Rx 480 reaches 90 degrees no matter what

[josuemora111]

Hello everbody, as the title says, my rx 480 is overheating. I've had it for about 2 years, and recently when i made a hardware change (CPU and mobo) I've had some heating issues. Before the hardware change I had it overclocked to 1315 mhz and it could run at around 84 degrees. Now It cant even run at stock settings (1266mhz) without reaching 90 degrees while playing the witcher 3. I've tried many things like setting my pc case fans to full speed, increasing gpu fan speed to 3100 rpm, decreasing the target tem, lowering the voltage, no matter what i do in wattman the temps reach 90 degrees in gpu heavy games like the witcher 3. It's worth mentioning that i also increase the power limit to 30%, and while lowering this could lower my temps, it also causes my rx 480 to throttle. What could have caused this problem as i wasnt experiencing it before? Are these signs of a dying GPU? Is there anything else i could try? Like a thermal paste replacement or something. Any opinions and suggestions are welcome!!! Thank you.

My system spec:

motherboard: gigabyte ab350 gaming 3
CPU: ryzen 5 1600x
GPU: rx480 8gb powercolor
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 750 B1 80+ BRONZE
RAM: KINGSTON - HYPERX FURY BLACK 8GB (1 X 8GB) DDR4-2133 MEMORY (HX421C14FB/8)
Hard drive: Seagate barracuda 1TB Desktop HDD (ST1000DM010)
CPU Cooler: cooler master hyper 212 LED
Case: Corsair Carbide Series Black 300R

 

[volkgren]

Did you reinstall your OS and drivers after changing CPU and motherboard?

 

[josuemora111]

Did you reinstall your OS and drivers after changing CPU and motherboard?

Yes

 

[Pat Flynn]

While it may indicate a dying GPU, it could also be something as simple as needing to re-do the thermal paste on the heatsink. It's common for the OEM pastes to dry out and 'crack' so to speak. If it's something you're comfortable doing, I'd say (very carefully!) disassemble the card and thoroughly clean both the GPU and the heatsink contacts (use a high percentage isopropyl alcohol), then use a high quality thermal paste (Thermal Grizzly for example). Make sure to not use too much, but just enough to provide 100% coverage of the silicon (there's typically no heat spreader on GPUs).
Also, while you have the heatsink off the card, give it a very thorough cleaning of dust. Don't use liquids of any kind, it'll turn the dust into a tar-like substance that is even harder to remove. Compressed air is the best bet, but don't let the fans rotate too fast while doing it- it'll wreck the barrings.

Hope that helps

 

[josuemora111]

While it may indicate a dying GPU, it could also be something as simple as needing to re-do the thermal paste on the heatsink. It's common for the OEM pastes to dry out and 'crack' so to speak. If it's something you're comfortable doing, I'd say (very carefully!) disassemble the card and thoroughly clean both the GPU and the heatsink contacts (use a high percentage isopropyl alcohol), then use a high quality thermal paste (Thermal Grizzly for example). Make sure to not use too much, but just enough to provide 100% coverage of the silicon (there's typically no heat spreader on GPUs).
Also, while you have the heatsink off the card, give it a very thorough cleaning of dust. Don't use liquids of any kind, it'll turn the dust into a tar-like substance that is even harder to remove. Compressed air is the best bet, but don't let the fans rotate too fast while doing it- it'll wreck the barrings.

Hope that helps

Guess i'll consider reapplying thermal paste as a last resort then, thanks mate! Although, would you think it's safe to play at 88-90 degrees? I mean i get these temps in a heavy game like the witcher 3, but on something like squad, temps remain at around 70 degrees.

 

[volkgren]

Have you tried installing a different program like MSI Afterburner and enabling a custom fan curve?

 

[josuemora111]

Have you tried installing a different program like MSI Afterburner and enabling a custom fan curve?

Well no i havent, but that's because i've read that wattman conflicts with msi afterburner. Do you have any experience with this?

 

[Karadjgne]

Safe temps for cpu =70°C. Safe temps for gpu =80°C. Playing at 80°C + constantly has probably dried out the paste, most ppl use Arctic MX-4 as a replacement, just don't use AS5 or you'll be replacing it every 6-8 months.
Also plan on replacing any thermal tape that's used on the vrms/vram as that'll be destroyed the moment you remove the gpu heatsink.

Have you updated to the latest bios for that Ryzen? More recent updates have changed the power delivery targets, micro-code fixes for over-volting gpus.

MSI Afterburner was basically written for AMD products (cpus/gpus) and other than Overdrive is the only somewhat accurate way of reading temps/performance on those chipsets. Considering Wattman was written specifically for Radeon gpus, you'd think it'd be accurate, but that's also if it's A) setup correctly and B) actually working right.

 

[josuemora111]

Safe temps for cpu =70°C. Safe temps for gpu =80°C. Playing at 80°C + constantly has probably dried out the paste, most ppl use Arctic MX-4 as a replacement, just don't use AS5 or you'll be replacing it every 6-8 months.
Also plan on replacing any thermal tape that's used on the vrms/vram as that'll be destroyed the moment you remove the gpu heatsink.

Have you updated to the latest bios for that Ryzen? More recent updates have changed the power delivery targets, micro-code fixes for over-volting gpus.

Thanks for the info! And no i havent updated my bios, I currently have bios version F8, so i should update to the latest bios version for the ab350 gaming 3?

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes, staying on top of bios updates in the past wasn't a big deal, but the Ryzen architecture and AM4 boards are so new that they are still working out all the bugs from established and new software/hardware that they couldn't test for. So bios updates for Ryzen is quite important.

 

[josuemora111]

Thanks for all your suggestions guys, at the end though, i just settled by decreasing my power limit to 0% and lowering my target tempertures to 45 degrees in wattman (this way my fans start way sooner). So now i may not be stable at 1266mhz on heavy gpu games (like the witcher 3) but at least my temps seem to average at around 80-83 degrees, reaching peaks to up to 87 degrees. Fortunately most of my games stay lower than 80 degrees.