6970 idle temp 55-60c?

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Jared701

[H]ard|Gawd
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May 9, 2002
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I've read reviews which claim that the 6970 should idle around 41c
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/12/14/amd_radeon_hd_6970_6950_video_card_review/8
For some reason the card I got idles closer to 60. This worries me that the card will overheat when gaming and is running way too hot. I haven't overclocked the card at all and should have good airflow through my case. There are 3 80mm fans in front pulling air in, 2 in back and a 120mm on top of the case blowing air out. The room the computer is located in is under 73F.
 
Play games, log your temperatures, keep an ear on the noise (see if it bothers you).
Report back with results.

If the temps are safe and the noise doesn't bother you, then you're fine.
 
When running more than one monitor your GPU has to run at higher clocks on core and memory. This is why you are getting higher idle temperatures. If you are worried about this you can setup profiles in CCC for 1, 2 and 3 monitors.

I have 1 setup for normal web browsing etc, this keeps the card cool during normal uses (around 39c as I type this). If I need to use 2 or 3 monitors for productivity or gaming then I simply press the corresponding keys to enable whatever profile I need.
 
Checked with 2 of the monitors disabled and the card is running around 41 idle. Thanks for helping me figure out what was causing that. Seems that my card is running fine.
 
Mine idles at 59-60C. Totally normal. It'd probably drop to like 40C if I opened my window but I don't want to freeze.

I hit like 93C with repeated Furmark runs, too. Also normal. I've been gaming for a month on it, no slowdowns, no artifacting, no problems at all.

These chips run warm, it's what they're designed to do. Your cooling setup is fine.
 
Jalidi said:
Mine idles at 59-60C. Totally normal. It'd probably drop to like 40C if I opened my window but I don't want to freeze.

I hit like 93C with repeated Furmark runs, too. Also normal. I've been gaming for a month on it, no slowdowns, no artifacting, no problems at all.

These chips run warm, it's what they're designed to do. Your cooling setup is fine.
Click to expand...

Mine too.
I caught myself second guessing this when I noticed someone talk about how these cards are too hot and AMD made some mistake releasing these too early. So I have been messing around with the airflow in my case to try to maximize cold air coming from the front-bottom amd side-panel and warm air escaping from the top-back. I've seen a few degrees here and there but some of the people here make me nervous sometimes.
I haven't bought a nice card in a long time. I want to make this last a good 2-3 years.
 
Too hot is total BS. I ran my X1900X fanless for two years at 95C load, never any issues. It's still in use today in a different system, and still fanless. Radeons simply don't suffer from running too hot like geforces too, it just doesn't affect them. Whatever you can say about Radeon drivers and the coolers themselves, the actual cards are built to last. Personally I find the AMD fan control a bit over-zealous, I force the fan speed down to 20% at desktop so it's quieter. Why would the cards idling at 60C be an issue if them loading at 80C is not an issue? Baffles me that people even check idle temps.
 
I'll pipe in here.
I have a Sapphire 6970 myself, and set up Trixx to run fan speeds near 40% for idle. It's a bit loud, but I'm not crazy from it yet. It idles around 46-48C with 38-42% fan. I'm running dual 23" 1920x1080 monitors.

I set up a profile in Trixx to force the card to idle at 350 Mhz core, 1000 Mhz RAM. It doesn't show properly in anything other than GPU-Z, but it seems to prevent any heat creep. My room is typically 23C, and I have 3x92mm intake fans blowing directly across the card, so no issue with cold air reaching it exists.

With a single monitor, on the same fan curve, the card will idle around 35C with about 30% fan (which is pretty quiet). Even if I set up the displays as a giant one, the card will not idle at the single monitor speeds. Trying to force those ultra low speeds will result in the display freezing.

I'll be trying out the new Afterburner today to see if the voltage tweaking will aid in keeping it cool, because dual monitors prevents low voltage from really kicking in. What is funny, however, is that with the 350/1000 profile loaded, I tried playing FEAR, on full settings, and had 50-52 FPS pretty consistently. At least these cards have power to play, even at a low state. Sadly, they do run pretty dang warm. I can definitely see water cooling for them.
 
Not really, I don't think I've seen more than 80C out of either of mine yet (15C to spare), running at a modest 36% fan speed, and powertune is on +20%. They're pretty good coolers. I see watercooling totally unnecessary, they wouldn't be much quieter, just cooler, which isn't required unless you're going to run a crazy overclock.
 
samuelmorris said:
Not really, I don't think I've seen more than 80C out of either of mine yet (15C to spare), running at a modest 36% fan speed, and powertune is on +20%. They're pretty good coolers. I see watercooling totally unnecessary, they wouldn't be much quieter, just cooler, which isn't required unless you're going to run a crazy overclock.
Click to expand...

