My trusty XFX Radeon HD6970, bought from these very forums has been acting a bit odd recently. Temperatures have sky-rocketed (in some cases over 1000 deg C), which led me to believe there was a sensor issue of some kind. The fan would spin up to max and eventually the PC would just power off. Eventually, this just happened all the time on every boot. Frustratingly, on a good day it would game just fine (albeit a little toasty on temp, but no more than normal).
I contacted XFX, as I assumed from a card I bought (used) in 2012, they couldn't provide any support.
I took the card apart. It wasn't that dusty. The TIM was an absolute mess, all over the chip (not just the IHS) and pretty crusty with limited coverage, so I cleaned it up and applied it fresh stuff. No change. Still reporting silly numbers and eventually powering off. Also, some of the cooler shroud clips broke off in removal, probably as they are thin plastic and gone through may heat cycles. Not easy to stick back on, but most of them went back anyway.
So now I'm out of ideas and have a nice paperweight. My backup card (GForCE 8600GS) is laughably useless, so it begs the question how do I replace the HD6970.
This is my rig, built and not really changed since 2013:
Intel Core i5 2500K stock (was o/c but caused issues a couple of years back).
Corsair Hydro H50 (I think..)
Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz (2x4GB)
XFX Radeon HD6970 (RIP)
Crucial M4 128GB (and some old spinny 1TBs)
Xonar D1
Corsair Obsidian 650D
Corsair HX750W
I actually game a lot less on PC now, have a huge catalogue of mainly sim racing and FPS type games but buy most AAA releases for my PS4 Pro, which gets more use (don't judge). I still want a gaming PC so I can actually use my immense investments in Steam, and will probably move the PC to my gaming room and retire it from general desktop use.
What should I replace the HD6970 with? I was relatively happy with the performance on the games I play, only lack of driver support was becoming an issue.
Should I bother upgrading anything else or is it really starting from scratch? The PC still feels like it performs well in 2018, but I'm happy to have gotten 5 years of use from it with no changes.
I contacted XFX, as I assumed from a card I bought (used) in 2012, they couldn't provide any support.
I took the card apart. It wasn't that dusty. The TIM was an absolute mess, all over the chip (not just the IHS) and pretty crusty with limited coverage, so I cleaned it up and applied it fresh stuff. No change. Still reporting silly numbers and eventually powering off. Also, some of the cooler shroud clips broke off in removal, probably as they are thin plastic and gone through may heat cycles. Not easy to stick back on, but most of them went back anyway.
So now I'm out of ideas and have a nice paperweight. My backup card (GForCE 8600GS) is laughably useless, so it begs the question how do I replace the HD6970.
This is my rig, built and not really changed since 2013:
Intel Core i5 2500K stock (was o/c but caused issues a couple of years back).
Corsair Hydro H50 (I think..)
Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3
Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz (2x4GB)
XFX Radeon HD6970 (RIP)
Crucial M4 128GB (and some old spinny 1TBs)
Xonar D1
Corsair Obsidian 650D
Corsair HX750W
I actually game a lot less on PC now, have a huge catalogue of mainly sim racing and FPS type games but buy most AAA releases for my PS4 Pro, which gets more use (don't judge). I still want a gaming PC so I can actually use my immense investments in Steam, and will probably move the PC to my gaming room and retire it from general desktop use.
What should I replace the HD6970 with? I was relatively happy with the performance on the games I play, only lack of driver support was becoming an issue.
Should I bother upgrading anything else or is it really starting from scratch? The PC still feels like it performs well in 2018, but I'm happy to have gotten 5 years of use from it with no changes.
