Sapphire RX 480 nitro+ getting hot

PLSG08 · Jun 14, 2019

My friend just upgraded his rig and I got his old RX480 for a steal. Been putting it to its paces for a week or so now and I notice that the card gets really hot - 82c at most. I've tried rearranging the fans around my case and hottest is still 80c. On idle I get around 35-40 but when gaming because of the heat the case heats up as well and the fans would spin loudly.

Will getting a new case lessen the problem? My current case has a rather big open front that I put 2 intake fans. I have 2 exhaust fans as well, and the PSU facing towards the GPU for more heat dissipation.

Will underclocking help the card too? I haven't really OC'd/underclocked anything in my life.

many thanks!

kurosagi01 · Jun 14, 2019

Assuming the GPU hasn't had bios swap or done any mining then 82C is okay still for gaming, have you tried increasing the fan speed of the GPU itself using AMD wattman or MSI afterburner?
Another thing you can do is take the cooler off and apply new thermal paste which will help the averaging temperature curve and reduce the top end down by 2-5c,give the cooler a good clean too and your whole PC a good clean with compress air.

phill · Jun 14, 2019

What's the model of RX480 your friend managed to buy? Some will have better cooling than others and this might be the problem you'll face.

Having had a Gigabyte G1 480 and a Strix 480, I can tell you the difference between them is like day and night. The Strix being the better one due to the size of the cooler more so, because even during very hot days and about 50% fan with adjusted core clocks, never going above 60C.. Whereas the Gigabyte card needed 100% fan and it was still hitting 75C+....

ne6togadno · Jun 14, 2019

how is pus facing towards gpu.
fan of the psu is turned towards gpu?

mstenholm · Jun 14, 2019

Undervolting will help, it will even save you money but you might not get it right the first time. The normal advice, beside undervolting and new TIM, is to remove the case sidepanel. Your case is unknown to me but with two inlet fans it can't be all bad. Anyway if the temperature drops more then 3-5 degrees then you have an airflow problem.

chr0nos · Jun 14, 2019

tighten the gpu cooler screws (the 4 surrounding the GPU chip), I was having the same problem on my RX480 going to 90 C, I move my pc a lot so they became lose overtime and that fixed it.

EDIT: dont apply too much force or you willl damage the GPU

PLSG08 · Jun 14, 2019

kurosagi01 said:
Assuming the GPU hasn't had bios swap or done any mining then 82C is okay still for gaming, have you tried increasing the fan speed of the GPU itself using AMD wattman or MSI afterburner?
Another thing you can do is take the cooler off and apply new thermal paste which will help the averaging temperature curve and reduce the top end down by 2-5c,give the cooler a good clean too and your whole PC a good clean with compress air.

I already have a custom fan curve in Afterburner because the fan curve i keep applying in wattman doesn't stick. I've also cleaned out the old tim and replaced it with a new one (Cryorig CP15)

phill said:
What's the model of RX480 your friend managed to buy? Some will have better cooling than others and this might be the problem you'll face.

Having had a Gigabyte G1 480 and a Strix 480, I can tell you the difference between them is like day and night. The Strix being the better one due to the size of the cooler more so, because even during very hot days and about 50% fan with adjusted core clocks, never going above 60C.. Whereas the Gigabyte card needed 100% fan and it was still hitting 75C+....

It's a Sapphire RX 480 Nitro+ 8GB.

ne6togadno said:
how is pus facing towards gpu.
fan of the psu is turned towards gpu?

Fan of the PSU facing the GPU.

mstenholm said:
Undervolting will help, it will even save you money but you might not get it right the first time. The normal advice, beside undervolting and new TIM, is to remove the case sidepanel. Your case is unknown to me but with two inlet fans it can't be all bad. Anyway if the temperature drops more then 3-5 degrees then you have an airflow problem.

not really sure how to undervolt as the settings in wattman doesn't stick and randomly overrides the settings i apply in Afterburner.

chr0nos said:
tighten the gpu cooler screws (the 4 surrounding the GPU chip), I was having the same problem on my RX480 going to 90 C, I move my pc a lot so they became lose overtime and that fixed it.

I'll check if the screws are tight later on.

phill · Jun 14, 2019

PLSG08 said:
It's a Sapphire RX 480 Nitro+ 8GB.

