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New XFX 6950 - issues?

McB

McB

McB

Associate
Joined
5 Mar 2007
Posts
247
Location
Cheshire --> Cambridge
Ok, so I got all spendy yesterday and picked up a new XFX 6950 for Christmas, as haven't bought any PC bits for a year or so, the Pc needed a treat.

First up this thing is loud, much more noticeable than the 4870 1GB it replaced but its like a whiney fan whir above 30% rather than the 'whoosh' of air. Blew out the dust, checked all the wires made sure nothing was rubbing, still whiney.

Not sure if its my case (Antec P180) but the idle temps are 50C+ after a while, hitting 90C in some games with auto fan speed on. I think I might need a new case with a side fan blowing on it, as not a big gap to suck air under it from the front intake.

Also, have only had chance to test with Just Cause 2 and WoW so far. WoW had little or no improvement in FPS, still 30-40 in some busy areas like Stormwind. Just Cause was better, much smoother.

Am I being picky here as its my first new graphics card for a while, or does something sound wrong here? I know its still early days for drivers but fact its noisy and hitting 90C is worrying me when old 4870 didn't.
 
WOW's engine is frankly terrible. For what it's actually doing for what it's producing, it isn't good. It's old, so it's doing the best it can. But it also means it's hugely CPU dependant for the most part.
 
Hmm, I suppose. I guess running at 1920 x 1200 with only a e8400 it aint doing so bad.

It's the fan noise and high temps that are worrying me, even now after leaving idle for an hour its 47C. Plus with that fan noise, have I got a bad 'un?
 
If you have the new Cataclysm expansion for WoW, apparently the DX11 version they have added (as a kind of beta) works pretty well. I haven't tried it myself but I read it somewhere (might have been on Tom's Hardware). There is a command line switch to activate it.

As for the noise and temps, my 6970 idles at 39C (although the room is pretty cold at the moment) and I don't think I've noticed the fan at all, even while playing games and it goes up to 78C. I do have 2 computers next to me though and so they might be drowning out the sound naturally. The case with the 6970 in is a Corsair 800D so lots of room for the air to move about.
 
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