Erratic 7870 temperature

turn_pike

Senior member
Mar 4, 2012
316
0
71
This is something that I just noticed but I dont usually play with Afterburner OSD on so it might have been going on for a while.

Yesterday I played Metro 2033 Redux and Far Cry 3. For a long stretch of time the GPU was very hot. We're talking 90 - 100 celcius. GPU usage was at 100% at all time. Fan was set manually in Afterburner at 90%. Yet after a while the temperature would go down to around 66 celcius and stay that way even though GPU usage was maxed out. The same thing also happened when I was playing Far Cry 3.

What could be the problem here ?

Dust is not much of a problem. The CPU is not that hot. 55-65 celcius at max usage. Case airflow not great, its a cheapo Xigmatek case which is a little too narrow for my Cooler Master 212 fan. But all of these aren't something that likely to change during gameplay.

CPU : Phenom II 955 BE
GPU : Sapphire Dual-X HD 7870 Ghz Edition
OS : Windows 8.1
 

monkeydelmagico

Diamond Member
Nov 16, 2011
3,961
145
106
Probably hitting thermal limits and the GPU is throttling. 100c is hot. I think they shut down around 110c