Xfx Radeon HD 6770 - Temperature

**tomsanity** · July 6th, 2011, 03:54 AM

So I picked up this card and replaced my old card. Off the bat I noticed that the temperature shot up to about 55-60 C idle, and when under load, lets say StarCraft II for about an hour or so, it sat between 73-74 C.

My old card, Radeon HD 5670, sat 40-45 idle and would range anywhere between 50-65 while gaming.

Is this card suppose probing around at that temperature range?
Would this kind of constant temperature damage the card?

Model#: HD-677X-ZNFR (if anyone was curious)

Thanks in advance!

**ShyguyXPC** · July 6th, 2011, 05:22 AM

73-74C at load is still relatively cool for a GPU.

your 6770 is also a much more powerful card than the 5670 was, so it will run hotter.

At least your not running High 80's and low 90's for your at load temps like gamers like myself, who are running Geforce GTX 470/480 cards.

Most of my near top end cards I've run in the last few years have all been in the mid 80's, for @ load temps.

If this is your Card: Newegg.com - XFX HD-677X-ZNLC Radeon HD 6770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Then I can guarantee you its the Crap cooler design for the card that is causing it to run much hotter.

This very same design of cooler was used on Radeon 4830's and 4850's (from several companies besides XFX. PowerColor, Sapphire, and some others all used the same design of cooler). Original Design 4830's and 4850's used more standard reference design coolers, but towards the end of their generation just before the 5000 series came out, some companies switched their lower end models of these cards to this design of cooler and sold for cheaper than normal.

I have a Radeon 4830 with this style cooler and it sucks for temps, Runs hotter than my 1GB 4870 which is MUCH more powerful than it.

on that 4830 I was seeing nearly 100C operating temps on the card when at load (didn't help I was using it in a MicroATX Small Form Factor case with limited air intake, but still it ran WAY too hot)

There's practically No cooling on the RAM chips (front side of the card, the heatsink sits over the chips, but there is NO covering or contact of heatsink over the chips and ONLY on the GPU itself, only cooling the RAM chips on front have is air flow from the fan, the back side Chips are completely bare with NO cooling what so ever), little if any cooling on the VRM's, and minimal cooling for the GPU itself. No active air flow over the VRM's heatsink as well.

There's a lot of factors to take into consideration, ambient room temps, internal Case operating temps, cooler design on the card, increased GPU performance as stated above, use of more power from Power supply which goes in hand with GPU performance increase, etc.

This is my Radeon 4830, has no back side Memory chips, its only a 512MB card, but on the front at least it has some copper heatsink plate on the memory chips, but you can see the similar style cooler design used.

Newegg.com - Open Box: PowerColor AX4830 512MD3-H Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

I have seen some companies like HIS even use this cooler design on top end Radeon 4870's before as well.

If it were me, I'd be suspecting the Heatsink design on the XFX as to being the culprit for higher operating Temperatures.

But even with that said, your operating Temps are still fine and acceptable.

if you start hitting the 80's or upper 80's, then you should start to be concerned.

Check that the ambient room temps are cool enough, make sure the heatsink is cleaned of dust, make sure there is plenty of air flow getting to the card (Cables out of way, good case intake cooling, etc), make sure the PC is venting its hot air out appropriately, make sure the system is not taking in exhausted heat into the system again. etc.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 6th, 2011, 05:24 AM

nevermind I see you edited your post while I was typing.

THIS is your card: Graphic Card Models

It has a much better cooler design, but still it could be just not venting it entirely out of the case, and not enough cooler air getting to the card.

plus like I mentioned its a much more powerful card as well, so it will run hotter than the 5670 you had.

What exact model of 5670 did you have before?

**tomsanity** · July 6th, 2011, 04:23 PM

Vision ATI Radeon HD 5670 2GB graphics card 900357, is all I can get or remember for the info.):

Radeon HD 5670 2GB | VisionTek ATI/AMD Radeon Graphics Partner

However, thanks for the reply, its really helpful!

Edit: Looking at your links, none of those look like my card. Rather, my card looks like a brick more than anything, with the opposite end of the AVI slanted with two square opening side by side. In one of the opening is a 6 slot, for extra power from the power supply.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 6th, 2011, 09:37 PM

similar design to the 5770 that preceded it (and is infact actually a 5770, AMD just rebadged the 5750/5770 as 6700's and added a couple minor extra's to the cards features and support with little to no real performance increase... basically they pulled a page from Nvidia's Rule book from a couple years ago)

Graphic Card Models

If this is the cooler design, then it should be venting almost all the heat out back.

aside from some radiating heat off the back of the card.

But like I mentioned the card is still operating with in its tolerances with those temps.

It could be ambient room temps, or internal air in the case could have some dead spots, or warm spots, or some of the heated air that's exhausted its being recycled back in.

also could just be the games, some run the cards harder than others do, even if their graphically inferior.

I've been able to run Battlefield Bad Company 2, in DX11 mode, at near max settings on my GTX 470, and it barely gets above 75C, meanwhile I can run some DX9 only games, and though inferior in eye candy, they run the card in the high 80's.