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Can thermal throttle damage a GPU?

InfernalSurge
By InfernalSurge
in Graphics Cards
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Go to solution Solved by Najuno,

I think it will be fine. 94°C isn´t really cool but it would take more heat to substantially damage the card. Last time I fried an AMD GPU it died around 147°Celsius hehe.

 

If you had those 94 all the time like stated above then maybe yes but 30 mins... shouldn´t be a big deal at all.

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Hi, I have a MSI R9 380 4GB and it was running at 94 degrees Celsius. I was playing The Forest and noticed stuttering, but I ignored it. 20-30 min later, I opened Afterburner and it scared the **** out of me when I saw  94 degree C reading. Funny thing is, the fan speed was only at 400 RPM (usually runs at 1300 RPM), although the fan speed was set to auto mode. I restarted my PC and the temps seem normal again (~70 degrees), but I'm worried whether or not running my R9 380 at 94 degree C for 20-30 min has caused substantial/long term damage frown.gif  Any info is appreciated.

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AMD claims a thermal limit of around 85 degrees C, but their cards don't throttle until around 95. You're probably safe, but look at fixing the heat issue. Don't let it sit at 93 degrees all the time.

 

Maybe the thermal paste is bad (replace it,) or the fans aren't spinning correctly (off bearing, ect.)

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Youre probably fine, the idea of thermal throttling is that the CPU or GPU will perform worse and slow itself down to prevent itself from being damaged, thus the term thermal throttle.

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Hi, I have a MSI R9 380 4GB and it was running at 94 degrees Celsius. I was playing The Forest and noticed stuttering, but I ignored it. 20-30 min later,I opened Afterburner and it scared the **** out of me when I saw saw 94 degree C reading. Funny thing is, the fan speed was only at 400 RPM (usually running at 1300 RPM) although the fan speed was set to auto mode. I restarted my PC and th temps seem normal again (~70 degrees), but I'm worried whether or not running my R9 380 at 94 degrees C for 20-30 min has caused substantial/notable long term damage frown.gif  Any info is appreciated.

There shouldn't any long term damage as you ran for only 30 minutes. Gpu can work at high temperatures, but the components are at stake. Caps can loose their rated working hours due to high temps and solder under the chip can loose contact. That happens with a year of beating a card at that temperature. So the answer is NO. You're alright

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the life span can be reduces if it runs at those temperatures for extended periods of time, basically weeks

half an hour will not cause any damage

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I think it will be fine. 94°C isn´t really cool but it would take more heat to substantially damage the card. Last time I fried an AMD GPU it died around 147°Celsius hehe.

 

If you had those 94 all the time like stated above then maybe yes but 30 mins... shouldn´t be a big deal at all.

 

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Hi, I have a MSI R9 380 4GB and it was running at 94 degrees Celsius. I was playing The Forest and noticed stuttering, but I ignored it. 20-30 min later,I opened Afterburner and it scared the **** out of me when I saw saw 94 degree C reading. Funny thing is, the fan speed was only at 400 RPM (usually running at 1300 RPM) although the fan speed was set to auto mode. I restarted my PC and the temps seem normal again (~70 degrees), but I'm worried whether or not running my R9 380 at 94 degree C for 20-30 min has caused substantial/notable long term damage frown.gif Any info is appreciated.

Thermal throttling is meant to prevent damage AFAIK. If it's thermal throttling, the. It is probably fine.

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AMD claims a thermal limit of around 85 degrees C, but their cards don't throttle until around 95. You're probably safe, but look at fixing the heat issue. Don't let it sit at 93 degrees all the time.

 

Maybe the thermal paste is bad (replace it,) or the fans aren't spinning correctly (off bearing, ect.)

My temp seems to be normal again. I'm not sure what caused the problem; I put my PC to sleep overnight with The Forest open, and in the morning, the temp just went crazy when I went back to playing. The GPU made some scary revving noises. 

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There shouldn't any long term damage as you ran for only 30 minutes. Gpu can work at high temperatures, but the components are at stake. Caps can loose their rated working hours due to high temps and solder under the chip can loose contact. That happens with a year of beating a card at that temperature. So the answer is NO. You're alright

 

the life span can be reduces if it runs at those temperatures for extended periods of time, basically weeks

half an hour will not cause any damage

 

Phew, now I will always have afterburner running in-game to make sure this doesn't happen again. 

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I knew that Intel CPUs decreased clock speeds when overheating, but I wasn't sure about (AMD) GPUs. Thanks.

The specific application of thermal throttling varies between manufacturers, but the concept is still the same:

thermal throttling is implemented to prevent damage from getting too hot.

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I knew that Intel CPUs decreased clock speeds when overheating, but I wasn't sure about (AMD) GPUs. Thanks. 

No worries AMD, Intel and nVidia have all this implemented as a safety feature. And unless you flash your GPU with a mod BIOS your GPU would shut itself down before it would overheat and damage the chip severly.

But it is always a good thing to have control over the hardware and the temps. With air coolers and closed cases without windows you can use the temp curve as indicator i.e. if your GPU and PC is in need of a dust off cleaning and so :).

 

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No worries AMD, Intel and nVidia have all this implemented as a safety feature. And unless you flash your GPU with a mod BIOS your GPU would shut itself down before it would overheat and damage the chip severly.

But it is always a good thing to have control over the hardware and the temps. With air coolers and closed cases without windows you can use the temp curve as indicator i.e. if your GPU and PC is in need of a dust off cleaning and so :).

 

The specific application of thermal throttling varies between manufacturers, but the concept is still the same:

thermal throttling is implemented to prevent damage from getting too hot.

Thanks for clearing up :) 

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