Vega 64 overheating when "high" fps

[Chezdon]

Good afternoon all,

So I bought a pretty decent gaming rig back in October 2019.

650W Seasonic Focus Plus Gold Power Supply
Ryzen 3600 4.2ghz
Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro +
Kingston 480GB SSD
Seagate 1TB
Cryorig H7 Single Tower Heatsink with 120mm Fa
B450 Aorus Elite
Corsair 16GB 3000mhz

It's been pretty smooth sailing apart from the odd BSOD (Unexpected Store Errors, Critical Process died - these happen a few times a week), but when gaming, if I put the fps up then invariably my GPU's temp will ramp up and get to the point where the game will just shut itself down - I presume to avoid any damage.

I've believe I've narrowed it down to FPS because I can have everything else on Ultra settings no problem (this is Witcher 3, Divinity Original Sin 2, Age of Empires II, Dragon Age 2) but these games are only playable if I lower the FPS. For example, Witcher, I can play on 30fps (temps hit about 55c) but as soon as I put it on 60fps then it's 70c+ and goodnight sweet Geralt.

Seems a bit strange given these are quite old games and my machine is pretty nifty. Back when I first got the machine I installed the newest Call of Duty and also Plague Tale Innocence, which are both very graphic intense games. I didn't play them for extended periods of time though so I can't remember if they did cause the GPU to overheat or not, but I could definitely play them on Ultra settings too.

I opened up the case to have a look to see if it's dust build up but there's hardly anything in there and I did blow out what I could.

Any ideas what could be up? I'm hoping it's something simple I'm missing, because I didn't spend all this money on a rig only to play games at 30 fps (it's quite a difference when going from 60 to 30, especially on something like Witcher).

Thanks for your time.

 

[Thekwango]

What case have you got, is the airflow adequate to vent the heat from the gpu? Is the vega uv’d? Makes a huge difference to performance and temps.

 

[Justintime]

G


It's been pretty smooth sailing apart from the odd BSOD (Unexpected Store Errors, Critical Process died - these happen a few times a week), .

Thats not smooth sailing, are you overclocked? My systems generally see a BSOD say once every 2 years on average and usually linked to some dodgy usb device or legit failing hardware.

 

[Chezdon]

Thats not smooth sailing, are you overclocked? My systems generally see a BSOD say once every 2 years on average and usually linked to some dodgy usb device or legit failing hardware.

Well this has been the last few months. I did a hard drive check and it's saying "SSD Wear Indicator - 2" whilst simultaneously saying, "SSD Wear Indicator - 98%" This is when running the Kingston App. Says it's healthy. Also ran a check for the RAM and that came out fine too. Really strange. I spoke to a guy from OC on the phone last week and he said I have a three year warranty. I can't really send the machine back at the moment as I need it for work but he said if it becomes unusable, send it back.

Nope, no overclocking.

What case have you got, is the airflow adequate to vent the heat from the gpu? Is the vega uv’d? Makes a huge difference to performance and temps.

I've got the most standard case, let me check... Bitfenix Nova Midi Tower Case - Black.

I haven't touched anything on the Vega. No overclocking, no voltage changing. Tbh I wouldn't even know how, I'm quite the noob when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

[postmanfw]

No mention of what speed the gpu fans are at?

Have you tried using afterburner to give a more aggressive ramp up curve than standard?

You can also drop the voltage of them to reuduce temps.

 

[Chezdon]

No mention of what speed the gpu fans are at?

Have you tried using afterburner to give a more aggressive ramp up curve than standard?

You can also drop the voltage of them to reuduce temps.

Does this work?

https://imgur.com/a/xmP25Jp

This is me playing it at 30 fps, then 60 fps, about 10 seconds between changing it. That's how hot it's getting that quickly. About another minute and it would go up to about 70+ and that'd be it.

I haven't done anything. What's this afterburner you speak of? Wouldn't even know how to change the voltage either.

 

[postmanfw]

Afterburner is a gpu monitoring and controlling programs

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/msi-afterburner-beta-download.html

You can easily use that to increase the fan speed either to a constant or by temperature controlled.

Dont worry about undervolting just now.

Card is really jumping up with regard to power usage between 30 and 60 fps but thats to be expected i suppose.

 

[Chezdon]

Alright I'll check it out, thanks. Reckon it's just the fan not working hard enough then?

The fans are already incredibly noisy, but I'd rather a little more noise than it shutting down every time I try and play a game.

 

[postmanfw]

If it is just a temperature problem then increasing the speed of fans will help to some extent....will still depend on how good the airflow is through case because if its poor then it will just be blowing hot air over a hot card.

Easy test for airflow is to remove the side of case and see what happens....that will let out any trapped hot air and let in cold.

Most people's cases will see a drop in temperature......but if airflow is good then there will be no change at all in temperature.

Once had a rig that if i took the side off it the temps actually went up as i had messed up the "wind tunnel effect" by doing so.

Had a crossfire rig years that i had to take side off to game with and even then the cards sat at near 80c lol...6970 days

 

[Chezdon]

Ok I'll try removing the case to see if that does anything when increasing the fps. I'll keep an eye on the temps.

