's.

This doesnt mean im comfortable with mid 90's. I like to keep mine below 80 ( which is why i water cool ) even though mid to upper 80's is completely safe.

63 isn't your real temp.

The way to check temperatures is to log them using ntune or rivatuner (rivatuner is much better imo).

Go to the first "customize" button and hit hardware monitering. It will produce a graph of temperatures while you play your games, and then you can check it out later and see exactly how hot it got.

Just got an 8800 GT OC and after a few minutes of HL2:E2 it's hitting 63C. Is that high?graffspree

you should return it

and next time you buy a video card, don't just buy it because it's written "8800 gt" on it
LOOK AT THE CARD
if the card only has a fan (big or small) in the middle DO NOT BUY !!!
if the fan has a cooling system that covers all the card BUY IT

(by cooling system, you might not know what it is exactly, but to you, it will just look like a big plastik "box" added on the card that really covers almost all the card, not just the middle like a single fan does)