RX 480 throttling. What to do?

[mapegl]

Before you read this, keep in mind that I have my system in an ELITE 110 and restrictions therefore apply. Check out the build log in my sig for pictures and more info on my build.

 

So I finally found a game that somehow makes my GPU go throttling. Battlefield 4. Haven't played it in forever. All other games I have tested so far (including Battlefield 1 Beta, Tomb Raider etc.) resulted in temps around 84°C and clock speeds around 1100....which is already throttling I know, but considering the noise output and everything....well it was fine for me. Not too big of a performance loss yet.

 

However now with BF4, my GPU goes up to 89°C on max fan speed and throttles down to about 800Mhz at times, which results in very low frame rates.

 

So I was wondering what to do about it:

 

1) I could try to sell my GPU, however since I modded it so much, I really don't know how much anyone would pay me for it now. My guess is that returns won't be that great, however I think enough to still afford a 200€ GPU after selling. That would result in the funds to get

a) another RX480 or a RX470, which is not really an option since they don't make small ones under 21cm in length;

OR

b) I could get an EVGA 1060 3GB SC and hope that thermals will be much better.....I have no idea though.

 

2) I could watercool that damn thing, however what keeps me from doing so is, that I feel like watercooling should give you the option to overclock and I will never overclock that thing since I have one of the RX480s that only has a single 6-pin and thus already almost exceeds the PCIe spec.

 

So yeah.....any ideas? I am kinda lost here.

 

 

[mapegl]

3 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

afaik the 480 has a pretty shit cooler on it, being just a block of metal. The most you could do is re-paste it and go to stock clocks, if you aren't there already. AMD really should've put some more thought into that cooler's design, it feels like a complete afterthought "we made a card, oh wait, fuck, we have to cool it"

The 1060 SC has a nice little cooler on it

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I put an arctic accelero mono plus on the 480 (otherwise it would be too long for my case) and slapped an NF-A15 on that heatsink.

 

I am just wondering if the 1060 would suffer from the same thing as my GPU now, because in an open environment this cooler rocks. under 70°C no problem, but in this tiny case.....well it is open air. And any blower style cooler is too long...

[vorticalbox]

turn up the fans or find a way to get more heat out of the case to lower its temp.

[mapegl]

14 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

turn up the fans or find a way to get more heat out of the case to lower its temp.

I already modded a fan in the top so it can exhaust hot air coming from the GPU. It helps, but not enough. I mean the GPU is mostly blowing against the closed side of the PSU.

15 minutes ago, starcoaster said:

huh.. well that shouldn't throttle then, that's not a bad cooler..

check your paste application and while you're at it, put some heatsinks on the VRM's if there's nothing else cooling them down

VRMs are cooled well enough. The don't go over 90°C anymore, so that is fine.

 

I know the cooler isn't bad, and without the side/top-panel on the GPU is decently cool (around 75°C) with only 600rpm on the GPU fan. The problem is that the case has no chance of exhausting the air quick enough I guess and so the GPU mostly sits in its own heat.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, mapegl said:

I already modded a fan in the top so it can exhaust hot air coming from the GPU. It helps, but not enough. I mean the GPU is mostly blowing against the closed side of the PSU.

VRMs are cooled well enough. The don't go over 90°C anymore, so that is fine.

 

I know the cooler isn't bad, and without the side/top-panel on the GPU is decently cool (around 75°C) with only 600rpm on the GPU fan. The problem is that the case has no chance of exhausting the air quick enough I guess and so the GPU mostly sits in its own heat.

IF you have no case ventilation, you won't really see a difference with a different GPU. You need to find a way to get more air flow.

[Nena Trinity]

Open the side of the case and see if that help? Or let it stay fully open?

[mapegl]

6 minutes ago, Nena360 said:

Open the side of the case and see if that help? Or let it stay fully open?

I treid, that really helps but of course that way it will get very dusty.

 

I actually just turned the heatsink on my GPU by 90° and that helps. I still reach 89°C in BF4, but now it stays above 1100 Mhz.

Still not great, but ok I guess.

[Darkseth]

1. Which RX 480 exactly? Which model?

 

2. Pls do NOT get a 3gb GTX 1060. 3gb is a HUGE Bottleneck today in simple 1080p Gaming.

Since you're also from Germany: https://www.computerbase.de/2016-09/grafikkarten-speicher-vram-test/

If you can afford more than 199€ for the cheapest RX 470 4gb, only 6-8gb models are recommendable.

 

3. I do NOT Recommend the EVGA SC. THe Cooler might be fine for it's size, and MUCH better than the basic EVGA Gaming, but the Vram chips, VRMs and PWM Controler are NOT Cooled. They run pretty hot. Source: http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=11149479#post11149479

 

If you want a good GTX 1060: Zotac AMP!: https://geizhals.de/zotac-geforce-gtx-1060-6gb-amp-zt-p10600b-10m-a1478147.html

Pretty silent/quiet, not that hot, cooled VRMs, and 5 years warranty. 

 

If that's too expensive, than this: https://geizhals.de/msi-radeon-rx-470-gaming-x-8g-v341-001r-a1488445.html

I REALLY recommend 8gb over 3-4 gb. It helps. Not in 3 years, even TODAY.

 

If it's really not possible for 244€, then this: https://geizhals.de/his-radeon-rx-470-x-turbo-hs-470r4ltnr-a1488555.html?hloc=at&hloc=de

 

 

But really, do NOT get that 3gb Cripple.

 

Since 21cm is the max you can take.... Do yourself a favour, and get the 1060 Zotac AMP!, that's by FAR your best bet.

 

If you buy Cheap, you buy twice. And if you buy 3gb Vram, you WILL buy twice very soon, except you want ugly textures.

[xAcid9]

Try undervolt that 480?

