6990 heat issues?

[Lason]

Hey guys, I have a new rig I recently built and am having heat issues with the 6990's I put in. I have two MSI 6990's with Arctic Arcello coolers on them and the GPU's always stay cool but the Vregs get stupid hot especially when gaming with eyefinity. With eyefinity turned off playing BF3 they would barely get into the upper 80*s but now that the eyefinity issue is fixed I tried it and they jumped up into the 101* area.

I was beta testing SWTOR this weekend and took some snips of my main card's GPU-Z temps since it usually run the hottest being on top.

My question, do these things just naturally run hot as hell or should I look into maybe watercooling?


**EDIT** BTW, the fans were manually on 100% but just not registering on gpu-z

Here is SWTOR on eyefinity after a space mission. Only seen it get this high this one time.

And finally here is a space mission on SWTOR on single screen, the problem came back

Here is SWTOR just regular land missions and running around as usual with eyefinity turned off, it stays reasonably cool.

 

[Yakk]

Keep those VReg's under 100C, your even above 110C ! AMD uses quality components, but that is too hot. And yes they can heat up more than the GPU itself, had my eye on them in my bitcoin days.

I would first recheck the cooler installation, then that is a huge amount of hot air staying inside the case, definitely check case fan airflow directions to prevent stagnant hot air near the cards.

Running "only" 1 card, what are your temps in eyefinity?

 

[Lason]

I pulled one card out last night and ran that space mission on SWOTR and was hitting 99* on the vregs. The beta is over so I cant recheck using the same missions. With both cards it would hit 100* rarely but as soon as I went into that space mission the vregs climbed!

Oh and the case is a Haf X with a side fan blowing right on the cards, big front intake and big exhaust up top.

 

[Marcdaddy]

Enable Vysnc, Your cards are rendering way more FPS then you need or turn off a card or 2. I have the problem in Witcher 2 or Metro, My cards get super hot. In metro i have to use a external program to lock it at 60FPS cuz CCC or the game wont do it. Either that or in CCC in the Power settings turn all 3 cards down 5%, that will keep them cooler as well.

 

[xAlex79]

Yeah , as said above. Vsync is your friend. My 6990 is under water .. so it never got above 60C the whole weekend...

 

[Lason]

Thanks guys Im going to try vsync also. One other thing I was thinking was ditching the thermal pads on the Vrms in favor of a dot of IC Diamond on each one. I know alot of people use it without shims due to its thickness. I just ordered another tube and plan on trying it out before I drop the money on a watercooling setup.

Ill deffinetly try vsync though, that makes perfect sense.

 

[vulcZ]

Why would you remove the stock cooler? :/ Seemed pointless unless you were going to put it under water.

 

[Roadhog]

lol @ dual 6990's to run with vsyn on.

 

[Lason]

Why would you remove the stock cooler? :/ Seemed pointless unless you were going to put it under water.

The stock reference cooler? Because its crazy loud and doesnt cool for squat.

I bought reference cards for the fact that I can put them under water later on but it wasnt in the budget at the time and I really didnt want to mess with the maintnance of it. If you havent looked at the turbo 6990 coolers then it may be worth looking at to understand why I went that way, they work great! My cards GPU's rarely break 65* when gaming when the stock cooler would hover around 90*. You cant hear these at 100% fan speed either.

 

[Roadhog]

The stock reference cooler? Because its crazy loud and doesnt cool for squat.

I bought reference cards for the fact that I can put them under water later on but it wasnt in the budget at the time and I really didnt want to mess with the maintnance of it. If you havent looked at the turbo 6990 coolers then it may be worth looking at to understand why I went that way, they work great! My cards GPU's rarely break 65* when gaming when the stock cooler would hover around 90*. You cant hear these at 100% fan speed either.

So, working great to you means allowing the gpu to overheat and having to use vsync to prevent it?

Not even the stock coolers will allow the cards to reach those temps. Lol

 

[Lason]

So, working great to you means allowing the gpu to overheat and having to use vsync to prevent it?

Not even the stock coolers will allow the cards to reach those temps. Lol

Obviously you have your mind made up so Im not going to try to change it. But go ahead and re-read what I wrote, I never once said the GPU's on this card are overheating.

As far as the Vreg's go, the stock cooler runs about 102* but with this cooler I cant get them to break 80* during furmark. So yeah, the gpus and vregs both are about 20* cooler under furmark. I havent seen what a reference cooler would do under SWTOR, probably just lock up.

The issues Im having happened just during BF3 and SWTOR although with a single card I cant seem to get the same results on BF3 now.

 

[DeathPrincess]

Yeah , as said above. Vsync is your friend. My 6990 is under water .. so it never got above 60C the whole weekend...

