Hot 7970 matrix plat.. RMA?

Curly · 9 Oct 2013 at 17:24

Hi, bought an asus 7970 matrix platinum the other day. Installed it out of the box, played 10 mins of BF3 and my PC crashed. It wouldn't start again until everything cooled down (it was pretty hot).
Ran BF3 again but this time monitored temps and had the case side off.
It ran at 100% hovering around 73 Deg C (CPU ~ 50%, 55 C).
Seemed a bit hot for out of the box settings with the side off? Have a cooler master elite 334 midi case.
Had a bit of a fiddle and boosted the fan speeds, its settling ~67C.
Is this normal? grounds for RMA? or should I just make do?

Cheers,
Chris.

kefan77 · 9 Oct 2013 at 17:25

what's the PSU? what drivers did you use?

Curly · 9 Oct 2013 at 18:09

amd catalyst 13.9 for win7 64 bit.
cooler master 500W silent pro modular - I know 500W is a bit low for this card but read reviews which put full system use at around 400W under heavy gaming load and sub 450W under benchmark loading.
Having read around a bit more it sounds like these cards do run pretty hot..

Something Else · 9 Oct 2013 at 18:12

Nothing wrong with those temps. When you saying running at 100% do you mean the cooling fans on the gpu?

Addicted · 9 Oct 2013 at 18:15

67c idle or under load? 67c idle is hot for a 7970 imo.

Pics of case? Sounds like you have real bad airflow imo.

Geeman1979 · 9 Oct 2013 at 18:17

Curly said:
Hi, bought an asus 7970 matrix platinum the other day. Installed it out of the box, played 10 mins of BF3 and my PC crashed. It wouldn't start again until everything cooled down (it was pretty hot).
Ran BF3 again but this time monitored temps and had the case side off.
It ran at 100% hovering around 73 Deg C (CPU ~ 50%, 55 C).
Seemed a bit hot for out of the box settings with the side off? Have a cooler master elite 334 midi case.
Had a bit of a fiddle and boosted the fan speeds, its settling ~67C.
Is this normal? grounds for RMA? or should I just make do?

Cheers,
Chris.

73 degrees is not that hot at all under load considering the stock volts are around the 1.256v mark. I own a couple of these that reach around the same temps if I use the stock fan profile. I just set my own custom fan profile using Gpu tweak.

Curly · 9 Oct 2013 at 18:17

Ah that's OK then, thanks.
Thats the GPU at 100%. Asus GPU tweak/monitor doesn't seem to give correct fan speed readings.. says 33% constant on the fans but I can hear them rev up and down.
I was just worried after it crashed first go out of the box.

Curly · 9 Oct 2013 at 18:19

nah 67c under heavy load after I stuck the fans on a manual profile. Presumably it got a bit hotter first go with the case shut and the standard fan profile.

Panos · 9 Oct 2013 at 18:50

Use an aggressive fan profile to hit 100% fan @ 60C and you will be fine.

Kaapstad · 9 Oct 2013 at 22:26

I use two of these in cf and for benching the top one hits 77c

DJ_Bucho · 10 Oct 2013 at 08:56

Those temps seem well within tolerence I'd say. Personally I always setup a custom fan profile for my graphics cards, as genrally a little tweak makes them run a good bit cooler with not a huge amount of difference in noise

Gibbo · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:04

Hi there

As others have stated the temperatures are absolute fine.

However with the Matrix Platinum due to its huge physical size we've found its cooling solution although excellent only works to its optimum ability in larger cases or on an open bench. It does not work so well in smaller chassis, for example in a Prodigy case it will simply over-heat unless you have a very cool room or excellent airflow.

Addicted · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:07

67c under load is absolutely fine, you'd only need to worry at 80c+, and you're far from it!

pastymuncher · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:20

That psu only has 408w on the 12v rails. Just because a psu says a certain wattage on the label does'nt mean it can deliver it on the 12v rails where it's needed most. They make up the total on the minor rails which are not so important these days. Always read reviews and double check what a psu is actually capable of before buying. This is a very good source and is constantly updated.

Nickolp1974 · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:23

Gibbo said:
Hi there

As others have stated the temperatures are absolute fine.

However with the Matrix Platinum due to its huge physical size we've found its cooling solution although excellent only works to its optimum ability in larger cases or on an open bench. It does not work so well in smaller chassis, for example in a Prodigy case it will simply over-heat unless you have a very cool room or excellent airflow.

So having 2 in a 540 air with a 360 rad in the front may not be a good idea?

Kaapstad · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:31

Nickolp1974 said:
So having 2 in a 540 air with a 360 rad in the front may not be a good idea?

I am not familiar with your setup but when I use my two they can get very warm in a Corsair 800D.

As Gibbo said you really need good airflow, more so if using two.

Nickolp1974 · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:41

240 rad in top exhausting, 360 rad front intake, rear fan exhaust, with 2x matrix there would be no gap between cards.
I can fit 2 more 120's in the floor as intakes but this would only help the bottom card which tbh won't be the problem, question is do I buy the very rare now water blocks or think about different card?

mmj_uk · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:50

73C load is quite cool by 7970 standards tbh.

It might be the factory overclock which is causing stability problems, or as mentioned your power supply.

Jono8 · 10 Oct 2013 at 09:50

Sounds like a psu issue. It's probably fairly power hungry that card isn't it?

Gibbo · 10 Oct 2013 at 10:04

mmj_uk said:
73C load is quite cool by 7970 standards tbh.

It might be the factory overclock which is causing stability problems, or as mentioned your power supply.

Never known a Matrix to have issues with its stock OC, they are pretty much the only HD 7970GHz that will all clock to 1200MHz+ with ease and most do 1250-1350.

PSU no doubt as that card can probably pull easily 250-300W when under-load.