You have the same results that I do, do you have the Gigabyte version? I heard that some XFX version are loud and tends to run warmer, can't figure out why since all are based on the same cooler reference, I think that all even shares the same PCB, just different stickers.
 
evolucion8 said:
You have the same results that I do, do you have the Gigabyte version? I heard that some XFX version are loud and tends to run warmer, can't figure out why since all are based on the same cooler reference, I think that all even shares the same PCB, just different stickers.
Click to expand...

Seems like my XFX might be one of those warmer ones. I was going over 90c in furmark and the card was getting loud as hell. Rather annoying.
I got a 120mm fan blowing on it from the bottom, a 120mm blowing straight on its side, and an 80mm blowing over the top.
I took off the heatsink and reapplied thermal paste too.
Meh, I still love this card. :)
 
Oddly enough, one of my cards runs roughly 10-15 degrees cooler than the other, at all times. When I put new stuff in, I swapped their slots and it's the same. They aren't sandwiched. It's a 1/3 slot formation, and I imagine it's the same card that is that hot.
 
I have 2 "unlocked only" 6950 Sapphires in xfire and I tried to set a custom fan profile in TRIXX but it only works for my top card.

The bottom card is still in auto mode controlled by CCC. The top card now has the "enable manual control" checked from the setting TRIXX profile.

Is this a known issue with TRIXX or is there something I need to change to get the custom profile to work with both cards??
 
Mystique said:
Oddly enough, one of my cards runs roughly 10-15 degrees cooler than the other, at all times. When I put new stuff in, I swapped their slots and it's the same. They aren't sandwiched. It's a 1/3 slot formation, and I imagine it's the same card that is that hot.
Click to expand...

It's probably the top card which has the monitor/monitors plugged into....ultra low power state, can cause the second (bottom) card to idle down into ULPS (ie. pretty much turn off)

also,

I did a search and found the thread on setting "enableulps" to 0 in the registry and got Trixx working finally....
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=133783&highlight=trixx&page=2

1. open start/orb menu and enter "regedit" in the search box and press enter
2. if prompted, click "yes" to open the registry editor
3. when the registry editor opens, select/highlight "Computer" at the top of the left column and then when it is selected/highlighted, click "Edit" in the top menu and then click "Find" - or just press "Ctrl + f"
4. When the "Find" window opens, make sure all three "look at" options are selected, and in the "Find what:" box, enter:
enableulps
5. click the "Find Next" button to search the registry
6. If it is found, change the value from 1 to 0 to disable ULPS, then click "Find Next" again to continue searching the registry
7. Repeat the last step until no more matches are found in the registry, then close the registry editor and reboot your PC
8. Done - open GPU-Z and notice that ULPS will no longer be active


"Basically ULPS, ultra low power state, can cause the second card to idle down into ULPS (ie. pretty much turn off) and that then causes problems when in crossfire configuration when windows tries to use that second card - which then ends with a BSOD/crash.

Disabling ULPS will ensure both cards are enabled and running as they should when in crossfire configuration.

I'm now running at 880/1325. Top card got to 67 degrees max, bottom card got up to 74 degrees max after an hour of gaming with fans on the default auto setting.
So, I'm finally getting more usage out of the bottom card with "enableulps" disabled.
 
ICDP said:
When running more than one monitor your GPU has to run at higher clocks on core and memory. This is why you are getting higher idle temperatures. If you are worried about this you can setup profiles in CCC for 1, 2 and 3 monitors.
I have 1 setup for normal web browsing etc, this keeps the card cool during normal uses (around 39c as I type this). If I need to use 2 or 3 monitors for productivity or gaming then I simply press the corresponding keys to enable whatever profile I need.
Click to expand...


I just setup another profile for 1 monitor today also.
It now down clocks to 250 core 150 memory while using one monitor.
Otherwise it runs at 500 core 1375 memory, when idle on 2 or 3 monitors.

I hope AMD can fix this with a driver release to save power.
 
Nuby1Canuby said:
I just setup another profile for 1 monitor today also.
It now down clocks to 250 core 150 memory while using one monitor.
Otherwise it runs at 500 core 1375 memory, when idle on 2 or 3 monitors.

I hope AMD can fix this with a driver release to save power.
Click to expand...

no, AMD does this reasons... otherwise you will have screen flickering...
 
Them running at 500mhz IS the fix. As shansoft says, at 250mhz you get a flickering screen.
500mhz is hardly a cause for concern on 6970s though, it might not be as quiet, but you can still force the fan speed down pretty low without huge temperatures, and power consumption isn't that greatly increased (goes up from about 20W per card to about 50W per card). Remember even with a single monitor the HD4800s used more than 60W at idle.


evolucion8 said:
You have the same results that I do, do you have the Gigabyte version? I heard that some XFX version are loud and tends to run warmer, can't figure out why since all are based on the same cooler reference, I think that all even shares the same PCB, just different stickers.
Click to expand...
Nope, XFX.
 
