Sapphire 7870XT potential issue?

[riskyfrisky]

Howdy!

I've got a strange noise coming from my 7870XT and i'm not sure what to do?

At first i thought it was coil whine but, after doing some detective work, it seems that it's the fans. They're set to 40% idle speeds because of the hotter weather and it's definitely noticeable. It's like a rattling sound, perhaps the bearings?

Do i have any options here? The card is only a few months old, but it was a direct replacement for a HIS 7870 card, which also turned out to be faulty. Would OCUK even consider it to be faulty considering the card still technically works?

 

[mickyflinn]

If your gpu is making an unusual noise which was not be then im sure you would have a legitimate case.

Give them a call.

 

[FreeStream]

I wouldn't bother upping your idle fan speed due to the weather...

Only load temperatures matter!!

 

[riskyfrisky]

I wouldn't bother upping your idle fan speed due to the weather...

Only load temperatures matter!!

You wouldn't be saying that if you lived here trust me! The card was idling at 41 degrees in a room which is around 33 degrees. That's unacceptable for a card with a decent cooler so i upped fan speed from 30% to 40%. The PC is on practically all day so it does make a difference.

 

[riskyfrisky]

Gave OCUK a ring and they supplied an RMA - if it's found to be faulty they will refund monies which I will then use to buy another GPU. Great service as usual.

 

[arc@css]

The card was idling at 41 degrees in a room which is around 33 degrees. That's unacceptable for a card with a decent cooler so i upped fan speed from 30% to 40%.

I don't think it's bad at all, though perhaps a little more than expected, maybe. Anyway, you have an rma in progress, so I wish you the best with that.

 

[Gibbo3771]

I had this problem, it normally happened around the 55% fan mark.

It has since stopped doing it, I think it was the cheap plastic shroud around it, after some 80° benchmarks it seems to have settled in. Perhaps the plastic just needed a very slight warp

 

[riskyfrisky]

I don't think it's bad at all, though perhaps a little more than expected, maybe. Anyway, you have an rma in progress, so I wish you the best with that.

Cheers. Yeah we'll see what happens, personally I am pretty sure they're going to ship it back to me and say that it's not faulty though because the problem doesn't occur all the time, but we'll see.

I had this problem, it normally happened around the 55% fan mark.

It has since stopped doing it, I think it was the cheap plastic shroud around it, after some 80° benchmarks it seems to have settled in. Perhaps the plastic just needed a very slight warp

The cooler is not all that good to begin with though, certainly not as good as I thought it would be. The fans are louder than I was expecting, and I really don't want the plastic shroud to have to warp in order to solve rattling noises; it should have been made the right size and shape to begin with. I couldn't actually see the fan hitting the shroud anywhere so I think it's the fan itself - perhaps the bearings.

 

[arc@css]

Yes, I was quite surprised to read about this since the Sapphire versions has, iirc, the best cooler on it.

Yeah, could quite possibly be the bearings. It generally seems that the 7870XT (any version) run a little warmer than the rest of the AMD 7000 range, but nothing significant at all.

 

[riskyfrisky]

Okay an update, and a request for advice on what to do next.

The Sapphire card is faulty, so i'm looking at what to get as a replacement, but there are complications. I've got a limited budget, and i'm limited by my PSU (full spec in sig, but the PSU is a 520w Corsair). The budget is £400 give or take, but it must be worthwhile.

I'm fed up having to settle for toned-down settings in most of the games I play (at 1920x1200) but i'm unsure to what extent i'm bottlenecked by my Phenom II 975. I REALLY don't want to build a new rig from scratch but realistically how much of a bottleneck is the AMD CPU? Bad enough to consider a new platform or not?

I am seriously tempted by a GTX 770 but know that it will also require a new PSU. That combination comes to about £430 but, the question is, would it be worth it? When I build PCs for friends and family I know exactly what I want, but when it comes to my own I can never make my mind up lol.

I was disappointed with the 7870 XT, the HIS 7870 it replaced (which was also faulty) got me exactly double the FPS of the 5850 I had before it, yet the XT was below this, even though it was a stronger card (no overclocking). I also found the minimum frame rate for both 7870s were really low at 8 fps, measured with Heaven, so i'm looking for a decent boost to the minimum FPS this time around.

