The entire lineup of modern graphics cards from both camps has had a bump in TDP this generation, and if the rumors are to be believed, the next generation will only exacerbate this problem.Īnd it is a problem.Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load) While Jacob and I might not use our GPUs to their full potential, there’s no denying that the RTX 3090 and the RX 6950 XT are incredibly power-hungry and hot GPUs, and they’re not alone. The future looks warm Jacob Roach / Digital Trends The longer I play, the worse it gets, for both the card and me. My mATX case does not give this 6950 XT enough room for its triple fans to cool it effectively, so even if I do run it full tilt, I run into some thermal throttling after extended use. It also doesn’t sound comfortable, because just as gaming with a hot PC next to your legs or on your desk can make you hot and bothered, they can get really loud too. There might be a case of gaming with one of the best graphics cards pulling over 300W if you live somewhere tepid or it’s not the middle of summer, but when the temperatures rise outside and you want to hide inside playing games, switching on a miniature space heater to do it doesn’t feel very comfortable once temperatures start rising. This is something that both of us have had to deal with as our respective countries grapple with heat waves. “I just can’t handle the noise and heat, even if the card is capable of more.” “I’ve been limiting the frame rate with my 3090 for a while,” he said when I mentioned how I felt bad for making my RX 6950XT perform worse than it can. But according to him, it’s often a bit much and, frankly, more than he needs. His daily driver gaming PC has an RTX 3090 inside, and it’s stupendously powerful (although my card’s better). I would have been too ashamed to write about it myself if I hadn’t found out that my fellow DT writer and high-end GPU owner, Jacob Roach, is also a sacrilegious downclocker. I’m also aware that there are other ways around this problem without tamping down on the card’s performance, such as better system cooling, or gaming with the air conditioning on. I know this post reads like the most whiney of first-world problems - believe me, I’ve read it through multiple times before posting. Now, I can game in relative peace, and it takes far, far longer for my little home office to heat up. I have a near-silent 6950 XT that still performs better than almost any other GPU out there, and it didn’t require a custom cooler or heavy tweaking. The core clock now barely breaks 1,900MHz, and my Time Spy score isn’t quite as good, but I don’t care. Just as important? Fan speeds never went over 1,500 RPM, keeping the card cool and quiet enough that it only just registered over the whir of the system fans. Suddenly I had a card that even with a 4K Furmark run wasn’t going over 265W, with a maximum junction temperature of just 80 degrees. I could have manually adjusted the fan curves myself, but ultimately, setting the tuning profile to Quiet was enough.Ĭlock speeds dropped a little more, and fan speeds followed suit. The automated undervolting had a minor effect of its own, but a few extra RPM and a single-degree drop in temperatures wasn’t going to cut it. Next, I played with the settings in AMD’s Adrenaline driver application and made further headway. Image used with permission by copyright holder But it still wasn’t quite quiet enough for my sensibilities and temperature thresholds. Maybe there was a way to have my PCB cake and eat it too. With that, we were only hitting around 1700 RPM on the fans, and the junction temperatures dropped by around five degrees, resting under 100 at load for the first time since I’d gotten the card up and running. But the secondary Silent BIOS also lowers clock speeds and undervolts the GPU. The PowerColor Red Devil 6950 XT has a BIOS switch, ostensibly for backup purposes in case you brick one of them trying a heavy overclock. How could I continue to enjoy high frame rates and detail settings in games, but not have to listen to its fans hitting 2,200 RPM as soon as the game menu appears? The solution, it turns out, was the make the card run worse. It’s not necessarily the kind of GPU I would have bought myself, but now that I have one, what am I going to do, not use it?īut that was a very real prospect after a few days of retreating to headphones after the testing was done. When put in an mATX case it runs loud, too, even with a big cooler. It’s the same GPU as the 6900 XT but pushed to its limit, so of course, it runs hot. Taming the beast Jacob Roach / Digital Trends This mysterious Nvidia GPU is an absolute monstrosity - and we just got another look Why this two-year-old GPU is still the one you should buy Here’s why I’m glad Nvidia might kill its most powerful GPU
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