alt Hacker NewsThis could be total nonsense and I am definitely out on a limb here, but I remember from my amateur crypto mining days (almost 15 years ago wow) that keeping everything relatively consistent is better for the longevity of your hardware (GPU/CPU mainly). Some people obsessed over getting temps as low as possible but that’s not very productive, diminishing returns and all of that. There is just generally a healthy temperature to keep things operating at most of the time, coupled with how hard you push the component in question (while not putting too much strain on your fans either). Basically: swinging/fluctuating is not good, consistency is good.
Again though I could be totally off. I just remember that being spread around as “conventional wisdom.”
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You're speaking the truth, as this is not nonsense - it is correct. At the micro level, thermal expansion/contracting is occurring across the variety of the circuit board materials and components. Hot is fine (not too hot), but it is the consistency that makes for longetivity.
I limit power consumption profiles and clock speeds unless higher power is required, and combine that with an oversized cooling system - keeps regular temps consistent.
> Basically: swinging/fluctuating is not good, consistency is good.
Yeah, I'd understand not wanting to go between 0C and 90C over and over. But my GPU idles at around 35C, maxes out at 85C or something, and going back and fourth will surely be preferable than staying with a single temperature but voltage clock the card. Especially considering performance.
But again, I'm using my card for ML, number-crunching, simulations and VFX, you might be right that the use case of cryptocurrency mining prefers a different thermal profile.