• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

5970 60c at idle, 100c at load is this normal?

travismoore

travismoore

travismoore

Associate
Joined
2 Mar 2009
Posts
33
Hi,

I bought this card second hand and I am trying to establish if these operating temps are normal. I have put new thermal paste and tape on the card in hopes of lowering the temps. They are still about the same as before I did this.

I am using Speedfan to control the speeds, at 35% fan speed idle is anywhere from 55C-65C. Usually 60+

I tested it with Furmark 15 min stress test, It was hitting 100C the whole time with fan at 100%.

Is this normal for this card or is there something wrong?


Any help is appreciated
 
Sounds normal if you were running furmark.

To be honest, generally we don't recommend people running furmark as it stress cards to unrealistic level. Just go download something like Heaven Benchmark or Valley Benchmark and use that intead.

You have to bear in mind that the 5970 is a dual-GPU card that has relatively high power consumption, thus more waste heat and leading to higher temp. While those temps are "common" for the 5970 with the stock cooler, it's be if you can improve its cooling such as by replacing the stock cooler with a 3rd party cooler such as Arctic Cooling or something.

I would suggest you check the stock cooler as well and may be even give it a clean to make sure there's no carpet of dust stuck in the heatsink of the cooler. Cleaning off the old thermal paste and replacing with freah paste should help in dropping the temp as well.
 
I would like to use a 3rd party cooler, I have a Zalman one on my 5850 and it works flawlessly. However I can't find one that will fit the 5970 anywhere, well not a new one at least. If anyone knows where I can pick an aftermarket fan/heatsink up I would love to know.

I did take the card apart yesterday cleaned it,applied new thermal tape and thermal paste. That's why I am surprised at the high temps.
 
travismoore said:
I would like to use a 3rd party cooler, I have a Zalman one on my 5850 and it works flawlessly. However I can't find one that will fit the 5970 anywhere, well not a new one at least. If anyone knows where I can pick an aftermarket fan/heatsink up I would love to know.

I did take the card apart yesterday cleaned it,applied new thermal tape and thermal paste. That's why I am surprised at the high temps.
Click to expand...
Did you made sure you didn't use too much thermal paste? The GPU only need a small amount to spread...if too much and going off the edge, it might end up trapping the heat rather than efficienting tranfering the heat from the GPU to the heatsink. A grain of rice size paste in the middle and then press it down with the heatsink should be plenty.
 
60 degrees idle is WAY too high, especially if you've literally just reapplied TIM and cleaned the fans, you've probably messed up on the seating/amount of TIM applied.

The 5970 is a notoriously hot card, but there's a difference between hot under load, and being 35+ degrees above room temp at idle.
 
I don't think I put too much paste on, I recently reapplied the paste on my 5850 and its running great. Used the X method.

I just did a little research though and maybe the thermal tape I used was too thick. I used 1mm thick and from looking online people suggest 0.5mm will this maybe be the problem?
 
Your problem is you are using Furmark to burn the card and trying to damage it with a program most people that understand how graphics cards work would never use. Stick to gaming tests and 3dmark sorts of tests. Furmark behaves in a manner that no normal game would. Also the 5970's run hot they are dual gpu cards.

If you say the temps have not changed much since you changed the TIM and tape then the tape is fine at 1mm. Also if you made sure to tighten the gpu screws down correctly then you applied enough pressure on the TIM and tape to make good contact.

If you like your 5970 and want it to live don't use Furmark because that will damage the power circuitry on the board.

These are the sort of temps you should see if you game at full load it should hit about 85c and idle at 55c, these were temps done on an open bench so more air flow. So add in a few c for closed case about 5c-10c depending on the air flow in the case.

Do a game test like BF4 and set a GPU-Z to log temps and you will see it will never go to 100c at full load in games and real world situations, Furmark is not real world, I and many others class Furmark a virus.
 
Last edited:
Didn't realise furmark was harmful I won't use it again in the future.

@pandem0nium
So if I used that for the GPU's and replaced the thermal pads do you think it would help the temps overall? I have already cleaned all the dust out. As far as air flow goes I have good cable management and there are 7 case fans running.

I'm not really using the card for gaming I am using it for mining that is why I am concerned about sustained high temps as it will be running at high loads for a long periods of time.

Also wanted to ask is it normal at idle the the card to utilise one GPU much more than the other. I had noticed as load increases the one core gets hotter much faster than the other. Maybe due to the wrong size thermal pads effecting the contact the GPU is making with the heatsink?
regserge_zpsd1c705a0.jpg
 
Last edited:
travismoore said:
Didn't realise furmark was harmful I won't use it again in the future.

@pandem0nium
So if I used that for the GPU's and replaced the thermal pads do you think it would help the temps overall? I have already cleaned all the dust out. As far as air flow goes I have good cable management and there are 7 case fans running.

I'm not really using the card for gaming I am using it for mining that is why I am concerned about sustained high temps as it will be running at high loads for a long periods of time.

Also wanted to ask is it normal at idle the the card to utilise one GPU much more than the other. I had noticed as load increases the one core gets hotter much faster than the other. Maybe due to the wrong size thermal pads effecting the contact the GPU is making with the heatsink?
regserge_zpsd1c705a0.jpg
Click to expand...
From the look of the screencap, the GPU1 is not downclocking so powerplay is not kicking in for it, so that would explain the high idle temp.
 
I only have chrome open with 1 tab (this forum) and GPU-Z. Its still doing the same thing, Also now the one core is sitting at 70C and the other at 65C when I am doing essentially nothing on the PC.
 
Last edited:
travismoore said:
Didn't realise furmark was harmful I won't use it again in the future.

@pandem0nium
So if I used that for the GPU's and replaced the thermal pads do you think it would help the temps overall? I have already cleaned all the dust out. As far as air flow goes I have good cable management and there are 7 case fans running.
Click to expand...

Yep, I use it on all my gpus. Makes a good few degrees difference to the temps.
Make sure you clean the HS and core surface properly with isopropyl alcohol.

What are your load temps while mining?
 
SouthEastBlue said:
Do you have more than one screen? This makes your GPU idle higher than normal (using one screen).
Click to expand...
ahh ok, that explains it I do run two monitors.


pandem0nium said:
Yep, I use it on all my gpus. Makes a good few degrees difference to the temps.
Make sure you clean the HS and core surface properly with isopropyl alcohol.

What are your load temps while mining?
Click to expand...
It's hard to say I haven't managed to leave it running for any amount of time because It seems no matter what settings I try within 30 sec-1 min the temps jump up into the 90's
 
Were the old/stock ones that tatty you needed to change them? Any pads to be fair matey, as long as they're 0.5mm thick as per stock...or however thick your stock ones are lol :D
 
Stock ones where pretty bad, when I opened it up some of them came off half on the chips and half on the heatsink. Also some of them where disintegrating. From what I've found online it should be a combination of some 0.5mm and some 1mm found this diagram I am going to follow. Hopefully all the stuff will arrive Tuesday so I can get it sorted.
Radeon_HD_5970-1_zps570fe7f9.jpg



Thanks again for all the help :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom