Finally bought an AMD 7870

[Erick Aguilar]

It's XFX' Core Edition with Ghost technology. The card is incredibly beautiful and maxed out all of my games.

But.. Tomb Raider is kind of strange.. it makes my card go up to 78C rather quickly. 74 if I turn tressfx off. But still, I'm not used to such high temperatures for any computer component. I do remember people saying that even 80c is normal for a GPU, but I just want to make sure.

It seems odd that one game can make a GPU outsource so much heat and the rest cannot.

 

[kbrady1979]

Is Tomb Raider more demanding than your other games? How balanced is that game.......CPU/GPU? Some games rely too much on one and not the other, which could account for those results.

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Is Tomb Raider more demanding than your other games? How balanced is that game.......CPU/GPU? Some games rely too much on one and not the other, which could account for those results.

Yeah, my GPU goes under full load, and the CPU barely goes up to 40%. Seems rather balanced.
I just find it odd since it is supposed to be an AMD optimized application.

 

[kbrady1979]

Does it tax your GPU so much that it lags or stutters? I'm sure you have the latest driver for your card so that probably isn't the issue. It may be that Tomb Raider is just a really demanding game. Did you ever try to play the game with your HD7770? How did that go?

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Does it tax your GPU so much that it lags or stutters? I'm sure you have the latest driver for your card so that probably isn't the issue. It may be that Tomb Raider is just a really demanding game. Did you ever try to play the game with your HD7770? How did that go?

Nah, the game runs beautifully smooth on ultra.
And the 7770 would do a fine job at high settings pulling around 39fps.
Never got that hot though, perhaps 65C max.

 

[kbrady1979]

That seems to scale right, high settings at 65c and on a beefier card and ultra settings in the 70's. May try googling Tomb Raider and your card to see if there are other cases of high temps and if that is normal and if there is something to be done as I am no expert on games or video cards. Have you OC'd the card any?

 

[Dude]

While that is a safe temp as they say, it does seem high. It leads me to think maybe the heat sink or thermal paste was poorly installed by the manufacture. Do any games cause it to reach that temp?

Maybe someone else with that game and card can give a better answer.

 

[Erick Aguilar]

That seems to scale right, high settings at 65c and on a beefier card and ultra settings in the 70's. May try googling Tomb Raider and your card to see if there are other cases of high temps and if that is normal and if there is something to be done as I am no expert on games or video cards. Have you OC'd the card any?

No, I have not overclocked it as it does not have voltage control. I don't think I even need to overclock it, it's pretty powerful.

But since it is the only game that even goes into the 70's I think it's just this game..

 

[kbrady1979]

I would say you are right, it is probably just a demanding game. I would keep an eye on it and make sure the temps stay within the threshold. Also, try to google your card and game and see if others report similar results.....it may be normal.

 

[Dude]

I agree with you both, since it's one game only that seems to rule out my first post.

 

[Erick Aguilar]

I would say you are right, it is probably just a demanding game. I would keep an eye on it and make sure the temps stay within the threshold. Also, try to google your card and game and see if others report similar results.....it may be normal.

Thank you,

And it seems that some people are doing far worse, getting up to 90C with this game.

 

[Solarstarshines]

Tomb raider at best was 55c on my CF machine so i'm not sure if drivers have a deal with it I know im using 13.5 Betas and running Unigene got my 92c on the norm it would max out to 85c at best drivers might be your issue here I would mess around with 13.1 or even late 12.12 see what you get and who does a better job of optimization

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Tomb raider at best was 55c on my CF machine so i'm not sure if drivers have a deal with it I know im using 13.5 Betas and running Unigene got my 92c on the norm it would max out to 85c at best drivers might be your issue here I would mess around with 13.1 or even late 12.12 see what you get and who does a better job of optimization

Then again, you do have a much more powerful GPU, and on a cross fire set up.

I don't know much about CF, but doesn't that balance the load between both?
What if you run TR on one GPU? do you get same temps?

 

[Faladu]

Use V-Sync if possible, will keep it in a playable state fps wise (native your your monitor, usually 60 frames per second) and temps will go lower, hopefully.

Without V-Sync the video card just tries to go for the max fps it can do and thus the temps go up, unless the game code itself puts a limit of fps, one game I bought on steam recently has a fps cap of 45, which was odd, but effective.

My 7950 can go over 300 frames per second on one game I like, which is massive overkill.

Oh yeah, I am a fraps owner, so I check that stuff...

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Use V-Sync if possible, will keep it in a playable state fps wise (native your your monitor, usually 60 frames per second) and temps will go lower, hopefully.

Without V-Sync the video card just tries to go for the max fps it can do and thus the temps go up, unless the game code itself puts a limit of fps, one game I bought on steam recently has a fps cap of 45, which was odd, but effective.

My 7950 can go over 300 frames per second on one game I like, which is massive overkill.

Oh yeah, I am a fraps owner, so I check that stuff...

Yeah, I use fraps as well.
I mean.. I do know how to monitor FPS and temperature.

Just never heard of VSYNC helping reduce temp by caping FPS

I used to think that quality would directly affect temperature because of GPU strain, not the amount of FPS it produced

 

[Solarstarshines]

Tomb raider at best was 55c on my CF machine so i'm not sure if drivers have a deal with it I know im using 13.5 Betas and running Unigene got my 92c on the norm it would max out to 85c at best drivers might be your issue here I would mess around with 13.1 or even late 12.12 see what you get and who does a better job of optimization

Then again, you do have a much more powerful GPU, and on a cross fire set up.

I don't know much about CF, but doesn't that balance the load between both?
What if you run TR on one GPU? do you get same temps?

Doesn't matter I tested the game both ways never got hot I can almost assure you it is either driver related or you need better fan profiling and Faladu is right on about V-sync it controls the Video card to 60fps from the GPU just doing what it wants and getting 300+ frames when V-sync is on it pretty much forces the GPU to stay and maintain itself

 

[Erick Aguilar]

Tomb raider at best was 55c on my CF machine so i'm not sure if drivers have a deal with it I know im using 13.5 Betas and running Unigene got my 92c on the norm it would max out to 85c at best drivers might be your issue here I would mess around with 13.1 or even late 12.12 see what you get and who does a better job of optimization

Then again, you do have a much more powerful GPU, and on a cross fire set up.

I don't know much about CF, but doesn't that balance the load between both?
What if you run TR on one GPU? do you get same temps?

Doesn't matter I tested the game both ways never got hot I can almost assure you it is either driver related or you need better fan profiling and Faladu is right on about V-sync it controls the Video card to 60fps from the GPU just doing what it wants and getting 300+ frames when V-sync is on it pretty much forces the GPU to stay and maintain itself

Alright, I'll go ahead and try the newest drivers today!

 

[kbrady1979]

If you are getting more frames than the frequency of your monitor.........then the card isn't having to work hard. It's when the card is struggling to keep up that you will see the highest temps.

 

[Faladu]

I watched in Diablo III, when I don't V-Sync it can go north of 100 FPS, and it bumps my temps, not to incredible heights or anything, I am not overclocking AT ALL, but way hotter than normal gaming/use and having spent as much as I have on this Custom Build I am unwilling to risk prolonged heat where I can avoid it.

I do run two monitors at 1920 by 1080 now, which is another reason when I upgraded, I went to a top tiered card.

Only one monitor now is

My main game now that uses a lot more power than average is Guild Wars 2, but it's smooth on this rig.

 

[Erick Aguilar]

The newest drivers seem to get a long with the card well.
Some games that I don't play as much though... seem to be running a bit slower on the newer card. Need to investigate if those games are more CPU dependent though. It might be the case.