Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X very loud

T

theNoid

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 23, 2003
Messages
7,441
Under full load this thing is like a jet engine... waaay louder than my old 5850 with a single small fan. Outside of changing the cooler (which I'm not going to do) and say manually controlling or locking the fan speed... is there anything I can do?
 
What are the temperatures you are getting? Fan speed?

Check if the fan is correctly set on auto first and actually changing speeds based on temperature.

You can set a custom fan profile using something like Afterburner or Trixx so it adjusts based on the temperature if you do not agree with the default one.
 
theNoid said:
I'm not afraid to do this, but does that void warranty?
Click to expand...

Yes, but they would never notice it. Most reviews had the vapor-x being louder than other comparable custom cooling solutions.
 
tonyftw said:
Yes, but they would never notice it. Most reviews had the vapor-x being louder than other comparable custom cooling solutions.
Click to expand...
Yeah all of my Sapphire cards are just held on with 4 basic screws around the GPU (on the back of the card), there's no warranty stickers or anything.
So they won't know you removed the cooler unless you break something.

I don't have any experience with their "new" vapor coolers, so you might want to inspect the card thoroughly before detaching the heatsink.

I shaved about 10C-15C off my load temps by putting MX-2 on my 5870 a few years ago. Pretty terrible on Sapphire's part.
 
The interesting thing is my temps don't seem "too" high. I'm in the 60c range as load picks up. It just seems that the card or rather the fan design ramps up rather loud.. rather soon. I thought the Vapor-X line had a good history so I picked this over others not noticing the dB review levels. I'll note that on future purchases.

I could look at MX2 on the card but unsure if thats the solution. Feels more like the card just wants to ramp up the fan b/c it even gets hot. If I wanted to look at after market coolers, any suggestions for the 280Xs? In 20 years of PC gaming I've never had to buy an aftermarket GPU cooler :/
 
What you can do is set a custom fan curve using MSI afterburner and let the card get hotter. 80C is about as far as I'd be comfortable letting it go but it's been a bit since I traded out the 280x I had. It was a Sapphire dual-x and it wasn't that loud imo. So might double check the info on what temp is acceptable for 24/7 use.
 
I've had Vapor-X cards and they were always really quiet....still use a 4890 on an old test computer.

I'd look at the fan/temperature curve with Afterburner first, then experiment with user defined cycles until you get something that is more to your liking.

If that is still too hot/loud, then go ahead and replace the TIM.
It's very easy to do. Most GPU partner don't care if you tear the card down as long as you put everything back to stock if you need to RMA.....even if the warranty says differently.
 
I know the 280x begins to artifact at 85c so don't let her creep over 80c. In gaming this won't be an issue, but in mining it will be.
 
Lower the voltage & make a custom fan profile.

Max voltage you need is 1100 mV. Most cards are stable with less
 
theNoid said:
The interesting thing is my temps don't seem "too" high. I'm in the 60c range as load picks up. It just seems that the card or rather the fan design ramps up rather loud.. rather soon. I thought the Vapor-X line had a good history so I picked this over others not noticing the dB review levels. I'll note that on future purchases.

I could look at MX2 on the card but unsure if thats the solution. Feels more like the card just wants to ramp up the fan b/c it even gets hot. If I wanted to look at after market coolers, any suggestions for the 280Xs? In 20 years of PC gaming I've never had to buy an aftermarket GPU cooler :/
Click to expand...

The card has an agressive fan profile then. As others mentioned, you can try creating a custom "quieter" fan curve with afterburner.
 
Thanks everyone, I will try afterburner and a custom fan curve and see what I can do. Just the kind of advice I was hoping to get.

edit. Update -- Seems to work how I want. Temps never get above 70c and the fan speeds work within a much more tolerable audible range at that temp using a fan curve.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top