Question For poops and giggles I decided to check my GPU temps with AMD, and didnt like what I saw...

[funboy6942]

And really didnt like what I saw when I removed the heatsink :O



HUH its a no wonder the Hotspot and gpu temps were higher than I liked them to be, glad I checked.

 

[Ajay]

How old is that??

 

[funboy6942]

year and a half, if that, its a Powercolor Red Devil 6900xt, that was the stock paste, or lack thereof :O

 

[carrotmania]

What environment is that PC / card kept in to look like a decade old card in just 18 months? I have a feeling this isn't specifically an AMD issue...

 

[funboy6942]

It lives in this monstrosity of a case with a ton of fans....and are you suggesting that where it is at caused it to have no paste on the core from the factory for the paste was NOT dried up on it??? Airflow is out of the question here, for it idles at 47, and now 85 under load.

 

[Ajay]

year and a half, if that, its a Powercolor Red Devil 6900xt, that was the stock paste, or lack thereof :O

Yikes! Well, clearly you’ll need some good paste and new thermal pads. Thanks for making it clear to me to never buy from Powercolor.

 

[funboy6942]

You and me both, but she is back together and doing fine

 

[Seba]

So what is the real result?

Temperatures before and after (under the same load, same fan rpm and at the same room temperature, as much as possible).

 

[funboy6942]

I slept on it, and had a thought that this was planned obsolescence, for these 6900 xt are a brick oven to begin with, and had I not seen the card running at 75c on the core and 110c + on the hot spot, that if I didn't look, it was sure to bake itself to death very soon. That big of a spread had me wondering wth was causing it to show "cold" on the core but than also "I'm freakin dying here" on the hotspot and throttling down. This is by far not the first "new" card I've taken apart to find the above, and some time worse, but never really clicked till during the night that they wanted it to die in a few years so I'd buy another

Jokes on them now, for now the core and hotspot are just around 10-15c spread apart, not 35-40 :O You peeps may want to open the amd software, select manual tuning, and run time spy extreme, for this was even with the fans set to manual, and at 100% and it was but sucking 235~ watts of juice, not 300/400 being stressed out. There is something I didnt check yet, and will report back is how much wattage is it liking now, if anyone should care to know.

My room is around 75f, outer core was 75c and the hotspot was 110 and sometimes flicker 112 and one time hit 119 and shut my pc down (so it was throttling), now running time spy the outer core is 90-91c and hotspot hasn't changed much other that it no longer flickers between 110-112/9, but rather 108-110c, BUT in other games it stays at around 80-85 and hotspot stays around 90-95, without undervolting ( I tried it, all my pc does is crash the driver messing with the settings). Fans are manually set to run at 100% max rather than the 60% stock. Case has 3 120mm fans pushing in, and 2 200mm pulling out. Cpu never gets over 58C with a idle temp of 42c. These cards are just hot as heck for some reason.

I tested timespy again to see what wattage is, and it has not changed pulling 235-258 watts. I had never run Timespy till now on this pc set up, glad I finally did and will make sure to use it on ALL future builds.

 

[Ajay]

Check to make sure that the back side of the case is getting enough cool airflow on the intake fans for the GPU. Even though you have a reasonable amount of airflow - the directionality could be causing you problems.

 

[funboy6942]

I have it set up so the case has positive pressure so that air can escape from the rear vents holes as well. My 200mm fans are on the very top of the case to draw out any hot air collecting on the top inside of the case, and the front 120mm's actually dump into the back of the case, while I have the 200mm ones on the top in the front, so it draws it in, takes it to the rear, and the top fans suck it out the rear, and out the top front. There is also some vents on the top rear of the case as well, so it get bodacious air flow, and keeps it super cold in there for Im getting 45c on the cpu and NOT using a noctua heatsink. Cpu is a non overclocked 5600X if anyone cases to know. So ANY hot air collected in the front of the case is expelled right away keeping it all chilly.

The case is HUGE in the rear for you can stick in 8 5 1/4 hard drives back there, and another two on the bottom, I just LOVE my case, and was lucky enough to get it off Amazon on a super sale for like $100

HIGHLY recommend the case I use, if you have the room for something this big.

 

[funboy6942]

Im still not 100% happy, so I am taking it back apart and this time coating my chip with liquid electrical tape and liquid metal the Die.....