More and more I enable vsync in lots of games because of the damned menu screens. Good example of this is the dawn of war games, where the menus rendered at silly high fps causing card temperatures to go insane and fans to run at 80% (think this was the problem with starcraft II lots of people had). Once in the actual game, temperatures went back to normal and fans quietened down. Vsync got rid of this.

 

[Lason]

Yeah and I always thought that the video card was working harder struggling at 30fps on a graphics intensive game instead of pegged at 200fps on some easy to render game. I guess the latter is worse as far as temps go.

 

[l88bastard]

So, working great to you means allowing the gpu to overheat and having to use vsync to prevent it?

Not even the stock coolers will allow the cards to reach those temps. Lol

Um, I have an accero cooler on my 6990 and I dont have any of the issues the OP has...I bet one of his thermo pads isn't seated right between the memory and backplate..Anyway, yea you have no idea what you are talking about since you dont have a 6990 nor do you have any concept on what the accero cooler does for the 6990 in terms of cooling and quietness so please politely STFU!

 

[Roadhog]

Obviously you have your mind made up so Im not going to try to change it. But go ahead and re-read what I wrote, I never once said the GPU's on this card are overheating.

As far as the Vreg's go, the stock cooler runs about 102* but with this cooler I cant get them to break 80* during furmark. So yeah, the gpus and vregs both are about 20* cooler under furmark. I havent seen what a reference cooler would do under SWTOR, probably just lock up.

The issues Im having happened just during BF3 and SWTOR although with a single card I cant seem to get the same results on BF3 now.

You must have some horrible case airflow if you have those kind of temps. Then again, having two 6990's worth of heat being dumped into your case you will need some amazing airflow to get rid of that heat.

 

[Lason]

Um, I have an accero cooler on my 6990 and I dont have any of the issues the OP has...I bet one of his thermo pads isn't seated right between the memory and backplate..Anyway, yea you have no idea what you are talking about since you dont have a 6990 nor do you have any concept on what the accero cooler does for the 6990 in terms of cooling and quietness so please politely STFU!

Nope, it was all 4 sets of vregs running within 10* of each other. Bottom card obviously running cooler than the top. With one card I cant get it to overheat and Im betting its because its not blowing through the FPS like it does with both cards.

 

[Roadhog]

Nope, it was all 4 sets of vregs running within 10* of each other. Bottom card obviously running cooler than the top. With one card I cant get it to overheat and Im betting its because its not blowing through the FPS like it does with both cards.

How about the fact that the bottom card is blowing all the hot air from it into the top card...

 

[magoo]

I have my 6990 under water, never goes over 50C.

I would remove the aftermarket cooler and check the thermal pads, etc.

If that stuff is ok, then water is what you need.

I agree, the stock cooler on a 6990 is WAY too loud.

 

[Lason]

How about the fact that the bottom card isn't blowing all the hot air from it into the top card...

I have flipped them around and they top card always runs hotter and it makes sense because the top card is sucking air right off the backing plate of the bottom card. A combonation of not being able to suck as much air as the bottom card and also the air it does get is hot.

 

[Roadhog]

I have flipped them around and they top card always runs hotter and it makes sense because the top card is sucking air right off the backing plate of the bottom card. A combonation of not being able to suck as much air as the bottom card and also the air it does get is hot.

Obviously. Isn't was supposed to be is.

That's a common problem with coolers that vent into the case.

 

[JMCB]

I have mine on the stock heatsinks. With Afterburner, I never get past 80C because of my fan profile. Sure, it may be loud, but that is what headphones are for. =)

I was thinking of watercooling these cards, but with 7970 series on its way in January, I'm probably just going to sell them for trifire goodness.

 

[Lord_Exodia]

I'd never buy $1400 in hardware to run Vsync enabled capping me at 60fps, Especially when I can run the same fps with Vsync on with only spending $300.00... but that's just me.

 

[Marcdaddy]

Well one reason to own a tri-fire setup is to enable every video option inside the game and still reach a minimum of 60fps. Id love to go water cooling on my next 3 GPU setup.

 

[Lason]

I'd never buy $1400 in hardware to run Vsync enabled capping me at 60fps, Especially when I can run the same fps with Vsync on with only spending $300.00... but that's just me.

Yeah but the reason I bought $1400 in hardware is so I didnt have to worry about it down the road. When you have to buy $300 video cards everytime a game comes out just to be able to run it on ultra settings then it adds up quick. The only problem with my $1400 cards is they are running TOO fast. So limiting them down with vsync just keeps them running cool and down the road when games are more demanding then I wont need vsync yet still able to run ultra settings.

I dont build new rigs every 6 months, maybe once every 3 years so I like to future proof as much as possible. Vsync is not a crutch, just a govenor of sorts to keep these things from overworking themselves.I can tell you from expirience that BF3 and SWTOR look identical at 60fps as they do at 185fps and 111fps.


