Safe Temps for a 6600XT

[Krypton]

So I have not gamed for several years, but lately have been playing a little Counter Strike..

I have had a 960 GTX 4GB that has been handling that perfectly fine for 1920x1200 (dual monitors, gaming on only one), but just wanted some options to casually check out some newer titles..

So today, I picked up an XFX Speedster 6600XT off of Marketplace for $120... pretty good price, and yes it will at least double the performance over the 960...

Anyhow, I have been putting it through a few tests, and everything has been flawless so far.. I did a DDU uninstall before removing the 960 and installing the 6600.

Upon stress testing, I used Furmark and the hotspots are pretty hot .. but from what I am reading, this is normal for the 6000 series? Playing counterstrike, temps are much cooler as the card is not stressed at all.

Max Temps after 10 minutes of Furmark:

Should I be concerned at all? I have not downloaded the full Radeon driver set yet.. but I assume I can adjust the fan curve to help things out.

Old card vs new for giggles..

 

[pendragon1]

its a bit warm for our tastes but within spec. you could bump up the fan a bit, it topped out at only 54%. turn it up until you find it annoying, back it off a bit and set that as max for 75c on the gpu.

 

[riev90]

1. I would use HWInfo or GPU-Z for logging
2. Like pendragon said, I would bump the fan speed or create custom fan curve, for example:
under 50c (set fan to 0%, max 25%), 65c (set fan to 45%), 80c (set fan to 65%), 90c (set fan to 80%).
3. I would ensure the airflow of the case
4. I would try undervolting the card using AMD Adrenaline Software, try testing the stability of the undervolt using Unigine Heaven / Valley / Superposition or Firestrike / Timespy Loop

Anyway, that's a nice performance bump!!!

 

[xenium]

Furmark is a brutal stress test. So for furmark those temps are normal, especially the core. ~100C hotspot is toasty though.

If it's still hitting ~100C hotspot under heavy gaming loads (not furmark), I'd put some good/fresh paste on it at least. 21C delta from the core to hotspot is somewhat concerning, and usually indicative of old/crusty paste, or poor paste application (factory or re-paste).

 

[Krypton]

Installed the latest Adrenalin drivers, and set the fan to max out at 100%

This is after 30 min of Doom at ultra settings:

Fan noise does not bother me as I wear headphones, but I will probably redo the thermal paste with some MX-4.

Reading reviews, it seems XFX Radeon cards tend to run hotter... could be non optimal thermal paste from the factory.

Cheap thrills.. I used to be a hardware snob when I was younger, always swapping parts and chasing the newest stuff.

I slowed that down around 2010 or so as the performance I had was enough and I was gaming less and less.

It is always great to have the market come to you, and buying value on the used market..

These cards were selling for ~$400 18 months ago.

 

[chameleoneel]

Installed the latest Adrenalin drivers, and set the fan to max out at 100%

This is after 30 min of Doom at ultra settings:

View attachment 574034​

Fan noise does not bother me as I wear headphones, but I will probably redo the thermal paste with some MX-4.

Reading reviews, it seems XFX Radeon cards tend to run hotter... could be non optimal thermal paste from the factory.

Cheap thrills.. I used to be a hardware snob when I was younger, always swapping parts and chasing the newest stuff.

I slowed that down around 2010 or so as the performance I had was enough and I was gaming less and less.

It is always great to have the market come to you, and buying value on the used market..

These cards were selling for ~$400 18 months ago.

Those doom temps are very good for a two fan 6600 XT with a not particularly thick heatsink.

Nowadays, GPUs often ship with huge heatsinks. so we see some extremely low temps. However, GPUs aren't truly getting warm, until the mid 80's. Right about 84c, is when Nvidia Throttles down and stops boosting beyond advertised game clocks. AMD's cards are also good for those temps, as well.