Hello guys, so my Sapphire RX 480 just died, and i bought this RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition as i found a really good deal on it. The problem is the Junction Temperature reported by the driver or other monitoring apps. With my case closed and the card fan left at default, the Junction temperature was in the 100 C mark and the GPU temperature was about 85 C. With the case open and with a custom profile the temperatures dropped to about 90 - 92 C and 75 - 76 C respectively. Also as you guys guessed, the card was really really loud for just a ten degree improvement in temperatures, as the card has a blower style cooler. Now i searched on Google, read some threads on reddit and here, and it seems that this is a normal behaviour, even for some of the custom cooling solutions that are on the market. But to me it still feels that this is a very high temperature for an electronic equipment basically, and i worry for the long-term reliability of the card. So this is my question. Should i worry about the reliability? (i plan to keep it for about 3 years). Do any of you have this card with the stock cooler and have you experienced issues that forced you to send it to warranty or RMA because of the high temperature? Thank you guys.
The Anniversary model is good but the reference cooler is either very loud or runs very hot even for earlier AMD cards but AMD themselves considers the temps to be fine and the GPU can do up to 105 - 108 degrees before it starts throttling for the junction temp with the edge or surface temp sensor around 15 - 20 degrees below that assuming there's no gap or issues with the thermal paste which doesn't seem to be the issue here. Undervolting and reducing clock speeds a little bit can help but it does take a bit of fiddling though due to AMD pushing the cards to just about their limits and the Anniversary model being able to boost just a bit higher still you can cut around a 30 - 40 degrees junction temp and GPU core power consumption by over 50% with voltage down some 100 to 200mv plus some fine tuning with the power draw slider and that nets you a 6 - 10% performance loss. Every card is different though so a few do near 2 Ghz GPU core clocks at 1000 - 1050mv with little or no additional power draw whereas others might need 1100 up to almost the full 1200mv and a full 50% extra power draw and might still struggle to boost up to or over 2000 Mhz even if the AE models are pretty good there is still some variance so for this it comes down to testing and adjusting values little by little finding what works and where the card starts dropping more performance or even hitting stability problems. Alternatively a higher fan curve and target temps can do a acceptable job although this makes the smaller fan work harder and generates more noise though the blower design does vent most of the hot air out of the case though overall temps aren't as good as the bigger heatsink and dual or triple fan air cooler custom variants or going for a water kit to really get the 5700 XT's temps down to less extreme values unlike hitting just at or below throttle speeds like it does at default which AMD also set pretty high. Sure the GPU can take it but it's still pretty hot so I prefer 80 - 85 junction and around 70 surface temps myself bit higher when the GPU is pushed to it's maximum. 5700 XT Pulse though downclocked at 1900 Mhz 1850 effective as the clocks are always around 50 lower than the set value for whatever reason but as the stock settings had problems getting above 1800 it's actually performing better though not in the 2 Ghz range and the extra 3 - 4% performance that might have netted if it could be held at that performance level consistently. (Which it couldn't without a better cooler and would hit around 1900 - 1950 at best so this keeps it nicely cooled and still perming well overall.) Just a downside of AMD going with a blower cooler for a GPU that while not the 290X or Fury is still pretty tough to cool down when it's running near it's max speeds and even if tuned down a bit for what's a "mid-range" type of product it's it still pushes a impressive amount of heat. (Though the stock 1.2v power to the GPU core is behind part of that and some of the non reference models greatly increase power draw whereas 180w is a pretty good default that can further be modified via the power draw slider in Wattman.) EDIT: I suppose it operates within AMD's expected parameters but 100c junction up to the threshold full 110c junction is still something near 90 Celsius on the GPU core getting close to the lovely 290X and it's 95 GPU core temp (Fun!) plus whatever the VRAM and VRM's will be feeling from that which could also be a concern. I'd say undervolting is definitively a good thing but it takes some fiddling and testing to ensure stability so that's a bit of work and there is a performance trade-off even if small especially if trying to push the card down to a more tolerable 1.0v GPU voltage and overall power draw and temps relaxing a bit as a result. Stock cooler does what it can but it's pretty limited for the higher settings AMD has given these cards and the Anniversary edition can go higher by a small amount still so it's going to be pretty tough for it and replacing it or going with water is a process as well. (Well that's already pretty clear from the results here and most benchmarks too I'd say and most criticism being on the stock cooler AMD opted for.)