[mapegl]

8 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

Try undervolt that 480?

Already tried and did, but there isn't that much possible. From 1196mV to 1150mV, anything below that just crashes in demanding applications. 

 

Thank for the suggestion though. 

[xAcid9]

4 minutes ago, mapegl said:

Already tried and did, but there isn't that much possible. From 1196mV to 1150mV, anything below that just crashes in demanding applications. 

 

Thank for the suggestion though. 

Is that a correct value or is your 480 actually overvolted on stock? Max Wattman voltage limit is 1.15v and 480 default voltage is lower than that.

[mapegl]

4 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

Is that a correct value or is your 480 actually overvolted on stock? Max Wattman voltage limit is 1.15v and 480 default voltage is lower than that.

Ah crap, I wrote this just on the side:

 

Stock is 1093 at the highest. Sorry.

 

I undervolted to 1050, not 1150.

[xAcid9]

1 minute ago, mapegl said:

Ah crap, I wrote this just on the side:

 

Stock is 1093 at the highest. Sorry.

 

I undervolted to 1050, not 1150.

That is good actually, i guess airflow is your real culprit or the accelero mono+ is faulty because that cooler on stock 480 should get no where near 80c. D:

[mapegl]

19 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

That is good actually, i guess airflow is your real culprit or the accelero mono+ is faulty because that cooler on stock 480 should get no where near 80c. D:

Hm.....well with the case open it does work well and I guess that is my real problem. Open-air coolers want to be in "open-air" and provided with some airflow through the case.....

 

Still trying to figure something out. Another problem might be the fan, it is good but can only get up to 1200rpm and that is where I hit the 90°C mark every once in a while....

I guess I could consider a Noctua industrial fan here or an Noiseblocker eLoop.

[mapegl]

So I thought I would post a little update here.

 

I guess the fan really was the problem. I switched from the NF-A15 to an NF-F12 after checking the specs and realizing that the static pressure on the NF-F12 is much higher than on the bigger NF-A15. Interesting.

Well anyways, long story short: Switched then fan, fan runs at same speed as the old one but still has 300rpm extra to go for even more cooling, temps went down by about 5°C, noise went up a tiny bit.

 

Thanks for your help guys.....I am still considering selling my 480 for a 1060 ......I would lose my Freesync capabilities though...

[Matt_98]

If you up the power limit it will not throttle as much (but you may hear a plane landing in your PC)!

[skeeder]

I checked out your rig.  Looks sweet, and very quiet. 

 

Personally, with the amount of heat the RX480 and 470 let off, I would sell it.  That is my opinion, I don't find that type of heat in a case like yours to be sustainable long term.  I would pick up the 1060 6GB.  

 

If you have the stock cooler still, you might be able to sell the whole package for a little bit more considering it is a good GPU cooler that normally costs a bit.  

 

Can't vouch for freesync...my monitor is ancient.

[demonaii]

The problem with the RX series is that all 3rd party vendors have put little to no effort on making a good cooling system for the card.

[mapegl]

14 hours ago, skeeder said:

I checked out your rig.  Looks sweet, and very quiet. 

 

Personally, with the amount of heat the RX480 and 470 let off, I would sell it.  That is my opinion, I don't find that type of heat in a case like yours to be sustainable long term.  I would pick up the 1060 6GB.  

 

If you have the stock cooler still, you might be able to sell the whole package for a little bit more considering it is a good GPU cooler that normally costs a bit.  

 

Can't vouch for freesync...my monitor is ancient.

Yeah I guess you are probably right. But it would cost me at least 100€ to change to a gtx 1060 and that is pretty much 50% extra from what i payed for my 480. On the other hand, getting an auto o something for the card will cost about the same....still that is a lot of money. 

 

Freesync is actually kinda awesome. However, 40fps in a shooter is still too slow, but for other games it is nice because you get no tearing at exis

13 hours ago, demonaii said:

The problem with the RX series is that all 3rd party vendors have put little to no effort on making a good cooling system for the card.

It is weird. They managed to get quieter 290s which had almost double the tdp. I would love a 480Tri-X. That thing should be super quiet, but it doesn't exist....and it would not fit in my case, but yeah...

[mapegl]

19 hours ago, Matt_98 said:

If you up the power limit it will not throttle as much (but you may hear a plane landing in your PC)!

You do realize though that upping the power limit will increase heat, right? That is definitely something that is very undesirable in my PC case.

[xAcid9]

10 minutes ago, mapegl said:

It is weird. They managed to get quieter 290s which had almost double the tdp. I would love a 480Tri-X. That thing should be super quiet, but it doesn't exist....

More concentrated heat because of the smaller die size. 

 

For example Gtx 1070 Amp! EXTREME use the same big ass heatsink as 980 Ti version and get similar temp even though the Tdp almost halved.

[RS2007GOD]

Buy a new case

[Matt_98]

2 hours ago, mapegl said:

You do realize though that upping the power limit will increase heat, right? That is definitely something that is very undesirable in my PC case.

Which is why I mentioned the fan taking off 

I got a reference 480 on release day and have regretted not waiting for 3rd party cards ever since.

[Carclis]

Sounds like you need a new case more than anything. Any card will heat up like that if the case doesn't have adequate airflow.

[mapegl]

7 hours ago, Carclis said:

Sounds like you need a new case more than anything. Any card will heat up like that if the case doesn't have adequate airflow.

 

Sucks. I always really wanted that case, because it is so small and still houses ATX rather than an SFX PSU. Oh well.

I don't really want to watercool it...for multiple reasons.

 

So what cases would you advise to get? Kinda hard to find an ITX case that basically supports a thick GPU and doesn't cost a fortune.  I was already looking at a Fractal Define Nano, but that thing is so big. My old mATX case was smaller.  ;-)