Hey all,

Dumb newb, here. Installed my new graphics card (Sapphire Radeon 6850 -- thanks to those on these forums who gave me advice! ) Tuesday night, started playing last night, ran into a little problem. The game ran great, and looked gorgeous, but I kept careful tabs on my GPU temperature, since this is the first dedicated graphics card I've ever owned, and I've heard that temperature is vitally important for the overall life of the hardware.

Soon after startup, the Sapphire's onboard software measured its temperatures at around 68 degrees Celsius. By the end of a good three/four-hour playthrough, I was at 78 degrees. From what I gather, that's not a good temperature for long-term gaming -- and I want to play this game for the long haul without damaging the computer that I'm still paying off.

Am I overreacting? Is this temperature okay? If not, what should I do? Are there any good cooling options available for the card I'm using?

Just a forewarning... you are going to get many different opinions on what temperature is ok for your card. For me personally, I like to keep my card below 60degrees C.

The stock fans for that card should be sufficient... how is the airflow in your case? The problem might be that you don't have enough fresh air getting into your case, so your GPU is just circulating hot air. One thing you can also check is to make sure you are nice and dusted off and make sure all fans are clean of build up.

Thanks for the quick reply!

Well, the card is new, and I blew out the case before installing it, so I don't think there's a lot of dusty buildup. That said, the new power supply I picked up had a lot of extra cords, so space is a little tight. The GPU's fan points down, and it is close to the bottom of the computer, so there is definitely the possibility that hot air is building up in the case. I suppose a temporary fix would be to loosen or slide back the side panel, to give a bigger zone of egress, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that in the long term.

Just a forewarning... you are going to get many different opinions on what temperature is ok for your card. For me personally, I like to keep my card below 60degrees C.

Part of this isn't opinion though. Different cards have different tolerances, just like CPU's. Newer cards, especially, can handle higher temps. For example: For the Nvidia 500 series and ATI 6000 series, high-70's to low-80's are pretty normal "high use" temps. SWTOR seems do a very good job of making use of the graphics card, and not offloading it all to the CPU which you see a lot in newer games.

AMD themselves say that anything below 100C is acceptable.

Thanks for the quick reply!

 

Well, the card is new, and I blew out the case before installing it, so I don't think there's a lot of dusty buildup. That said, the new power supply I picked up had a lot of extra cords, so space is a little tight. The GPU's fan points down, and it is close to the bottom of the computer, so there is definitely the possibility that hot air is building up in the case. I suppose a temporary fix would be to loosen or slide back the side panel, to give a bigger zone of egress, but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that in the long term.

Ultimately it is hard to troubleshoot when I'm not actually there, the only thing I can reiterate is to just make sure you have sufficient airflow in your case. That means making sure you have fans that are pushing the cool air in from one direction while the other fans on the opposite side push the hot air out. If you GPU is close to the bottom of your case and there is really no way to get it higher so that the fans can push the hot air away more effectively, the only thing I would recommend is getting a better case. They are not that expensive and they go a long way to making your entire system run much cooler.

Your temperature looks to be within the ranges tested here:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1053/pg20/amd-radeon-6870-and-6850-graphics-card-review-temps-noise-power-overclocking.html

Its below what they got at full load .. so, I suspect you're safe.

Your temperature looks to be within the ranges tested here:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1053/pg20/amd-radeon-6870-and-6850-graphics-card-review-temps-noise-power-overclocking.html

 

Its below what they got at full load .. so, I suspect you're safe.

Thank you so much; that was precisely the info I had been looking for last night but had been unable to find.

Part of this isn't opinion though. Different cards have different tolerances, just like CPU's. Newer cards, especially, can handle higher temps. For example: For the Nvidia 500 series and ATI 6000 series, high-70's to low-80's are pretty normal "high use" temps. SWTOR seems do a very good job of making use of the graphics card, and not offloading it all to the CPU which you see a lot in newer games.

True, I gave that generality only because many people think cards have a universal limit. I know that the failsafe on my GPU (ATI Radon 6870) is around 75 degrees.

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