After I replaced the thermal compound with MX-2, I'm getting idle temps of ~42C with the GPU NOT going into any powersaving mode at all (Stays at the overclock of 780MHz on core, 1000MHz on memory, and 1560MHz on shader). Just goes to show how effective stock thermal compounds are especially when it comes to reference chips. After replacing the compound, I realized I don't need a new GPU cooler .
My card idles at about 35 but load can be anything from 70 (Mirror's Edge) to 90+ (Crysis). However I don't allow the fan to spin as high as it wants because it makes an absolute racket. I set mine to overclock when a game starts and underclock when it stops - for windows use I clock it back to 500mhz.
That might be an issue with your case ventilation. When running Furmark on my rig, the temperatures never go above 66C. The fan does spin up a little (Just +5% from minimum).