Apologies I completely missed the name of the thread :banghead:

As the guys have suggested, try the side off the PC case, MSI Afterburner is a solid and easy to use overclocking/fan control program.

But I wouldn't run Wattman and Afterburner together, use one or the other. It might give you some interesting results....

mstenholm · Jun 14, 2019

Get a saw and remove the mesh obstructing the airflow at the rear 120 mm fan. Hopeless design.

PLSG08 · Jun 14, 2019

phill said:
But I wouldn't run Wattman and Afterburner together, use one or the other. It might give you some interesting results....

W8 I can stop wattman from running? Do i have to disable the AMD service for that to work?

yotano211 · Jun 14, 2019

PLSG08 said:
I already have a custom fan curve in Afterburner because the fan curve i keep applying in wattman doesn't stick. I've also cleaned out the old tim and replaced it with a new one (Cryorig CP15)

It's a Sapphire RX 480 Nitro+ 8GB.

Fan of the PSU facing the GPU.

not really sure how to undervolt as the settings in wattman doesn't stick and randomly overrides the settings i apply in Afterburner.

I'll check if the screws are tight later on.

If the card is the nitro+, there is a high chance its a ex-mining card. I think the thermal paste might have dried out.
Miners loved those nitro+ cards, most of them had Samsung memory that had tight memory timings so it got high hash rates in mining.

Do what everyone says, clean heatsinks, reapply thermal paste.

phill · Jun 14, 2019

PLSG08 said:
W8 I can stop wattman from running? Do i have to disable the AMD service for that to work?

You can just stop it from starting up in the background when Windows starts.
For Windows 10, right click task bar, click task manager, then on the tabs at the top click Startup.
You'll see what starts up and can disable things from there

ne6togadno · Jun 14, 2019

PLSG08 said:
Fan of the PSU facing the GPU.

better turn it so that fan take fresh air from bottom of the case.

PLSG08 · Jun 14, 2019

yotano211 said:
f the card is the nitro+, there is a high chance its a ex-mining card. I think the thermal paste might have dried out.
Miners loved those nitro+ cards, most of them had Samsung memory that had tight memory timings so it got high hash rates in mining.

Do what everyone says, clean heatsinks, reapply thermal paste.

my friend wasn't a miner. Card wasn't really abused. I've already cleaned out the heatsinks and replaced the paste with Cryorig CP15

yotano211 · Jun 14, 2019

PLSG08 said:
my friend wasn't a miner. Card wasn't really abused. I've already cleaned out the heatsinks and replaced the paste with Cryorig CP15

oh very good that it wasnt mined with, how the temps going. Tested it out and come back to us with new temps.

PerfectWave · Jun 14, 2019

what is the ambient room temperature? where do you live?

PLSG08 · Jun 14, 2019

ambient room temps is around 28c, and I live in the Philippines

if I replace the Thermal paste, should i also replace the thermal pads or leave them be?

yotano211 · Jun 14, 2019

PLSG08 said:
ambient room temps is around 28c, and I live in the Philippines if I replace the Thermal paste, should i also replace the thermal pads or leave them be?

Some people replace them, but overall they should be fine.

Grog6 · Jun 17, 2019

I have the same card; it also hits about 80C while at 100% load.

I don't really think it's a problem; it doesn't downclock from 1342 ever, and the fan doesn't run at 100% at that temp, unless I tell it to in Afterburner.

My 7970 cards in crossfire usually ran 85-90C, and still no problems.

GPUs don't really seem to have the same limits as CPU's do, IHMO.

PLSG08 · Jun 17, 2019

A few days have passed and I've been testing underclocking the card. Results are nice.

Here's my current underclock. Max temps at full load is around 78c max on Metro Exodus @ Ultra settings. I don't personally play on ultra, i just set it Medium with my frame rate capped @70fps. With that my Temps go as high as 72 while gaming. Pretty happy with the temps, and the fans aren't spinning loudly as they were before. Power consumption dropped a bit as well so that's a nice plus

Thanks for all those that pitched in!

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Sapphire RX 480 nitro+ getting hot

PLSG08

kurosagi01

phill

Moderator

ne6togadno

mstenholm

chr0nos

PLSG08

phill

Moderator

mstenholm

PLSG08

yotano211

phill

Moderator

ne6togadno

PLSG08

yotano211

PerfectWave

PLSG08

yotano211

Grog6

PLSG08

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