GPU Temps While Running Rift

[Zykerion]

I'm not entirely sure if this is where something like this goes, but I'm more than happy for it to get moved to its proper place if it's not.

In essence, I was just wondering if I could get some feedback on if my GPU is running hotter than it should under load while running this game. Generally everything else I've run so far on this rig, which is brand new, I might add, doesn't seem to stress the card out as much as Rift apparently does.

I had GPU-Z running in the background while I had Rift up in fullscreen, 1920x1080 and was in-game for about an hour or so. I quit the game, and the temperature reading was 78C. I was just wondering if this is healthy at all for this particular card, which is an AMD Radeon 7950 3GB, running with a stock cooler on it. I should note that the fan was operating at about 52% capacity when I took the reading, and I'm not sure if this has any bearing at all, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible.

The rig is in essence brand new, only had it about a month, and there is little to no dust in the case, which is a nice big NZXT Switch 810, tons of fans everywhere, along with filters over the intake fans.

So is that temp unhealthy for my card? Or am I just fretting over nothing? Hate to burn it out so soon after only a month.

[Ashrai]

Check the forums over the last year or so- Rift and ATI don't play well together. Many others report high
card temps with Rift that they don't see with anything else.

I have the 6850 and it will hit high 70's under load. I don't have any special cooling either. I find if I minimize
every so often the temps will drop back down quickly. I don't have a side case fan either, but you said you have quite a few fans. I'd be a *little* concerned over those temps with the fan cooling you have in place.

Perhaps others with newer cards can give some input. But overall you will see issues with ATI that you don't hear as much about with NVIDIA cards.

[aux]

I wouldn't worry until the card goes over 90C. Most modern cards go up to around 80C when under load.

[Zykerion]

Check the forums over the last year or so- Rift and ATI don't play well together. Many others report high
card temps with Rift that they don't see with anything else.

I have the 6850 and it will hit high 70's under load. I don't have any special cooling either. I find if I minimize
every so often the temps will drop back down quickly. I don't have a side case fan either, but you said you have quite a few fans. I'd be a *little* concerned over those temps with the fan cooling you have in place.

Perhaps others with newer cards can give some input. But overall you will see issues with ATI that you don't hear as much about with NVIDIA cards.

I don't have a side case fan either. Essentially my fan setup is 2 really big intakes in the front of the case, behind a mounted filter, 2 more smaller fans behind those to redirect the air around the case, a bottom mounted intake fan -again with filters over them, same with the power supply and its fan- , the GPU stock cooler and exhaust for itself, and the water block system for my CPU.

As for nVidia vs. ATI, this is my first Radeon card. I have to say that I've encountered a few more problems with this than any nVidia I've used in the past. Problem is I can't just replace the card with an nVidia because then my free parts warranty from the company that built it goes out the window.

[Ashrai]

Mine is consistenly in the high 70's, sometimes it will hit 80. I've never seen it break that, the only time I experienced a real overheat/lockup was a couple weeks ago when 50 of us Defiants invaded Sanctum. After a solid 30 minutes of fighting in that environment, my system freaked out. Other than that, it runs high 70s without any adverse effects. I have fan control set to automatic as well. I also live in the Southwest where the ambient room temp reaches mid 80s (F not C! )very easily. I'd say your fine.

[Zykerion]

Mine is consistenly in the high 70's, sometimes it will hit 80. I've never seen it break that, the only time I experienced a real overheat/lockup was a couple weeks ago when 50 of us Defiants invaded Sanctum. After a solid 30 minutes of fighting in that environment, my system freaked out. Other than that, it runs high 70s without any adverse effects. I have fan control set to automatic as well. I also live in the Southwest where the ambient room temp reaches mid 80s (F not C! )very easily. I'd say your fine.

I tend to go a little overboard worrying about stuff like this. Just one of my many faults. XD Been looking into getting maybe a little slot cooler, but I don't know if that would help or hinder anything, as the cooler would be wedged between my network card and the graphics card, sort of.

[Laeris]

In short, the hotter the rig the shorter the lifespan of your components. The GPU acts like a furnace inside your case. If you don't have adequate ventilation, it'll heat up your mobo, network cards, sound cards, etc etc.

Also, Rift is a highly advanced game and puts a lot more strain on your components. The reason why the GPU heats up is because most newer GPUs have a performance throttle. Games that don't require the full power of the GPU run at a lower power setting unless you manually edit the driver file to never throttle... which would just end up making it run at full power usage (which in turn shortens the life of your power supply) and high temp 100% of the time.

