Been playing with this card. As I have no interest in 3d I was wondering if it might be a good idea to reduce the clock speeds - to produce less heat ? The core can go down to 114Mhz, the memory to 100Mhz and the shader to 229Mhz. The factory settings are 459, 400, and 918. when I tell the software to optimize it recommends 721, 458 and 1745. As an initial test I have lowered the speeds to 305,300, and 759 and the card is now cooler at 48c . any thoughts ?
Definitely sounds like a good idea if you want to save on power. It might also help to extend the life of the card as well.
FWIW, my 8500GT is an OC'd edition and it idles at 50C in an Antec P182 case. When it was in my old (smaller) e-machines computer, it idled at 56. All settings are default.