Why is my video card 12degrees hotter than my CPU

[Copilot]

Video card isn't even high end, its a nvidia geforce 7600 GT running at 53C with 1% cpu usage , my CPU, which is an amd 6000+ dual core 3ghz, is at 40-42C, why is the video card so much hotter, it wasn't ever this hot with my old CPU, amd opteron 1.8ghz. Currently I only have 1 exhaust fan at the back of my case. I will be getting an intake fan for the front, both the fans are 80mm.

Is there so much heat from my CPU that the video card fan can't cool it down or what?

 

[cprince]

The temperature of the video card and CPU are not normally related unless you have case ventilation problem. The video card usually run a lot hotter than the CPU. My CPU tops out at ~50C while my video card is at least 80C.

 

[Copilot]

Well whenever I game it goes instantly to 60C and then overheats (i think its overheating, 10 seconds of the game freezing every minute or so. ) I am probably just going to buy a new card.

 

[cprince]

Originally posted by: Copilot
Well whenever I game it goes instantly to 60C and then overheats (i think its overheating, 10 seconds of the game freezing every minute or so. ) I am probably just going to buy a new card.

Do you have good case ventilation? If it didn't overheat on you then, I don't see why it overheats on you now. Check to see if the heatsink is still fully attached to the GPU.

 

[Copilot]

Do you know if the 10 second game freezing thing is from the video card overheating? Like I said I only have 1 80mm exhaust fan at the back so ventilation isn't very good but my CPU runs fine so I don't see why the video card would be overheating, will check and make sure the heatsink is attached to the GPU properly.

EDIT: just checked and yeah both screws are in and its on there properly.

 

[cprince]

The 10 seconds game freezing might be from the system trying to catch up.

 

[Copilot]

Well that sucks, because when I had my old CPU this didn't happen, so upgrading to a better CPU makes it so I can't game at all now, even does it on games like warcraft 3.

The freezing usually only starts after 5ish minutes of gaming so maybe it is getting to hot or something.

 

[mrblotto]

couldn't hurt to check the heatsink and maybe reapply some thermal goo if needed

Edit: and of course the heatsink has already been mentioned....lol.

D'oh!

 

[cprince]

Originally posted by: Copilot
Well that sucks, because when I had my old CPU this didn't happen, so upgrading to a better CPU makes it so I can't game at all now, even does it on games like warcraft 3.

The freezing usually only starts after 5ish minutes of gaming so maybe it is getting to hot or something.

Yeah, it does sound like a heat issue. But usually with graphic cards you see artifacts on the screen instead of the computer freezing. Check the temperature of CPU, RAM, northbridge and southbridge.

Now that I think about it, the problem might be an overheating northbridge. Since you didn't mention a new motherboard, I'm guessing that you are just upgrading the processor. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Athlon X2 6000+ has a HyperTransport transfer rate of 2000MHz while the old 1.8GHz Opteron has an HT transfer rate of 1000MHz. This means that the northbridge has to work twice as fast with the X2 6000+ as the 1.8GHz Opteron. Therefore, you have a fairly big increase in heat. I would concentrate on moving heat away from the northbridge.

Technical note: I'm using the generic term northbridge here in order to simplify things. However, since the K8 processor family, AMD no longer uses the term "northbridge." The new term is HyperTransport hub. Either way, it's basically a northbridge chipset minus the memory controller.

 

[Copilot]

Oops sorry yes new motherboard also, asus m2n-ms se

 

[Copilot]

Ok just bought a front intake fan, video card temp is exactly the same as without it, down to the degree, there has to be something wrong with my card so I am just going to buy a new card thats better than this one.