[Zykerion]

In short, the hotter the rig the shorter the lifespan of your components. The GPU acts like a furnace inside your case. If you don't have adequate ventilation, it'll heat up your mobo, network cards, sound cards, etc etc.

Also, Rift is a highly advanced game and puts a lot more strain on your components. The reason why the GPU heats up is because most newer GPUs have a performance throttle. Games that don't require the full power of the GPU run at a lower power setting unless you manually edit the driver file to never throttle... which would just end up making it run at full power usage (which in turn shortens the life of your power supply) and high temp 100% of the time.

Not to sound rude but...did you even read the post? I'm well aware of the problem heat causes for computer components. This is why I'm asking if my card is running hotter than it should be.

[dorfadin]

I have a powercolour pcs 7950, never goes over 60c, but I play with v-sync always on, don't need higher than 60 fps in any game I play but regarding max temps, yea these are more than fine upto 100c, but I bet the fans are sooo loud at that temp lol

[Zykerion]

I have a powercolour pcs 7950, never goes over 60c, but I play with v-sync always on, don't need higher than 60 fps in any game I play but regarding max temps, yea these are more than fine upto 100c, but I bet the fans are sooo loud at that temp lol

Mine's a PowerColor 7950 too. Wonder if I've got some dead air spots or something in my case if yours isn't hitting above 60C while running Rift. Though I do have one of the internal fans pointed straight at the video card, so I dunno.

[Violacea]

Don't know if temps are comparable to Nvidia cards but I see them in the same temp charts typically, although I couldn'd find max spec temps for ati cards on their site when I checked. I know many of the Nvidia cards list max temps around 97 - 103c or so. I know my 8800 literally goes to 95 - 100c. Don't know how it has lived so long but it has worked for 4+ years solidly. My GF 570 has better cooling on it and with fans ~80 - 90% in Rift it stays 67 - 74c depending on room temp. If I leave fans at default around 38 - 44% it will go up to 84 - 86c really quickly.

Wouldn't be surprised if ATI cards handle similar temps. Rift puts my gpu under 97 - 99% load pretty much. Those are my temps with it overclocked as well. Some recent game titles put all my cpu's to 100% and give me temps up around 55 - 57c and leave the gpu at an easy 50 - 60c. And Then stuff like Rift puts my gpu to ~70c put doesn't tax the cpu extra hard and leaves the temps around 49 - 53. Anywho GPU temps tbh should be fine as long as you aren't pushing high 80's and 90's frequently for long periods of time.

You say you got 78c @ 53% fan speeds. See if you can use a program/already have one that can adjust it manually and just put it up to 70 - 90% fan speed for stuff like Rift. Bumping the fan made a 14c difference for me. Difference of 86c in 3m and 70c after 2 hours. So I would look into the fan speed if you want to feel safer.

[Zykerion]

So I just did another little check for it. Ran the game for about oh 2 hours or so, and the temperature seemed to go up and down depending on where I was and what I was doing. Though this evening it never got beyond 75C I think, and my room's been cooler as well, so I'm thinking that might have been the case.

As for fan speeds and load, at one point it managed about 90% load and the fans got up to about 85% I think, so I think everything's being sorta normal-ish and I'm just really weirding out about the whole thing.

[Violacea]

GPU's typically run way hotter than CPU's. If you are used to one and not aware of the other it can seem absurdly high. A scary temp for a CPU can be just another days work for a GPU.

If you want more insight, look up tech forums and overclock forums about your card. Not saying you want to overclock your card, but those people often have good knowledge of cards safe voltage, temp etc ranges. You'd probably be able to find in some O/C'ing threads for your video card, what sort of temperatures are too high, what is good for 24/7 use and the such.

[RohanSA]

I run the AMD 6870 with standard cooler, temps never go any higher than 56 C no matter how long I play...and my card is overclocked with higher voltages than stock. Get yourself Afterburner software and setup a manual fan profile. My card does get a bit noisy but I play with Roccat Kave headphones so it does not bother me at all.

[Phaelen]

I tend to go a little overboard worrying about stuff like this. Just one of my many faults. XD Been looking into getting maybe a little slot cooler, but I don't know if that would help or hinder anything, as the cooler would be wedged between my network card and the graphics card, sort of.

I'd check your cooling setup as well. Alot of people who tend to go crazy with fans forget about air flow. You can also potentially fashion an duct out of cardboard to direct air from your sidefan to the gpu.

Also, maybe the heatsink on the gfx card isn't making good contact with gpu. Since you have a new setup I'd pursue exchanging the card to potentially eliminate that as an issue.