**EDIT** I just thought about it and not to be an ass but what card(s) would you get for $300 to play BF3 on ultra settings at 5860x1080 and get 60fps? I only have one of my 6990's in right now and I cant even hit 60fps with eyefinity and all settings on ultra. Im bouncing between 35-55fps and that is the equivalent of two 6970's.With both my cards in I was around 85-95fps on three screens.

 

[magoo]

Did you ever reseat your coolers to see if that was the problem?

 

[Lason]

Yes I did reseat them and thats not the issue. When I first put the coolers on I had an issue with one set of vregs overheating and checked it and it was a stripped screw in the coolers heatsink. I ended up having to tap it for the next size up screw and that fixed that issue. I have checked the coolers and the impressions on the thermal pads is very good.

Im 99% sure the problem is with the FPS going to high like stated above. SWTOR caps the FPS to 111 but a few times during menus I saw it jump way up so I bet that is when the vregs spiked. I didnt log those temps so I cant see how long they sat there but I bet it was just a quick spike during a menu.

 

[Lord_Exodia]

**EDIT** I just thought about it and not to be an ass but what card(s) would you get for $300 to play BF3 on ultra settings at 5860x1080 and get 60fps? I only have one of my 6990's in right now and I cant even hit 60fps with eyefinity and all settings on ultra. Im bouncing between 35-55fps and that is the equivalent of two 6970's.With both my cards in I was around 85-95fps on three screens.

I'm aware of everything your saying, however if you are indeed playing battlefield you could have been fine with 6950 trifire for example which should also give you playable fps at that resolution and maintain 60fps with vsync locked. That would have saved you hundreds of dollars. The difference between 6950 trifire and 6990 quadfire is simply performance and the 6990s running hotter/louder etc..

That leaves us with the topic of future proofing. Have you seen AMD's track record of driver support for 2 or 3 year old quad gpu solutions? ... Yeah...

In one sense I understand the idea of as much gpu horsepower as possible to get the longest time out of your hardware but in another sense I wouldn't buy $1400+ in hardware to cap my fps down. Id simply lower the settings slightly and get say a 6950 trifire setup or 1 6990 and then weigh the pros cons later and consider adding a second. Again that's just me. Hence why I said in my last post that this is what I would/wouldn't do. You did whatever feels right to you and that's fine. I just think there was hundreds of dollars spent needlessly if your mind is made up to use vsync to solve your issue.

 

[Lason]

I'm aware of everything your saying, however if you are indeed playing battlefield you could have been fine with 6950 trifire for example which should also give you playable fps at that resolution and maintain 60fps with vsync locked. That would have saved you hundreds of dollars. The difference between 6950 trifire and 6990 quadfire is simply performance and the 6990s running hotter/louder etc..

That leaves us with the topic of future proofing. Have you seen AMD's track record of driver support for 2 or 3 year old quad gpu solutions? ... Yeah...

In one sense I understand the idea of as much gpu horsepower as possible to get the longest time out of your hardware but in another sense I wouldn't buy $1400+ in hardware to cap my fps down. Id simply lower the settings slightly and get say a 6950 trifire setup or 1 6990 and then weigh the pros cons later and consider adding a second. Again that's just me. Hence why I said in my last post that this is what I would/wouldn't do. You did whatever feels right to you and that's fine. I just think there was hundreds of dollars spent needlessly if your mind is made up to use vsync to solve your issue.

I get what your saying as well. My main goal with this rig was to run modern games as high as they go and not break a sweat. If I was going to have to lower graphics options in game then it defeated the purpose and I would just have stuck to console gaming IMO. At the time I didnt think it was possible to run too fast an have issues there, otherwise I would have gone with my orignal plan on trifire 6970's but decided on the quadfire at the last minute because I heard microstuttering wasnt near the problem it was a year ago. I had the money to do it and yes, I have heard from A LOT of people who dont agree with the way I did and thats fine, this thread isnt about that though. It was just me looking for ideas about my overheating issue and I believe it has been resolved.

But yes your right, its like an anology of I could buy a clapped out kia that will barely do 70mph down the highway and be ok or I could buy a vette but Ill have to drive it like grandpa to only do 70mph but spending a lot more doing it. So yes, I could have done this a lot cheaper.

 

[magoo]

I cant buy that the FPS in a game will cause the voltage regulator to overheat?

Maybe if the voltage to the core or ram was upped, but merely by functioning, I am not sure that makes any sense.

I think youy have some other kind of problem.

I'm going to check my 6990 and see if the VRegs get more warm with faster performance.

 

[Lason]

I dont know, all I know is that with a single card I cant replicate it. I wish SWTOR was out so I could do that space mission again and try to replicate it that way. It would overheat everytime I did that mission. Even running furmark on extreme burn in for 20 minutes, my vregs only hit 80* now with a single card in. I never ran furmark with both cards because my UPS/battery backup freaks out due to the usage jumping up to 120% and evetually shuts down.