 

[arc@css]

I think there will be a bottleneck in most games, though that doesn't mean to say that the experience you will get won't be 'adequate' in some titles with your current cpu. However, being honest, I think if you were to say use a 3570K / 4670K, you'd notice a big difference - particularly with minimum frame rates. I see you have your cpu overclocked to 3.6. I would try and push that a bit more if possible if your staying with it for the time being.

Your psu is about adequate for the high end AMD 7000 series, though I think Nvidia recommend a 600w for a 770. Both firms tend to over estimate the requirements, though in your case it looks to be quite close.

Bottom line : me personally, I would put the funds into a new cpu / mobo. I was using a Q6600 with an overclocked GTX480, and this was a very good set up for my needs at 1200p. However, there were occasions where the minimums dropped too low in some games / mods. When I upgraded the difference was quite noticeable. I'm glad I did.

 

[teppic]

You said that you got better performance with the 7870 over the 7870 XT (definitely something wrong there), but was the performance with the 7870 ok, or did you have to reduce settings in most games?

 

[CyberCrow]

There's no chance he would need reduce settings im running a Sap 7850 an it runs every thing on max with nice frame rates.

 

[murah]

You wouldn't be saying that if you lived here trust me! The card was idling at 41 degrees in a room which is around 33 degrees. That's unacceptable for a card with a decent cooler so i upped fan speed from 30% to 40%. The PC is on practically all day so it does make a difference.

on what planet is this not acceptable, In fact its pretty much the norm for summer!

 

[murah]

i'm limited by my PSU (full spec in sig, but the PSU is a 520w Corsair).

I am seriously tempted by a GTX 770 but know that it will also require a new PSU.

Unless you are running 20 fans, 10 hard drives and a million LED's i cant see 520w being a problem for a 770

 

[riskyfrisky]

I think there will be a bottleneck in most games, though that doesn't mean to say that the experience you will get won't be 'adequate' in some titles with your current cpu. However, being honest, I think if you were to say use a 3570K / 4670K, you'd notice a big difference - particularly with minimum frame rates. I see you have your cpu overclocked to 3.6. I would try and push that a bit more if possible if your staying with it for the time being.

Your psu is about adequate for the high end AMD 7000 series, though I think Nvidia recommend a 600w for a 770. Both firms tend to over estimate the requirements, though in your case it looks to be quite close.

Bottom line : me personally, I would put the funds into a new cpu / mobo. I was using a Q6600 with an overclocked GTX480, and this was a very good set up for my needs at 1200p. However, there were occasions where the minimums dropped too low in some games / mods. When I upgraded the difference was quite noticeable. I'm glad I did.

The CPU isn't overclocked, it's running at stock 3.6Ghz. Yeah Nvidia do recommend a 600w PSU for a 770, and they also state that it must provide 42 amps through the 12v rail. The card draws 'up to' 250w according to the website. I've looked at my PSU and it states there are 3 12v rails, each with 18 amps, so that works out to 54 amps total. It's definitely close.

You said that you got better performance with the 7870 over the 7870 XT (definitely something wrong there), but was the performance with the 7870 ok, or did you have to reduce settings in most games?

There's no chance he would need reduce settings im running a Sap 7850 an it runs every thing on max with nice frame rates.

Yeah that's God's honest truth, though i'm only going by benchmarks rather than through games themselves. The only reason I can think of why that is, is because the HIS GPU was clocked at 1000Mhz, where as the Sapphire XT was clocked at 925Mhz, then 975Mhz through boost.

The only game I could run maxed out was DiRT 3, all other games required me to turn down settings at 1920x1200.

 

[arc@css]

Yeah, your cpu is holding you back. :/

 

[riskyfrisky]

on what planet is this not acceptable, In fact its pretty much the norm for summer!

I hate heat and noise, but that wasn't the reason I returned the card. The reason was because the fans were making a rattling noise.

Unless you are running 20 fans, 10 hard drives and a million LED's i cant see 520w being a problem for a 770

There's a thread elsewhere where people have said it'd be fine so i'm not sure now lol. When I was asking on the forums a while ago about what 7 series card was the max the HX 520 could handle people said 7870, no higher, so that's why I didn't think it was doable.

 

[teppic]

Your CPU and board are definitely getting on a bit. You could do a cheap upgrade to FX-6300 and a 970 board (about £150), it'd be better in the longrun than an i3 / Z77 build. Haswell's an option of course, but will set you back a lot more.

 

[riskyfrisky]

Well it seems pointless buying a new, even more powerful card if the system is now going to hold me back, so it looks like a new build is on the cards.