EDIT

Well I couldnt use liquid metal, turns on the heatsink is aluminum not nickel plated copper
BUT found out why I was not happy, for I screwed up applying the thermal paste, applied to thin a layer, for now it idles at 50c with a hot spot of only 53-4c so now an even closer number between them, at load Im still hot spotting at 109-110c but dropped the core from 91-92 to 88-89c. I do not feel there is a darn thing I can do to drop the hot spot, but on the plus side Im not seeing it hit 111+ or hit 119c and shutting off my pc either, nor is the fan running full tilt at 100%, so much quieter so I did something right this go around but boy howdy does this thing like to heat up, for even with the fan curve manually set to 100% at around 90, it just will not go below 109-110c in time spy, or even something as stupid as pinball FX, all my other games so far, not taxing it at all, but seriously Pinball FX????? Just got the game yesterday,and its one of the reasons that started all this and checking my card, and even turning off ray tracing doesnt do it, and its only running at 1440P, so what the heck gives there.

EDIT 2

Well I was finally able to achieve a undervoltage setting of 500, 2260, 1160, wattage at 15, something I couldnt even come close to doing before. One thing that puzzles me is my cpu hit a max of only 26 watts in the cpu test, shouldnt that be a lot higher? It was running at 4.2ghz with a max temp of only 58.9c this was using time spy extreme 4k stock settings, with my mobo set to performance.

EDIT 3

I decided to set the graphics on Pinball FX to 1080, and holy cow, core dropped to 73 and hot spot dropped to 88c. Turn on ray Tracing at 1080P and back up to 110c. Set it to 4K, back up to 110c, but as long as I set it to 1080P with RT off, its not going nuts with the fans, or temp, WTH :O

 

[Shmee]

Something is not quite seated right here, or something...a 6900XT Red Devil should not be getting that hot. Now unless you are seriously OCing, or like I said something is not mounted right, I would expect a modern Radeon with a top tier air cooler, such as the Red Devil or say, my NItro+, to max at around 80C to 90C.

I know this is kinda apples to oranges, but when I look at HWinfo, none of my GPU hotspots/junction temps ever went over 90C at maximum, at least for this Windows session.

 

[funboy6942]

That's what I been thinking but I cannot seem to pin point it, for even with fans at max, the temps don't even flicker. I'm not ocing the card, bios is set to silent, heck I don't even have ryzen master installed, but something I learned yesterday is with pinball fx if I move the res to 1080p, the clocks come way down and temps with RT off do too, with RT on its goes bazinga again. NOW I found out last night running GRiD 2019, temps max out in it, at 85-91 core, and its back up to 110-111c on the hot spot, at 1080P, with the speed of the card going WAY up to like 2400+ to 2500+, and my undervolt causes the card to crash in this game with the settings above.

So yes, this is driving me insane for I would think that at full tilt it would make a tickle in the temps, but it doesn't faze it one bit, and below is a picture at idle no fan on at all, and then here it is just playing GRiD 2019 at just 1080P (setting maxed out).....keep in mind that with GRiD its strictly at the press 'a' screen, NO game graphics is being played at all, and yet that's its temps, with the fans going full tilt. ALL its pads are fine, even though I put to thin a layer of paste the first time go , it was evenly spread, so I am setting the card down right and not tilted in anyway leaving some of the die uncovered, but yes, at fans full tilt I would think it would make the temps budge, but set to standard, or me manually setting the fan curve, the temps all stay the same with out a change. Its as though even if set to max, it doesn't make a difference, and for giggles again, set fans to max at idle, it not mattering at all their either, so Im thinking faulty sensors. The games, and time spy don't seem to matter where the clocks at, and me thinks I have faulty sensors like mentioned perhaps. If reading it right, its also seeming to go way past its boosted speed (see last pic) and voltage its at 1200 :O

I am WAY open to suggestions, for I just don't get it, and even at them temps the games play just fine as if it is nothing, setting the fans from 60% max to 100% max, and leaving the fan curve alone, it ramps the fans to 60% still, yet the temps do not change, nor does the speed, so its not throttling down, and then set fans to full tilt 100%, its screaming in my case and yet again, speed stays the same, along with all the temps, I don't know what else to do. Pinball, and now GRiD 2019 making my card go nuts, and blazing hot, and that's with GRiD again just at the press 'a' greeting screen, and nothing else.