I did get 101* once playing BF3 with two cards a couple weeks ago and I tried to replicate it the other night and played for about an hour logging my temps and couldnt get past 83* vreg temps on a single card running ultra settings at 5780x1080 resolution. I was getting 35-55fps as I stated earlier on a single card. Dual cards on BF3 it would sit around 85fps during gameplay.

 

[Lason]

OK I think the FPS was the problem. I repasted the card I had apart and threw it back in and loaded BF3. This was just a quick test but I wanted to see if there would be a difference. I went into Radeon Pro and set vsync to always on and played a match and recorded temps. Then turned vsync to off and played another match. All ultra settings and of course locked at 60fps with vsync and 70-100fps with it off. Spiked to 130fps at a menu for a second. Like I said it was just a quick test playing one match with each one so I didnt see many menus. Ill continue to use it with Vsync on and see if the temps every spike again.

Top temps are top card and bottom temps bottom card.

Vsync on

Vsync off

 

[Lason]

OK here is a better example. Heaven11 benchmark with vsync on and off. Ran it at 1920x1080 with tesselation off so I could really get the FPS up there. With vsync off I average 188fps with a high of 345fps.

Vsync on

Vsync off

 

[Roadhog]

OK I think the FPS was the problem. I repasted the card I had apart and threw it back in and loaded BF3. This was just a quick test but I wanted to see if there would be a difference. I went into Radeon Pro and set vsync to always on and played a match and recorded temps. Then turned vsync to off and played another match. All ultra settings and of course locked at 60fps with vsync and 70-100fps with it off. Spiked to 130fps at a menu for a second. Like I said it was just a quick test playing one match with each one so I didnt see many menus. Ill continue to use it with Vsync on and see if the temps every spike again.

Seems you don't know what GPU load is... If you look in your readings, you will see that the gpu load with vsync on is much lower than with vsync off. Pretty obvious that a GPU under higher load will run hotter than one under a lower load, don't you think?

If you were to find a game that would bring the fps down to <60 with 100% gpu load, your temps would be just the same as with vsync off and 100% load.

Why don't you just leave vsync off and set the power controls to -20%?

 

[magoo]

Agreed, this whole thing is not FPS, but simply the load the game or benchmark is placing on the GPUs.

Of course the temp will go up with the demand on the GPU.

Also, your fans are only running at 30% according to what you show......turn 'em up. Especially the top card. Since the top card is the master, it will always run hotter, but jack up the fan speeds.

 

[Lason]

Seems you don't know what GPU load is... If you look in your readings, you will see that the gpu load with vsync on is much lower than with vsync off. Pretty obvious that a GPU under higher load will run hotter than one under a lower load, don't you think?

If you were to find a game that would bring the fps down to <60 with 100% gpu load, your temps would be just the same as with vsync off and 100% load.

Why don't you just leave vsync off and set the power controls to -20%?

Agreed, this whole thing is not FPS, but simply the load the game or benchmark is placing on the GPUs.

Of course the temp will go up with the demand on the GPU.

Also, your fans are only running at 30% according to what you show......turn 'em up. Especially the top card. Since the top card is the master, it will always run hotter, but jack up the fan speeds.

You two do realize I dont have the load fields set to max readings like I do the vreg temps right?

 

[Lason]

Well you guys are right, my main GPU is at 99% but the other three are at 40%. Still though, the main gpu's vregs are the ones that run hottest and even at 99% load with vsync on vs off there is still a big difference. This is heaven11 with vsync on btw.

 

[Lason]

Oh and the fans are all set to 100% in overdrive, gpu-z doesnt read that for some reason though.

 

[Lason]

Why don't you just leave vsync off and set the power controls to -20%?

Ill try that also and post up results.

**EDIT** here are the results with vsync off and power set to -20 instead. Temps still jumped way up.

 

[Roadhog]

Well you guys are right, my main GPU is at 99% but the other three are at 40%. Still though, the main gpu's vregs are the ones that run hottest and even at 99% load with vsync on vs off there is still a big difference. This is heaven11 with vsync on btw.

You realize that the 99% load on the one gpu was probably for a split second while loading whatever you were running...

In crossfire when running 3D the load variation between the GPU's will be within a couple percent when at the same clock speeds.

 

[Roadhog]

Ill try that also and post up results.

**EDIT** here are the results with vsync off and power set to -20 instead. Temps still jumped way up.

Looks like you have a huge CPU bottleneck as your gpu core clock rarely clocked down.

Either that or the 880 bios you are running changes how power tune behaves. Dunno why you don't just run the 830 bios with lower voltage... 830 = 1.12V and 880 = 1.175V. If you really want to overclock just see how high you can overclock on the 830 bios.