The higher GPU core speeds on a multi monitor setup occurs on both vendors, AMD and nVidia. There's no way to fix it for now. My old HD 4870 consumed nearly 90W at idle, with my HD 4870 1GB CF setup, it was like 180W at idle and nearly 320W at full load, damn, that's a lot more than a single HD 5870/HD6970 consumes at either idle or full load.
 
Gee, who'd have thought that two high end cards in crossfire would use more power than only one card?
 
What is the benefit of turning off ULPS? I'm pretty sure my crossfire is working fine.
 
triple screen user here, and my card idles at 500/1375. I have a workstation profile I use, which locks the card at 25% fan speed. This keeps it around 65c idle, upwards of 70c on a hot day. I have a case fan I can turn on that vents air directly on the card...usually shaves 5c off those temps, but when I want quiet...temps don't concern me much.

If I leave the fan on auto, then it idles around 57c.

Not the smoothest fan in the world. My 4870's were overall louder, but the quality of the noise was better. I honestly think this thing wore in, because I don't remember it have a rough ball bearing noise at low speeds...but it does now. Going to replace the HSF all together once someone releases one that's a direct fit.
 
Mystique said:
What is the benefit of turning off ULPS? I'm pretty sure my crossfire is working fine.
Click to expand...

You can't adjust the fan speed of the second card when ULPS is enabled, as it does not allow catalyst access to the fan/temp readings.
 
shansoft said:
no, AMD does this reasons... otherwise you will have screen flickering...
Click to expand...

I can understand if you need to run the core at 500 to prevent screen flickering on more then one monitor. Why do they have to run the memory at full speed? Especially since they down clock it to 150 on a single monitor. It's ridiculous to run it at full speed all the time.
 
Nuby1Canuby said:
I can understand if you need to run the core at 500 to prevent screen flickering on more then one monitor. Why do they have to run the memory at full speed? Especially since they down clock it to 150 on a single monitor. It's ridiculous to run it at full speed all the time.
Click to expand...

The memory is not putting out that much heat at full clocks. Certainly nothing compared to the gpu and power management. The vid ram only barely needs active cooling in a well ventilated case at full stock speeds when using aftermarket cooling.
 
samuelmorris said:
You can't adjust the fan speed of the second card when ULPS is enabled, as it does not allow catalyst access to the fan/temp readings.
Click to expand...

I'm using TRIXX to overclock and ULPS has to be disabled for TRIXX to work.
Like you pointed out it does not allow access to the second cards fan control.

I do have a nice fan profile for the primary or top card which gets the hottest.
 
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Dunno what you guys think but for me to have card running at 45c @ 250core/150 memory is defo high temp, no matter how you look at.
 
Nice Lazarus. It is high. Figuring out why, and/or how to bring them down, was what the thread was about.
 
There was also users which where asking if that temps are normal, (and some confirmed it is) so no, this thread was not made only to ask how get the temps down, not for everyone! depends what info your looking for from it.
 
psyside said:
Dunno what you guys think but for me to have card running at 45c @ 250core/150 memory is defo high temp, no matter how you look at.
Click to expand...

Depends on how many pixels you're pushing.

@5300x1050, with the stock air cooler my idle temp was ~50-55C, and 70C+ in load in 23C ambients. Only with a waterblock did my GPU idle and load temps settle down sub 40C and sub 60C respectively.
 
ICDP said:
When running more than one monitor your GPU has to run at higher clocks on core and memory. This is why you are getting higher idle temperatures. If you are worried about this you can setup profiles in CCC for 1, 2 and 3 monitors.

I have 1 setup for normal web browsing etc, this keeps the card cool during normal uses (around 39c as I type this). If I need to use 2 or 3 monitors for productivity or gaming then I simply press the corresponding keys to enable whatever profile I need.
Click to expand...

QFT - This is exactly why. Alot of people will tell you having extra monitors has nothing to do with it but it does. The reason it has higher clocks is because if it goes too low the screens start flicker.

I've been running my 5870 with three monitors connected to it for a couple of years. You should be fine. Especially if you have a case with pretty good airflow.
 
Nuby1Canuby said:
I can understand if you need to run the core at 500 to prevent screen flickering on more then one monitor. Why do they have to run the memory at full speed? Especially since they down clock it to 150 on a single monitor. It's ridiculous to run it at full speed all the time.
Click to expand...

Becuase if you have two monitors every time the memory clocks change the screen flickers. Its annoying to some people.

If you have multi monitors, enable hardware acceleration on flash and everytime flash is loaded you'll see the flicker.
 
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