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6850/6870 Idle temps

spirits247

spirits247

spirits247

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Joined
29 Jan 2007
Posts
727
I have this 6850 as it's shorter and fits in my small desktop case:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-253-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

It's a great card and I'm ready to do some overclocking. :)

The idle temp is confusing me however - at default 2D clocks (GPU 100 Mem 300) it's already hitting 46C. My Sapphire 5770 had higher 2D clocks I think, something like 157/300, but lower temps - 37C in the same case.

The 46C seems like it's not clocking down in 2D, but Catalyst 10.10 says it is.

What are peoples idle 2D temps with the 6850/70 series?
 
My 5850 idles at 2 degrees above ambient :) probably to do with my prolimatech mk13 though.

anything under 50 for idle will be fine as long as load temps don't go obscene and i'm talking 85-90+
 
My MSI 6850 is idling at 36-37 right now. It only goes up to 46ish when watching stuff on youtube for example, which is when the speeds go up to 300core and 1000mem.

While its not overly concerning, it does seem a bit strange. maybe run furmark for 5min and see what your max temp is?
 
Thanks for the input guys. Ok, here are some temp readings, idle, load:

sapphire6850idle.gif
sapphire6850load.gif


Also get some strange bumps occasionally, up to max clocks, without doing anything other than running GPU-Z. Don't know what that's about (still have idle 47C without these):

sapphire6850speedbumps.gif


It could be the low fan RPM - this card is near silent. Just thought it strange that 2D was so much higher than my 5770, when these card use a little less power on idle according to the reviews.

Load temp under OCCT/Furmark looks ominous for default clocks. 81C. Perhaps I won't be overclocking after all, although normal gaming will be at least 10C lower.
 
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Furmark pushes my GPU to extreme temperatures.

My GTS250 idles at about 35c and never goes above about 57c while playing games. However, Furmark managed to push it above 80, by which time I was getting scared and stopped immediately. Do some gaming or run a benchmark like 3dmark 11 to get some real-world temps.
 
Hi Liam, yeah I'm not really concerned about the load temp - it seems fairly normal for Furmark/OCCT tests and as you say, even the most demanding game is at least 10C less.

It was more the idle temps at default clock - it's 10C higher than my previous 5770, yet all the reviews say it uses less power at idle with its slower (than a 5770) 100/300 clocks. It's still a 40nm chip, so I was wondering if it's clocking down properly or if it was just the case of a low rpm on the cooler. SOmetimes you get dodgy bios/driver combinations, or perhaps the heatsink isn't flush.

That's why I'm interested as to what others are getting as I want to overclock and overvolt using Sapphires official Trixx utility - otherwise, the temps wouldn't bother me in the slightest. I was hoping to get a min 950 on the core and 1250 on the mem, which seems very realistic going by others reports who push towards 1000/1300+ (that's getting a little scary to me on 1 PCI-E connector!!!).
 
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gareth170 how come your 6870 is at 0.900v idle? I thought they were all 0.945v. Explains your low temp - must have a well ventilated case and no central heating too. :p
 
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I've searched around the net and some cards have low idle temps, and others have the high idle temps. I can find a few the same model as mine either side as well, so it's not fan RPM.

For instance, high idle:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...rd-review-temps-noise-power-overclocking.html

Something strange is going on. I don't believe this card is at 100/300 0.945v and idling at 47C / 16W. You'd expect 37C or lower @ 16W, especially in UK winter! My house is quite cool during the day! Also weird is my fan has to go towards 4000 rpm, 83-90%, to keep the card cool under max load (furmark). Again, others seem to hitting 50% fan speed only, but load temp of 80-81C is spot on with others. The heatsink looks to be mounted fine. Thank goodness the fan is quiet, even at this high speed. It's so quiet, I wonder if GPU-Z is reporting the correct RPM.

Perhaps the card had a cold temp bug and they decided to heat them up a little! Or maybe I'm sitting on a 1120 shader 6850, and it just needs a new bios to use those extra shaders (I wish).

Plus I've found others who have witnessed this strange speed bump thing as shown above in GPU-Z. That can't be good for power consumption!
 
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Thanks Dave, looks like you've got similar temps to me.

What app is that? HWmonitor? I've got version 1.17 but it doesn't recognise it and all the details like your card. Is your card a 6870?

Also, what did you use to overclock? I tried Sapphire Trixx, but it prevents the voltage from going back to 0.95 in 2D clocks (100/300) - it gets stuck at 1.145 making me idle even higher in 2D - 57C!!! It did give me a nice overclock though.

Talking about overclock - it made little difference to load temps in Lost Planet 2 DX11 1080p 8xAA - 75C with core at 950 and mem at 1150. Haven't gone higher on the core or touched the default 3D voltage, but the mem seems to max out at 1200 - I required 1190 for total game stability, but backed down to 1150 just to be sure it's working at its best.

BTW Lost Planet 2 free benchmark is the best tool in my opinion to test game stability - test A is HARSH on tiny instabilities. I've had cards pass Furmark and OCCT, but fail in certain games and always this test A at max settings!!!
 
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Open Hardware Monitor Beta 0.2.1, and I have a XFX 6870 Black Edition.
Yes Trixx 0.4.21, it downclocks and lowers voltage for 2D clocks for me ok?
 
I was using GPU-Z, but as you pointed out in this thread it doesn't read the voltage drop in 2D once you use Trixx: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18212102

Strange that one. Open HWMonitor (thanks by the way, it's great!) does show the drop. The thing is, my Idle temp has risen to 51C after using Trixx - so I think the voltage isn't dropping in 2D and GPU-Z got it right. You can have a go yourself - disable Trixx, switch your machine off (A reboot isn't good enough) and then boot into Windows and check your idle temp at stock. It will probably be lower. Or simply change the voltage in Trixx and see if your idle temp increases (mine does). If the card is dropping back to 100/300 0.945v under 2D, then you should see no increase in idle temp when altering voltages in Trixx.

My idle temps are still high compared to most people, and the fan working harder than most others at load. Since your using Trixx too, it means my idle temps are on averge 8-9C higher than many others, with the select few having a similar temp to me (the1gooner and that review I posted). My last 5770 was the same idle temp as everyone else, so it's not the PC case.

It's also continuing to do these crazy speed bumps - jumping up to max core randomly even with Aero disabled as shown in my GPU-Z snapshot above. Oh the joy of owning new hardware!

At least the card itself is quiet and works perfectly. According to Google, some people have reported black screen crashes with 6850's at default speeds and had to change their clocks/voltages: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=6850+black+screen&meta=
 
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Ok, I've worked out one way to activate the max clock speed bumps at idle, as shown in GPU-Z. When I scroll using my PS2 middle mouse wheel in a browser, the clocks go up to max!!!! It isn't the ONLY way - I still get bumps whilst not touching the mouse.

Must be a strange driver bug or a problem with my install in Win7 64bit.
 
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