Yeah, a blower card will run hot compared to a card with a good chunky fin stack with big fans over it. I would return that card and get a 3rd party model with good cooling. Alternatively, you can put up with the heat, or turn the fans up and put up with the noise. If money is tight, I would honestly rather have a nice 5700 over this 5700xt.
Hey guys, thank you very much for your replies, it really helps having other people opinions to look up to. Indeed the washer trick might help, but doing that would void the warranty of the card (at least here in Romania). I already filled the return request on the online store, so i have 14 days to decide if i return it. As i see it, there are only to negatives with this card: The high Junction Temp and the fan noise at higher speeds. All else are positives: the performance, the price i got it for, the build quality feels premium, no stupid coil wine, the looks, but most of all the performance. It is honestly at least twice as fast as my old RX 480. Having said all that i adjusted the power level by -10 % and as a result the power consumption decreased from 190 w to 170 w, the Junction Temp reached 85-86 C, also as far as the noise goes with the custom profile i set up it is as loud as my broken RX 480 (which was a Sapphire Nitro + with two fans). Also the performance doesn't seem lower, in some games like GTA V or SW: Battlefront 2 it still reaches 2 Ghz. I will be testing it in some games through the weekend and decide if i should return it or not. PS: another negative might be some slight stutter in some games like The Division 2, but it's because of the drivers, it mentions that on the release notes, so maybe that will get fixed. Stay healthy guys!
I'm running my ref. card on 1750Mhz/0.975mV with fan maxing at 31% + fps limit to 75 and never got more than 75C on a junction. Can't say it's loud, noise is very acceptable. For Division 2 make sure you have DX12 enabled.
Wow that is a really low voltage on that card! I wonder how much of a performance difference your settings made. So i have been testing the card through out the day in different games. After a long session (about 3 hrs) in SW: Battlefront 2 it reached 88 C on Junc Temp. But the GPU Temp never got past 73-74 C. Lol if AMD wouldn't have showed the Junc temp, i would have thought that is blower style card was actually cooler then my old Sapphire 480, which got to 84-85 C and was also impressively loud. All in all the games i tested ran great for the most part. Division 2 runs good except for some slight stutter, GTA V also ran great without stutter, SW: Battlefront 2 also run beautifully, World War Z (it's free on Epic Games Launcher) runs great, Forza Horizon 4 runs great looks great, Witcher 3 very high FPS but the same stutter as in Division2, Borderlands 3 also beautiful performance. But there are some games that ran not so good. For example in Kingdom Come the FPS and the GPU usage are very erratic and not stable at all. Deus Ex Mankind Divided, the same issue of an unstable GPU usage, and also GTA IV Complete actually runs worse then GTA V on my pc! I want to try undervolting but some people on forums and youtube actually think it can damage your card the same way as overvolting, so i guess i'll do a little bit more research before that.
@RaulR For Division 2 and Deus Ex Mankind Divided, do you get stutter in DX11 or DX12 mode? or in both? What CPU you have now? I hope it's not one you have in profile
LOL no, i have an AMD 2700x, i haven't updates the profile in years ) I actually play Division 2 in DX12, i haven't try it in DX11, but Deus Ex i tried it in both ways and the performance is the same. I guess i will be keeping the card, it has 2 years of warranty after all. As someone above mentioned, money is tight for me, with all that's happening with this damn virus, but since we are all confined to our houses i have to do something with that free time. If i return it i have to wait about 10 working days for the money to return, then buy another one plus delivery, that's another 3 days. I also played Monster Hunter on it and again the performance is really nice, runs really smooth in DX12.
A water block would be nice, but first i'm going to try a good airflow case. I miss my old case, it had a giant 30 cm fan on the side.
