4870 is out...

[Man-wai Chang ToDie (33.6k)]

As hot as 4850, even its heatsink fan is bigger....

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[The Coward Robert Ford]

As hot as 4850, even its heatsink fan is bigger....

Yea, but the 4870 HSF is dual slot and exhausts the heat out of the back of
your case and the 4850 HSF doesn't.

 

[Man-wai Chang ToDie (33.6k)]

accommodate differential thermal expansion. My two X1900XTs easily hit 90+C

even with aftermarket cooling. I can hear the fan shroud squeak and crackle
due to the thermal stress, yet the cards run along without issue.

Would the heat shorten the life of the fans on the after-market cooler?

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[Fred]

As hot as 4850, even its heatsink fan is bigger....

I've had a Sapphire 4870 for a few days now. Mine idles at 78°C. Under
sustained load it goes to 85°C.
The air blowing out of the rear slot feels quite hot but the frames per
second are good.

 

[Richie Rich]

I've had a Sapphire 4870 for a few days now. Mine idles at 78°C. Under
sustained load it goes to 85°C.
The air blowing out of the rear slot feels quite hot but the frames per
second are good.

Look up how to control the fan on the 4870. It's easy to do and I set my
fan to 45% and now it idles at about 50c and under load is only 60c or so.
You just need to enable overclock mode, create a new profile and edit an
..xml file. Before I had the same temps as you which is fine for that card
but if you want better temps then alter the fan speed.

 

[Fred]

Look up how to control the fan on the 4870. It's easy to do and I set my
fan to 45% and now it idles at about 50c and under load is only 60c or so.
You just need to enable overclock mode, create a new profile and edit an
.xml file. Before I had the same temps as you which is fine for that card
but if you want better temps then alter the fan speed.

Yep, have already done that. A couple of days after posting my reply that
info appeared on a web forum that I frequent.
I have my profile starting automatically through startup folder. My
percentage is set at a lower value than you as I find the fan noise
intrusive compared to the rest of my very quiet pc.
I have toyed with the idea of making several profiles and associating them
with the macro keys on my keyboard until I fit an aftermarket cooling
solution.

 

[James McTavish]

Yep, have already done that. A couple of days after posting my reply
that info appeared on a web forum that I frequent.
I have my profile starting automatically through startup folder. My
percentage is set at a lower value than you as I find the fan noise
intrusive compared to the rest of my very quiet pc.
I have toyed with the idea of making several profiles and associating
them with the macro keys on my keyboard until I fit an aftermarket
cooling solution.

I've set mine to 40% now as 45% was bit loud for me. My profile loads
automatically and don't have to put it in the start up folder. I have the
ATI tray tool loading on startup so maybe that is why mine loads
automatically and your's doesn't? Did you click the activate button when
you created the profile?

 

[Arno Wagner]

And how did you know this, through online reviews? By default, the fan speed
is controlled by temperature feedback. So at default settings the 4870 is
*expected* to hold the same temps as the 4850 under load. (Evidently the ATi
engineers consider ~85C a happy temperature for the GPU.)

Depending on the process and chip design that is feasible.

Arno

 

[James McTavish]

Depending on the process and chip design that is feasible.

Arno

Yea, but they failed to take into account that the heat generated by the
video card is going to heat up the cpu in the case too so keeping the video
card at as low a temp as possible without too much noise is always
desirable, even if the video card is designed to handle the temps it
generates.