Just got my 6870 and got some concerns

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fenx591

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Feb 1, 2008
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Hello

I just upgraded from my 8800gt to a Sapphire 6870. There are two things that concern me.When the card was idle for about 10 minutes it jumped the fan from 30 to 70. And the clock speeds jumped too, I was just doing regular windows usage. I also have a micro ATX motherboard and a sound card. I feel like they are way too close to each other, will that damage the video card or sound car?. When i was playing bad company 2 i could feel how hot it got by my legs where my case is at. I have a anatec 9000 case and turn all the fans on High but it sounds like a plane is here :/. Here are the some pictures describing my problems.


 
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Looks like a cheapy non-reference HD6870. Such problems are common with non-reference cards. It's not a real problem, it'll just annoy you with the fan noise. You can try setting the fan speed control manually with a custom graph in afterburner to prevent the extra racket. The clock speed jumps are due to hardware acceleration of certain processes like flash videos (youtube etc)
 
Sounds about right. The sapphire non-ref cards I've had have been extremely noisy, and also broken.
If the noise really bothers you, send it back for an XFX Dual fan version, as they're meant to be really quiet, or just the reference model as they're pretty good too.
 
samuelmorris said:
Sounds about right. The sapphire non-ref cards I've had have been extremely noisy, and also broken.
If the noise really bothers you, send it back for an XFX Dual fan version, as they're meant to be really quiet, or just the reference model as they're pretty good too.
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Ohhh i have no idea what a non reference card is lol. No it doesn't bother me, it just worried me that it jumped from30 to 70 so irregularly. What about the space between the video card and the sound card? is it harmful?
 
Shouldn't be. There are far hotter cards than the 6870 out there. With a case like the Antec 900 the ambient airflow will take care of any concerns.

Reference cards are cards built by the main company (ATI or nvidia) rather than a partner brand like Sapphire. Even if they are branded Sapphire, XFX or whatever, reference cards are all made by the same company. They also all look the same. The reference 6870 looks like this:
75b.jpg

The sticker will vary of course.
 
High side for a 6870 but perfectly within tolerance. If the card is loud at those temperatures though, that's obviously a terrible cooler. Stock 6870s are reasonably quiet at temperatures like that.
 
samuelmorris said:
Shouldn't be. There are far hotter cards than the 6870 out there. With a case like the Antec 900 the ambient airflow will take care of any concerns.

Reference cards are cards built by the main company (ATI or nvidia) rather than a partner brand like Sapphire. Even if they are branded Sapphire, XFX or whatever, reference cards are all made by the same company. They also all look the same. The reference 6870 looks like this:
75b.jpg

The sticker will vary of course.
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I was under the assumption that Saphire is the OEM that produces ATI's reference cards.
 
samuelmorris said:
High side for a 6870 but perfectly within tolerance. If the card is loud at those temperatures though, that's obviously a terrible cooler. Stock 6870s are reasonably quiet at temperatures like that.
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What are the usual temps?

I have all high settings and its running from 85-87 c
 
That's only a rumour I've heard circulating that nobody has ever been able to prove.

Usually the temps on 6870s reach about 80-83 under load. Up to 95 is safe.
 
Yeah the top one doesn't quite fit on my screen, and that's not something I'm used to!
 
i jusrt rezided them, now they are too small fuuuuhhhh
 
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Dont be worried, your temps are probably fine for the airflow in your case. If you are worried run Kombustor or Furmark (same program) until the temps level out. As long as the temp never goes above 95 C then you will be fine.

You might also want to try a little cable management, and maybe another fan intake for your case.
 
Before I installed MSI Afterburner and setup a custom fan profile, I was getting 83-86* in BC2.
 
shizzdizzle said:
Dont be worried, your temps are probably fine for the airflow in your case. If you are worried run Kombustor or Furmark (same program) until the temps level out. As long as the temp never goes above 95 C then you will be fine.

You might also want to try a little cable management, and maybe another fan intake for your case.
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Ill download that right not, I was just playing crysis 2 demo for about 20 mins and it was around 90c and the highest it reached 94c :/.

Ill try to fix the cables, but i thought i already had, dont know what more to do.
 
oh and i didnt check my fan speeds during gameplay , but msi afterburner said highest was 51 while i was playing crysis.
 
Do you have to keep the sound card? Just from looking at the picture its obviously cutting off airflow to the 6870 fan. If you have to keep the sound card you might consider returning that 6870 and getting a reference 6870 where the fan is positioned closer to the back of the card and might not be obstructed (at least not completely as it is now) by the sound card.
 
tosgamer said:
Do you have to keep the sound card? Just from looking at the picture its obviously cutting off airflow to the 6870 fan. If you have to keep the sound card you might consider returning that 6870 and getting a reference 6870 where the fan is positioned closer to the back of the card and might not be obstructed (at least not completely as it is now) by the sound card.
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I do want to keep the sound card. Even if i want to return it, will amazon just take it back with no fee?
 
