Fan curve
A fan curve maps component temperature to fan speed, controlling the trade-off between noise and cooling capacity across the load range.
Also known as fan profile, fan speed curve
Not measurable from a browser
A browser cannot read temperatures, power draw, fan speed, VRAM capacity, clock frequency or native FLOPS. For a direct reading use a native monitor such as HWiNFO64, GPU-Z or lm-sensors. SystemCheck contributes the other half: whether the condition is costing you throughput, measured as decay and consistency.
The curve is a set of temperature-to-RPM points, usually with hysteresis so the fan does not oscillate around a threshold. Stock curves are tuned conservatively for quiet operation, which often means fans stay slow until temperatures are already high: good for acoustics, bad for sustained performance.
The most valuable change is usually not a higher maximum but a steeper mid-range: ramp earlier so heat never accumulates, rather than reacting after the chip is already near its limit. Adding a few seconds of response delay also stops the fan surging on brief background spikes, which is the main source of perceived fan noise annoyance.
SystemCheck cannot read fan RPM or set a curve. No browser can access fan controllers. Use your motherboard firmware, Fan Control, or your vendor's utility. SystemCheck is useful as the verification step: change the curve, re-run the CPU stage under the same ambient conditions, and see whether decay actually improved. Many curve changes cost noise and buy nothing measurable.
Related terms