Not Overclocking a single thing, and bios set to normal, if this matters.

 

[funboy6942]

Heck here is GRiD 2, and 10 year old game, about to be 11, and wowzers mid/high 80s on the outer die, and dying on the hot spot. Graphics set to 4K maxed out, but didnt matter 4k or 1440P some results. Shmee I too would think with a huge honking 3 slot cooler this should be a ice cube, but far from it. Googling 6900xt also shows that Im not the only one, and that its stated the 6900 xt runs hot, at 300+ watts being drawn, where may card at maxed graphics n all maybe will pull 250 watts. OH and my power supply is a 1100 watt Corsair, about a year old. Automatic undervolt, drops it too 1176, and is stable, but I cannot find a happy place myself, unless Im doing something wrong, but I watched several videos on how to do it, and read some articles as well, just no matter what I do, if I do anything other than auto undervolt it will crash the driver.

 

[Shmee]

What drivers are you using? Latest 23.12.1? Though if I am reading correctly that fanspeed isn't making a difference, whether on auto or manual 100%, I suspect either the temperatures aren't reading correctly in drivers, or your cooler is not properly seated, perhaps you need to tighten it more?

An easy test would be to try monitoring temperatures by another program, such as GPUz or HWinfo64.

 

[funboy6942]

Latest drivers, fan speed doesn't matter, the card is seated properly, with adequate paste, way better than stock, and going to install gpu z right now, though the AMD driver is picking up its running at 110-112c and maxing out the fans.

 

[funboy6942]

OK, Shmee, I downloaded GPUZ and had it running, and temps it showed matched the AMD driver BUT, once I started GRiD 2019, GPUz crashed, and now I get a error:
Could not stop driver. The service cannot accept control messages at this time.

SAY WHAT!

 

[Shmee]

Not sure what that error is about, though it could be a monitoring conflict perhaps. If the card is still under warranty, it might be wise to open a ticket with Powercolor and see what they advise.

 

[funboy6942]

Restarted my pc and its spot on with the AMD driver:
Sorry for the crappy pic



Going to see what their warranty is next and think I will do that if I can....

 

[funboy6942]

• The warranty is valid for two (2) years starting from the original purchase date (verified through invoice) and only valid to the ORIGINAL owner. The warranty cannot be transferred if the product is to be resold or has switched ownership.

Well that's out, I'm a 2nd owner

 

[Shmee]

Ah that is too bad...I suppose you could still contact their support, and see if they are able to help you out. You may get lucky depending on who you talk to.

 

[funboy6942]

true, for I reinstalled chipset, and graphics drive having zero changed.

EDIT

If I did call its 3 years old, for it was released in Dec of 2020, so without a invoice, and should they go by when the card released, Im at 3 years and some change. This sucks I cannot use liquid metal on it, I did a scratch test on the heat sink and scrapped it putting a good gouge to a point I should of been seeing copper, but didn't, so don't need it to melt my cooler for then I'm really really screwed.

I'm going to just tell myself that the sensors are faulty, for its not throttling that I can see, but will say there was a time or 2 there trying to undervolt the card, using time spy, I got hot spot to hover around high 80's, lower 90's, but it crashed of course

Anyone here got a STABLE undervolt setting I should try my card at?

 

[funboy6942]

Well I think I found me a stable undervoltage setting, and made a seriously HUGE difference in GRiD 2019, but on the flip side made Time Spy even worse with it flicking between 108-113c! I had such high hopes after seeing what I got GRiD to do to be disapointed with Time Spy. On the uptick thoguh, it was stable and ran through the test. Going to try Pinball FX now and raise it to 1440P again to see whats what with it now.

GRiD


Time Spy:

 

[funboy6942]

Was stable in Pinball FX, and if anyone was to care to try it on their pc, for you get 3 free tables, and can be had at their website, Steam, EPIC, Id love to see your stock and undervoltage results. But I got it to finally run really "cold" at around 73-76c on the hot spot. This was without RT on, with it on, hovers at 107-109C tapping 110c briefly.

So looks like I did something right to get those temps to come way down, but in time spy but I will take this for sure Let me see what you others get if you care to do it, for the game really stresses out the system at 1440P or above, and especially with RT on......