Just got X1900XTX (borrowed) and temps are absurd, help!!

[Polish3d]

Long story short, own 7800GTX now, friend let me borrow his X1900XTX (after letting him hold 500 cash lol) to see if I want to buy a regular X1900XT.

Anyway, it's stock fan, stock speed (650 core) but the temps are outrageous, and I have a high quality case with quite a lot of fan power.

I am getting 70c ***IDLE*** and 93C load after simply playing HL2 Ep 1... which is freaking absurd. I have heard you can use ATI Tool to increase fan speed, but while researching it I came across some guy with an XTX who had his fan drop to 0% after a glitch while using ATI tool so I dont want to mess with it.

Can I control the X1900 fan via any other safer method? Thanks

 

[Ackmed]

Its not absurd. Its well within operating temperature.

 

[hans030390]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Its not absurd. Its well within operating temperature.

you have to admit its pretty high though...

 

[Polish3d]

Well, I understand the fact that many people are getting similarly high temps, but these really seem high to me. To compare, my GTX w/ NV Silencer 5 hits about 38-45c idle, and doesn't even hit 70c at full load while at the speeds in my sig. It hits about 65-67 tops...

Everything else in my system is identical with respect to fan speeds etc etc etc

 

[aka1nas]

It's a relatively huge chip with all those pixel shaders. Plus it runs at a fairly high clockspeed for a GPU. I could see it running pretty hot.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

I get 45 idle and 80 load

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

The load temp isn't bad for stock cooling dynamic but the idle temp seems high. In any case, just use ATI Tool and set the speed to around 50-60% which isn't very loud and should lower temps some.

 

[Ackmed]

So you want to compare a card that runs cooler already, with an aftermarket heatsink, to a stock card? The temps are not absurd. Either raise the fan speed, or just get used to it. ATi tool is safe, I have never heard of the problem you said someone had, nor have I had it.

 

[Jules]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Its not absurd. Its well within operating temperature.

:thumbsup:

 

[Polish3d]

Ok...well you guys seem confident. Idle actually dropped to 60c after I set my PC upright, although load is still low 90s.

Initial observations after just a few moments of playing HL2 Ep 1

Performance:

HOLY SHIAAAAAAAT!!! A little better than I was even expecting. With all settings maxed and AF doubled from 8x to 16x, here is the difference:

While my GTX would often drop to 30s and 40s, and hover around 50s much of the time, the XTX stays IN THE 90's and almost never hits the red or yellow lettering (sub 60fps) w/ frames showing via the CL_showfps 1 command

Image quality is unquestionably sharper, very, very noticeable. AFAI am concerned it is better period.

Going to enjoy the hell out of myself hopefully playing around with Oblivion and BF2 also, and see if I want to get one of my own.


Cool thing about this arrangement is that I get it for about 2 weeks, which means that I'll get to see if G80 is released at Computex which I doubt but you never know.

Anyway thanks for the help.


Last question is, how long does ATI overdrive typically take to work? It freezes for me for some reason, unless it takes longer than 20 min.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
So you want to compare a card that runs cooler already, with an aftermarket heatsink, to a stock card? The temps are not absurd. Either raise the fan speed, or just get used to it. ATi tool is safe, I have never heard of the problem you said someone had, nor have I had it.

I'm comparing to give people a baseline to understand my general system temps man. Dont worry I'm not attacking the product which you seem to be worried about. I love it so far

 

[Bull Dog]

Ya ATI has the fan on the stock cooler programed to spin up at temps much higher than I like but apparently its within spec for the silicon. I, however, didn't like such high temps and I used ATI to control the fan speed and make it spin up much sooner. It was a little louder under load that way, but it made me feel better. Of course right now I'm using a Thermalright V1 Ultra to tame my X1900XT right now. And OCed to 725MHz(@1.425v)/825MHz, my load temps are around 54C.

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: Frackal

Originally posted by: Ackmed
So you want to compare a card that runs cooler already, with an aftermarket heatsink, to a stock card? The temps are not absurd. Either raise the fan speed, or just get used to it. ATi tool is safe, I have never heard of the problem you said someone had, nor have I had it.

I'm comparing to give people a baseline to understand my general system temps man. Dont worry I'm not attacking the product which you seem to be worried about. I love it so far

What Im saying is, you cant even compare the two cards. One has an aftermarket heatsink, the other does not. Using it as a "baseline" just doesnt make any sense.

Also, I never let Overdrive auto detect, it takes too long. Just bump it up a little, and run a round of 3dmark or something to stress it. Or use ATi tool, its very good, and you can adjust your volts with it too. I have no doubts you will get to 700/775 pretty easily.

 

[Polish3d]

Well certainly the temp difference isnt a fair comparison in a better/worse sense. The reason I included it was to demonstrate that my system is not a hot running system to get in front of that inevitable question.

