with the stock plate on mine the temperatures were the exact same as with the t-rad. thats what makes me believe something is not working correctly or i guess its just a fluke. but because the t-rad provides airflow across the entire card and the stock plate is a heat spreader i think it should work but its not gonna give you any crazy good temperatures. but that doesn't matter to me because right now i really can't play any games or do anything that takes a high gpu load.