I am really more curious than anything. I own a Geforce 7600GS, which is passively cooled (no fan on the card itself). It has a heatsink that is pretty much the size of the entire card. Everything works fine, but last summer I noticed after running Elder Scrolls: Oblivion for a few hours straight, the Temperature level in the Nvidia control panel was up to about 79 degrees celsius. I think it normally idles around the 60 degree celsius range. How hot is too hot for a graphics card? How hot does your graphics card(s) run? (I do have an 80mm fan inside the case blowing air across the heatsink, and out the back of the case, so it helps, but the temperatures above are with that fan in the case on. I was thinking about disconnecting it because of the extra noise, but after noticing the temperatures, I think I had better not).

That depends on the specific process used for the card, but typically you'll want to worry at 100 to 120 degrees celsius. So you weren't even close!

Most NVIDIA drivers contain overheating protection, such that they will shut down the chip before it becomes too hot. For my 7800GT, that limit is at 115 degrees centigrade. You can check yours in the NVIDIA control panel 3D settings.

80º is fine for a GeForce 6 series...

Start worrying if your computer blue-screens though.

Okay, right now the threshold is set at 125 degrees. I can't seem to be able to change it though (the little text box thingy won't let me make any changes).

That probably means you're fine!

That's good to know. Many thanks.