I did ask the guys before they built it if the case was ok and all the parts would work together - they said yes. Should be obvious if this setup in this box would overheat, no?

 

[ryhoper1]

When I originally got my vega 64 I had some issues with BSOD and the pc randonly shutting down.

I also had a seasonic 650w power supply, it turned out there was a compatibility issue with some seasonic PSUs and vega 64 GPUs, so seasonic issued a recall. It only applied to PSUs made before a specific date.

It affected PSUs made before January 1st 2018, I think I bought mine on the 2nd Jan.

https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/psus/seasonic-warns-of-focus-plus-psu-compatibility-issues/1/

I remember I could play CS GO and some older titles and have no issues, but when I bought the GPU I bought battlefield V to throw something more graphic intensive at it, and that's when I would have problems with either the game or PC shutting down after 10 mins or so once it warmed up.

 

[flea.rider]

take the heat sink off and reapply thermal compound .. amd's is crap .. use thermal grizzly see temps drop by 5-10 c

 

[Plec]

Is the card connected with 2 independent leads from the PSU (i.e not daisy chained from the same lead)?

You have a decent PSU - but ideally the Vega 64 would be powered by 2 individual cables with the spare/redundant connector on each lead neatly zip tied. This can eliminate stability issues 'if' this is the issue as the Vega 64 can have stability issues, when using a singe cable.

 

[Chezdon]

When I originally got my vega 64 I had some issues with BSOD and the pc randonly shutting down.

I also had a seasonic 650w power supply, it turned out there was a compatibility issue with some seasonic PSUs and vega 64 GPUs, so seasonic issued a recall. It only applied to PSUs made before a specific date.

It affected PSUs made before January 1st 2018, I think I bought mine on the 2nd Jan.

https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/psus/seasonic-warns-of-focus-plus-psu-compatibility-issues/1/

I remember I could play CS GO and some older titles and have no issues, but when I bought the GPU I bought battlefield V to throw something more graphic intensive at it, and that's when I would have problems with either the game or PC shutting down after 10 mins or so once it warmed up.

Oh wow, well, I'll have to see if I can open it up and have a look at the model number. Thanks for that.

take the heat sink off and reapply thermal compound .. amd's is crap .. use thermal grizzly see temps drop by 5-10 c

You talking about the processor?

Is the card connected with 2 independent leads from the PSU (i.e not daisy chained from the same lead)?

You have a decent PSU - but ideally the Vega 64 would be powered by 2 individual cables with the spare/redundant connector on each lead neatly zip tied. This can eliminate stability issues 'if' this is the issue as the Vega 64 can have stability issues, when using a singe cable.

I'll check this when I open it up tomorrow. Thanks.

 

[james.miller]

I wouldn't be at all concerned with 70c, especially with a vega - that's barely ticking over lol.

Do check the psu though, those random blue screens and issues you've also been having would suggest your problem might not be the gpu at all.

One thing worth mentioning, those gous don't throttle till what, 85c I think? And when you hit that point the gpu should just throttle back and keep running. Did you see the video Jay (of Jay's Two Cents) did recently? I can't remember what card it was +, but he unplugged the fans and took a blowtorch to the heatsink and that card just refused to to die, even when it throttled back as far as idle clocks it just kept on running.

 

[montymint]

85c on the hot spot is fine under load with those fan rpms.

look at the vega thread and you'll see that kind of temperature all over.

 

[Chezdon]

Case feels like it's on fire once it's hitting those temps though. Ok I'll open her up and have a rummage first thing tomorrow.

 

[montymint]

You're case will feel warm. The reason this is happening is down to power.

If you look at your screenshots, @30fps you see only 83W of power being drawn - this is because the GPU clock only needs to run at 1135mhz. When you crank the fps to 60, the GPU sets the clock to 1557 and draws 220W. That a lot more W of heat that needs to be dumped.

With this is mind, check youtube for videos on undervolting the card to get that W draw down whilst still hitting that 1500 or so clock speed. That on it's own will lower temps but the only way the case will get colder is with better heat explusion. Even if you turned the fans on the gpu up, the card will run cooler but your still dumping more hot air into annd around the case.

For me, I changed my case for better air flow and the heat issues I had before (in terms of the case feeling hot) got much better.

Edit: this change is power draw also explains some of the crashing issues. Again if the PSU can't provide enough W in the single cable

 

[Chezdon]

https://imgur.com/a/9wAbrhM

So an update.

Put Witcher 3 on 60fps and it crashed as usual.

Opened her up and then it didn't crash. Been playing 10 mins and still no crash. Temps are incredibly hot but stable. Looks like it could be an airflow issue then?

It is so hot I can barely even touch the GPU - is this normal? I'd rather not play with an open case, but it looks like I'm going to have to until I get a new one and refit it. Like I said earlier, I'm a complete tech noob so this is all quite daunting for me.

If the blue screens of death continue then I'll probably ship it back and then pay for a new case. Kinda bummed they didn't suggest a better case with a GPU that is known to run hot.

Trying to see what year my PSU is but nothing written on it.

 

[montymint]

@Chezdon
do me a favour and load up your radeon settings and screenshot the tuning tab