Temp for HD 3870 OC Vision Tek

[Jdog92]

I am concerned that my new HD 3870 card is getting to hot. At rest it staying around 50c-58c, and at full load running Crysis/COD4 around 75c-80c. I have a mid ATX case with 3 fans running at full speed along with setting the fan speed of the card to 100%. I am still running the stock fan, should I look into getting a upgraded fan for the card or will the card be ok at 80c?

[Jdog92]

I am concerned that my new HD 3870 card is getting to hot. At rest it staying around 50c-58c, and at full load running Crysis/COD4 around 75c-80c. I have a mid ATX case with 3 fans running at full speed along with setting the fan speed of the card to 100%. I am still running the stock fan, should I look into getting a upgraded fan for the card or will the card be ok at 80c?

AMD Duel 5000 2.6
2gs of OCZ OC 800
320 SATA Seagate HD
HD 3870 OC Vision Tek

[Sunny]

I think that the temp should be ok but for some reason that is pretty high for a 3870. You could always look into getting a better gpu heatsink and fan if it bugs you a bit to see it that high. Personally I think its pretty high for that card and for your fan speed to be at 100% and stay that high is kinda crazy. I wonder if the fan and heatsink was seated properly? I have seen bad reviews for cards from visiontek though.

[wyz135]

I think you SHOULD be safe at this temperature, I'm getting 75 degrees with my Radeon HD3850 without any error or issues. But once again, I may be wrong.

[Radiator]

That temperature is well within the safe area . But that card shouldn't go above 70C with a stock cooler at default speed . Make sure the vRAM heatsinks are in place and see if the thermal paste is where it should be .
EDIT: Just noticed that it's an OCed card ... what are it's clock speeds ? Anyways , that's not uber hot for an OCed card .

[hdantman]

I agree with Radiator. Both my 8800 GTs idle at 49c, but when OC'd running Crysis can touch 80c regularly. TDP on most GPUs exceeds 85c, so this is perfectly within limits. Take his advice though--check the cooler. 65c is a tad high for idle, but it varies per card.

[Sunny]

It is within a safe zone but if you see his post he mentions that his cards fan speed is at 100%. So to be that high for a 3870 is kinda weird. Not to mention they are on a 55nm GPU so it does seem high. This really does make you wonder what the OC is at.

I bought the toxic 3870 by Sapphire and have it OC'd at 850 on GPU and it idles in low to mid 40's and gets about high 50's during load. I think the fan speed is also at 65%. Hmmmm...

[Jdog92]

I have the card set the factory 800mhz with memory 1220 and the temp runs at 75-80c for Crysis at high settings. But I have pushed it up to 850 with memory at 1300 and the temp stayed the same with all fans locked in at high including the card fan. I have not got any error messages but the card is only a few weeks old.

[Radiator]

Change the thermal paste in it , check if the fan works properly .

[Jdog92]

The fan is well placed on the card with good air flow pushing out the back of the of case.

[Radiator]

Do you have any heatsinks on the vRAM chips ?
And see if the thermal paste is where it should be .

[hdantman]

Whether or not the "fan is well placed" has little to do with the microscopic pores between the fan and the CPU. I'd check the thermal paste. Good point on the 3870s being 55nm. It should be quite a bit cooler than that. You're not in the danger zone, but you're running high enough that with better cooling you might see better performance. Once my 8800s get above 80c, I start to experience performance drops until I quit out of the game and let them cool for a while. I actually lowered my OC on the cards and got better performance, because the temps were so high.

[Dynnaz]

My Gecube HD3870 idle temp is on 52c at 40% fan speed and 75c when full load

after increase the fan speed using rivatuner, the temp decrease 47c on idle and 68c full load

i think it was a normal temp for HD3870 with stock cooler

[Radiator]

My Gecube HD3870 idle temp is on 52c at 40% fan speed and 75c when full load

after increase the fan speed using rivatuner, the temp decrease 47c on idle and 68c full load

i think it was a normal temp for HD3870 with stock cooler

He said he was getting high temperatures with the fan speed at 100% .

[Dynnaz]

He said he was getting high temperatures with the fan speed at 100% .


owh..my bad..

so, my opinion is, theres something wrong with the ventilation?

[Radiator]

My best guess is that the thermal place is not where it should be .

I remember someone posting on a different hardware forum , that when he/she bought a HD 2900 XT and started changing the vent on it , he/she noticed , that the thermal paste was all around the GPU , but not on it .

[Jdog92]

I checked the card and it looks like every thing is set correctly to factory specs, themo, and the heatsinks. I did change out my case to a larger one with more fans and that took my temp down to 65c-70c on full load without running the fan at 100%. If I push my card to 850mhz/1280mhz I do have to run all my fans to 100% and it pushes 80c. But the card does very well on factory OC specs for all my games. Everyone thanks for the advice.
Jdog92

[Radiator]

So the casing was the problem ?
Damn , why didn't I think of that ? :confused:

[hdantman]

Seems like you simply could have opened a panel on the front end of the case to allow more air to intake and draw through/out the gpu fan. If your temps are still running hot--try that.