Here's some info for you guys that have that shiny new RTX 30x0 card .... this is mostly for the RTX 3080 / 90 cards.
The test below was not carried out by me, but I have managed to confirm the findings with my Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity I have.
The card used in this test -- MSI RTX 3090 Gaming (you can find the video source of this test at the end of this post).
Picture 1 -- Two heat sensors are placed on the memory chips that are on the back of the card.
Picture 2 -- This shows the card running in idle ..... nothing running, notice the temperature 33C
Picture 3 -- This shows the card mining Dagger / Ethash, the monitor on the left shows the card mining, the temperature on the memory chips climb to over 76C, this is what causes the cards to throttle down, the 3080 cards also suffer with this issue with the memory chips on the other side of the card (heat sink / fan side).
In order to get the most out of these cards, the memory chips and the VRM's need to be cooled down as much as possible.
Make sure you have plenty of air flow around the card(s) and give them space to breath.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fdm2301files.storage.live.com%2Fy4mcw57Ezhn7X_jZgD4kc5YY91xjJxEaCEFltzP9i47J5ycu1ob94UNIPdfGSfIRr9VDN1ImrFgOK30hKcHqJl4i9TkmyVoj4myO3-Y60ZFWx83gQ71Fu-pCYTLcpj4-XKsHkeSTnXyXvkFvnBuGgw4fF1k7Texd4n9fpKo8ipFl-A6v3lWyZLnXTifnQGjYV5LOcEEsrVDj6Zj7aT641V2HA%2Funknown-1.png%3Fpsid%3D1%26width%3D489%26height%3D859&t=663&c=0f5hBfdrnjrf1A)
This is my RTX3090 ..... with extra cooling (fan blowing cold air on the back plate).
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.discordapp.com%2Fattachments%2F573542115477553173%2F787178165796995072%2Funknown.png&t=663&c=7w8eDP1y6h0A9g)
Below is a link to an RTX 3080 video showing where the card gets hot, same applies for the RTX 3090.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAsQ0o6BsEkSource for the pictures used above from the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82sf5Lk2lqA