Radeon HD 6950 2gb heat concerns

[chicken_wang]

I was thinking about changing from an EVGA Superclocked GeForce GTX 560 ti to the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB . I watched a review on the HD 6950 that there are some heat concerns. I'd hate to have my card fried the first week.

**Sorry if I sound a bit noob-ish. This is my first rig I'll ever build.

If I was to change my video card to the HD 6950 2GB then should I change anything in my rig? Here's my rig if you're curious http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=31750356&posted=1#post31750356

Should I stay with the GTX 560 ti?

 

[Blue Shift]

Comparison of the two cards:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/293?vs=330

As you can see, they are quite comparable. If you've already purchased the 560, you should keep it.

You mentioned in your other thread that you were/are building this rig in order to play the Witcher 2. NVidia just released new drivers that are supposed to drastically increase performance in the Witcher 2. You should wait until someone benchmarks the game with post-release drivers from both NVidia and ATI, and compare the performance of the two cards in the game you'll actually be playing.

 

[alcoholbob]

My 6970 hits 90C in Witcher 2 with ubersampling on...with an open case. That game will make your video card catch on fire.

 

[chicken_wang]

My 6970 hits 90C in Witcher 2 with ubersampling on...with an open case. That game will make your video card catch on fire.

How do you check the temperature of your video card in Celsius? What should be the temperature when gaming on your PC?

Now that you've told me that, I feel a bit discouraged in buying the Radeon 6950 HD. I guess there are some costs in playing Witcher 2 on max settings with ubersampling. I guess I'll just be playing in high settings with ubersampling off.

 

[Bartman39]

The thing to consider is how good your case cooling is and if you overclock your card and this applies to ANY video card... In stock form and with good airflow in a case like you are wanting heat should not be an issue... If you want to try and make it silent then you would have to look to water cooling both the cpu and the gpu but most deal with fans when gaming and for sure when OC`ing...

Just to add if your looking at a Radeon you might consider a better warranty like XFX which is lifetime... I run 2 of the XFX 6950HD`s 2gigs in crossfire with shaders unlocked and a moderate OC on them at stock voltage... Have them in a CM Sniper Storm case that is wrapped around a 2600K @ 4.6Ghz its cooled by an H70 with an MSI P67A-GD53 board... I have no problems with heat even with looping of benches...

 

[terry107]

How do you check the temperature of your video card in Celsius? What should be the temperature when gaming on your PC?

Now that you've told me that, I feel a bit discouraged in buying the Radeon 6950 HD. I guess there are some costs in playing Witcher 2 on max settings with ubersampling. I guess I'll just be playing in high settings with ubersampling off.

I have an unlocked 6950 running at stock 6970 speeds. I run Witcher 2 on ultra with everything turned up except for ubersampling and heat is not an issue. I average about 40 fps.

 

[Lonyo]

The temperature should be under 95 degrees to be safe. They usually shut down when they approach the 100+c mark. Lower is always better though.

But as others have said, if you already have a GTX560Ti, then might as well stick to it, switching isn't really worth the hassle for the minimal performance gains unless you are in a situation where you have a super high res display and are running out of RAM on a 1GB card, which shouldn't be a major issue at 1080p.

 

[lyang238]

My HD6950 unlocked wasn't pretty cool. 40c idle and 65 load @ 50% fan speed. (a little loud). I think it depends alot with the cooling on your case as well.

 

[espaghetti]

How do you check the temperature of your video card in Celsius? What should be the temperature when gaming on your PC?

I'll answer that if you haven't already figured it out.
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1978/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.5.3.html

There's a tab called "sensors".

bon appetit

 

[dust]

My HD6950 unlocked wasn't pretty cool. 40c idle and 65 load @ 50% fan speed. (a little loud). I think it depends alot with the cooling on your case as well.

From where I stand that looks actually pretty good. My 6950 idles at 41C and reaches 78-80 after several gaming hours at 50% fan, without any OC or unlock. Luckily the card is still plenty fast without having to unlock it!

 

[Wuzup101]

The stock fan profiles on my 6950's allowed the cards to get pretty warm on stock settings. I'm using overdrive to overclock the cards and I modified the fan profiles to provide some extra cooling (at the cost of noise) during gaming (when I have headphones on anyway). They aren't noisy when not in a 3D environment. Stock they would hit high 80s to about 90C under furmark's torture test. With the overclock and modified fan profile, I'm seeing high 60s maybe low 70s. I'm running them in an antec p182 and they really are crammed in there. I'm sure they would be a bit cooler still in a case that was actually designed to cool a pair of huge graphics cards.

 

[RussianSensation]

My 6950 @ 6970 clock speeds at 43% fan speed runs at 72-73*C at 99% load. Good case airflow and low ambient temperatures are critical.

 

[Jacky60]

I'd look to add more or better case cooling. A couple of extra 120mm fans or one blowing directly on the card work wonders. I put 4 120mm fans on the side panel of my haf 932 (replacing stock 200mm fan) and my 6990's never get above 80C