 

[lopri]

I do not think his point is "comparison" but more about the "impression" which he probably wasn't too used to while using NV cards. If he meant to do a comparision he could always bring up the 7900GTX vs X1900XT.

 

[akugami]

Ambient Temp: 25C
Idle Temp: 62C
Load Temp: 81C

Depending on ambient temperature I can see it idling at 70C and load at 93C but that's still very high.

 

[Captante]

The highest I've seen my X1900XTX get (at maxed CCC overclock) is about 90c & the only game that seems to push it that far is Oblivion, everthing else seems to top out 10c-12c cooler & although I used ATI tool to tweak fan speeds at first, I've since backed off almost back to factory speeds without a single problem.

 

[videopho]

Running temps in the 90c in load is literally asking for trouble, regardless who the card maker is. Heat is silicon's worst enemy, prolonging usage at this temp will eventually do the card in. I learned it a hard way two years ago when my x700 pro bellied up after roughly a month old running at that excessively high temps. One has to seek ways or methods to keep it running cooler, say 80ish C is more tolerable.
Just my 2 pennies

 

[Jules]

Originally posted by: videopho
Running temps in the 90c in load is literally asking for trouble, regardless who the card maker is. Heat is silicon's worst enemy, prolonging usage at this temp will eventually do the card in. I learned it a hard way two years ago when my x700 pro bellied up after roughly a month old running at that excessively high temps. One has to seek ways or methods to keep it running cooler, say 80ish C is more tolerable.
Just my 2 pennies

lol. The X1900XTX temps are fine.

 

[CP5670]

I get 57C at idle and about 83C at load on a slightly overclocked XTX (at stock voltage). An intake fan blowing outside air directly into the card seems to help quite a bit. It's also a good idea to keep the fan speed fixed during games. I think the cooler sounds much less annoying when sitting at a constant 80% speed rather than the default behavior of gradually ramping up, and it cools better as well.

 

[BFG10K]

Its not absurd. Its well within operating temperature.

70C idle is normal?

Wow. :Q

My 7900GTX idles at almost half that.

 

[skooma]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Its not absurd. Its well within operating temperature.

70C idle is normal?

Wow. :Q

My 7900GTX idles at almost half that.

No kidding.

Everytime I think about grabbing a 1900xt I just can't mentally get over that hurdle, especially heading into summer

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: skooma

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Its not absurd. Its well within operating temperature.

70C idle is normal?

Wow. :Q

My 7900GTX idles at almost half that.

No kidding.

Everytime I think about grabbing a 1900xt I just can't mentally get over that hurdle, especially heading into summer

Exactly. I was like 1/2" close to grabbing an X1900XT but the NV's HSF won me over.. (and ATI RD580 wasn't too attractive to be honest). I wonder why ATI didn't make something similar to NVs HSF? Does NV have a patent on it?

With the performance/watt issue getting bigger and bigger (blame Intel), I believe the thermal issue was one of the main factors that turn people on the borderline to NV this time around. Damn.. I really wanted to see the superior image quality of X1900 series this time..

 

[Polish3d]

After tweaking the fan via ATI Tool I now get 50c idle and about 80c load

 

[Polish3d]

THIS CARD FREAAAAAAAKING ROCKS!!!!!


Impressions:


At stock clocks!!! it essentially doubles my FPS in BF2, and HL2 EP 1, over the 7800GTX @ sig speeds, not to mention I've added HQ AF to the mix in that as well. OH MAN! I love hardware. Image quality better too btw

Have fan running at steady 80% which is not really audible when gaming but definitely when not, so I set it back a bit. Temps at around 70-80c now when gaming

I am realllly impressed. I can't believe it's that much faster. W/ the gamelock.fps 200 tweak (to prevent BF2 from locking frames at 100) I am getting something like 120fps on average. W/ my GTX I would get around 70 or so. Really well done ATI, it does feel like a next-gen calibre upgrade


Edit:

Oblivion:

7800GTX @ sig speed: HDR, no AA, 8AF, HQ - outside, usually around 18fps, dropped to around 13 in battle

compare that to:

X1900XTX @ stock: HDR+4xAA+HQ 16xAF - outside, around 20-25fps, drops almost not at all when in battle or anything else, and looks utterly amazing.


This is certainly a considerable upgrade performance wise.


I would say on a whole, it is accurate to claim that an 1900XT at XTX speeds essentially doubles the performance of a 7800GTX 256, stock or even fairly overclocked, when Anti-aliasing is used. Additionally, overclocking options are greater, image quality is better, HDR+AA is possible, the only downside so far is the fan which isn't that bad.

I am extremely pleased.


This is my first high end ATI card too