I think he meant return the 6870, which you can usually do without a fee - as long as you've got the original packaging.
 
joxang said:
I think he meant return the 6870, which you can usually do without a fee - as long as you've got the original packaging.
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What good brand has cool video cards then, i saw the rviews for this one and it seemed pretty good.
 
Perilous said:
I was under the assumption that Saphire is the OEM that produces ATI's reference cards.
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Yes they are. It's been known for a few years now. The RMA address for my Built By ATI Radeon 9700 I bought several years ago is the same address for Sapphire now. People who are relatively ignorant about such a thing will tell you otherwise.
 
Anything more recent than a 9700? Not saying you're wrong but it does seem a bit odd that Sapphire's non-reference cards are so bad compared to reference cards if they're made in the same place.
 
fenx591 said:
What good brand has cool video cards then, i saw the rviews for this one and it seemed pretty good.
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Its probably a good card when it isn't pressed up against another card. But your not necessarily looking for the coolest running video card. Because even cool cards like the GTX 460 will run 25c hotter when pressed like that. What you want is a long reference card like the 5870, 6950, 6970, gtx 570, gtx 580. All of which are about 11 inches long with an external exhaust fan placed on the right side of the card so the fan can clear the length of your sound card. Unfortunately all of those cards are more expensive then a 6870 except for the 5870. But it is really hard to find a reference 5870 these days. Newegg had a one day sale on one last week but its over now. A reference 6870 might work as its about 10 inches long but you should probably measure the length of your sound card and guesstimate if a ref 6870 would clear it.
 
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Most 6870s are reference. It's only the 6850 that's non-reference based of this gen (and the 1GB 6950)
 
tosgamer said:
Its probably a good card when it isn't pressed up against another card. But your not necessarily looking for the coolest running video card. Because even cool cards like the GTX 460 will run 25c hotter when pressed like that. What you want is a long reference card like the 5870, 6950, 6970, gtx 570, gtx 580. All of which are about 11 inches long with an external exhaust fan placed on the right side of the card so the fan can clear the length of your sound card. Unfortunately all of those cards are more expensive then a 6870 except for the 5870. But it is really hard to find a reference 5870 these days. Newegg had a one day sale on one last week but its over now. A reference 6870 might work as its about 10 inches long but you should probably measure the length of your sound card and guesstimate if a ref 6870 would clear it.
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Yeah i got this card because I got a really good deal on it $170 , it was within my budget and what i wanted in power. I guess i will just add two extra 120mm fans that the anatec can support, and maybe flip my psu and make a hole at the bottom so the psu is not blowing hot air into the case....:confused:
 
Lorien said:
Yes they are. It's been known for a few years now. The RMA address for my Built By ATI Radeon 9700 I bought several years ago is the same address for Sapphire now. People who are relatively ignorant about such a thing will tell you otherwise.
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Known by whom exactly? I was under the impression that multiple companies made ATi cards, and *some* of them, possibly a select few models, were made by SapphireTech in their Guangdong factories. It's a bit of a sweeping statement to say that Sapphire = ATi's OEM.
 
At this point does it really matter who built the ATI branded cards? As far as I know AMD/ATI has not done Built By ATI for a while now.
 
That razer thing has to be really fucking up the airflow to your GPU card.
 
ep__ said:
That razer thing has to be really fucking up the airflow to your GPU card.
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Yeah I guess so, but no one has answered about the temps, what temperatures should i be worried about, because they reached 93c while i was playing crysis 2 demo.
 
strekship said:
At this point does it really matter who built the ATI branded cards? As far as I know AMD/ATI has not done Built By ATI for a while now.
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Is only being raised because people are saying sapphire still make reference cards, and Sapphire's own non-ref products are terrible, so why aren't the reference versions?
 
Just because a card is non reference does not mean it is a cheapy card. I had much better luck with the non-ref 6970 over the reference setup. Its clear that sound card is blocking air flow and causing a problem.
 
fenx591 said:
Yeah I guess so, but no one has answered about the temps, what temperatures should i be worried about, because they reached 93c while i was playing crysis 2 demo.
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Most video cards shut down at 105c to 110c to protect themselves from frying. So yeah 93c is not that good.
 
I emailed sapphire support and this is what they said:

Anything under 100c fro this card is consider normal. But you are on the high side for temp range, so check for artifacts during usage, if you start seeing stuff on the screen it’s a good chance there is something wrong with the card.

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