Confusion about temperature HD 7970

[harkot]

Hello everyone, I bought my XFX 7970 DD GHz edition about 3 weeks ago, and I ran some benchmarks just to see max temps.

I ran MSI Kombustor test for like 10 minutes (furry msi letters) and my card got up to 89 °C at 99% load.
I also ran my card on extreme setting on Heaven Benchmark for more then 10 minutes, and as I was looking at GPU-Z log which was running at the time, max temperature was 79°C also at 99% load.

So can someone please explain this to me, why is there 10°C difference when load is 99% in both applications.
Also, as I was looking at lots of 7970 benchmarks, temperatures at full load are nowhere near 89°C, so I was wondering, in which application is that GPU load measured, some game or some gpu stress application???

 

[DarkOCean]

So can someone please explain this to me, why is there 10°C difference when load is 99% in both applications.

because it stresses every fiber of that gpu at the same time wich a game will never do.

Also, as I was looking at lots of 7970 benchmarks, temperatures at full load are nowhere near 89°C, so I was wondering, in which application is that GPU load measured, some game or some gpu stress application???

games.

 

[Kaynar]

I also have this card that I bought last year in february. Therefore I have the reference design while you probably have the newer customized PCB.

I would like to know what is your fan speed when the card works at 89c inai MSI kombustor and at 79c in Heaven benchmark. Also please let us know about your ambient temperature and you system case.

In case you didn't know, your CPU must be a great bottleneck to this GPU, no matter how much you overclock it. Also, if you have the stock intel cooler, the heat coming from the CPU land directly on the GPU core which causes high temps.

I have run my XFX 7970 BEDD at 1125/1425 in a corsair 800D and a high end Lian Li case and the temp difference is about 8c higher in the lian-li! (ofc i plan to mod the lian li case).

As for my own temps, at around 20c ambient and a good airflow, I get max 68c with 55% fan speed in tomb raider and 71c at 55% fan speed in Furmark. Heaven will also go to 68c. I am using MSI AB with custom profile to have fans spinning at 25% when temp is below 45c, spinning at 45% when temp is below 60c and 55% when temps are above that. I have changed the thermal paste to IC Diamond which caused a 4c drop on games when fan is at 55%.

Not setting any fan profile will also make my card go above 80c and I really don't like that. I guess XFX went with a very "soft" fan profile in their bios which waits alot before increasing fan speed, so that they can advertise low noise. Don't forget that you could always possibly get a dodgy hot card (eg bad thermal paste application).
I hope this helps.

 

[harkot]

I also have this card that I bought last year in february. Therefore I have the reference design while you probably have the newer customized PCB.

I would like to know what is your fan speed when the card works at 89c inai MSI kombustor and at 79c in Heaven benchmark. Also please let us know about your ambient temperature and you system case.

In case you didn't know, your CPU must be a great bottleneck to this GPU, no matter how much you overclock it. Also, if you have the stock intel cooler, the heat coming from the CPU land directly on the GPU core which causes high temps.

I have run my XFX 7970 BEDD at 1125/1425 in a corsair 800D and a high end Lian Li case and the temp difference is about 8c higher in the lian-li! (ofc i plan to mod the lian li case).

As for my own temps, at around 20c ambient and a good airflow, I get max 68c with 55% fan speed in tomb raider and 71c at 55% fan speed in Furmark. Heaven will also go to 68c. I am using MSI AB with custom profile to have fans spinning at 25% when temp is below 45c, spinning at 45% when temp is below 60c and 55% when temps are above that. I have changed the thermal paste to IC Diamond which caused a 4c drop on games when fan is at 55%.

Not setting any fan profile will also make my card go above 80c and I really don't like that. I guess XFX went with a very "soft" fan profile in their bios which waits alot before increasing fan speed, so that they can advertise low noise. Don't forget that you could always possibly get a dodgy hot card (eg bad thermal paste application).
I hope this helps.

Unfortunately I forgot at which speed fans were spining when it reached 89c in kombustor but I can tell you it surely didn't go over 55%. In heaven benchmark, fans were at max at 45% (around 2130 rpm). I also played tomb raider, and got 86c (fans were at 52%, 2480 rpm), GPU load was 99%. That's absolutely true what you said, fan profiles are very very soft, they are just going up very slow.

Also I got this case which is pretty bad: https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/...tXWUPfwLexGhDofH-hxFL0YQYZrhYuyNQVTiZyP8wMCr2

It's important to say that I had to remove one side of the case because temperatures were just WAAAY to high. I could feel the heat coming from the case when it was fully closed, the whole case was hot as hell, airflow is pretty bad in it, and also my stock CPU cooler is not doing a job so well. Btw, my ambient temp is around 25c.

Anyway I'm planing on buying new case because I don't like having it opened on the side, just don't know which is good enough to manage to get all that heat out, and I'm waiting for the Intel's haswell series to come out so I can replace this bottlenecking cpu.

 

[Kaynar]

Damn that case is lol...

Alright then your temps looks normal for what you got, though maybe slightly on the hot side. Try setting a fan profile in MSI AB but with that case and the CPU cooler blowing right on your card, you wont manage to get much lower temps

A good airflow in the case is critical. Even by changing stock fans on my 800D I got huge temp drops on CPU and GPU. (stock Corsair 800D fans and configuration is very lacking).

 

[harkot]

Yes I know the case is very bad, getting new asap .
Just wanted to ask you one more question.

Did you ever experienced some kind of 1 sec flicker on your card. I noticed that sometimes, in games or even on desktop my screen just jumps for split of a sec. I also read that this can happen when gpu is changing it's clock speeds but I'm not sure what it is

 

[Kaynar]

A flicker or a hiccup?
No I haven't experienced this under normal conditions.
Typical troubleshooting is:
-Insufficient/underperfoming PSU
-Driver bug/issue, which I used to have with a very precise now old catalyst version. (ONLY with DVI - not with DP which I now use).
-Overheat may cause instabilities such as a short hiccup. If your card is at 89c your capacitors must be on their limit.
-Dodgy card - I've heard other XFX 7970 users complaining of this.
-Your old CPU/mobo.

 

[harkot]

I don't know how to explain that, its not flicker really, the screen just kinda jumps for a split sec and that's it. It can happen like every hour or so.

Well I think my new PSU (corsair tx 650) is not the problem. Also, this can happen when gpu is on idle, while I'm not doing anything so temp is not the problem either. As I remember, I noticed that problem recently, I don't remember that it happened when I bought the card, so I really don't know. (I read that it has something to do with memory dumping, but not sure if that's my problem).

 

[Kaynar]

Hm... you should search abit more on the internet for this or write a new forum thread for this. But I read about this often and I've experienced it with Catalyst 12.4 and 12.5 on a daily basis (using DVI). It is not a clocking problem because it may happen in a game or in desktop where clocks are stable. Are you running applications with Vsync on? Try to force Vsync through CCC to run in all games and even in desktop. Wait for your CPU/mobo upgrade before saying the card has a problem though.

 

[harkot]

Thanks for the help, I guess everything is ok with my gpu, will try to replace DVI with HDMI cable and see what happens

 

[douglatins]

dem furries