Water cooling or new graphics card?

habitat16kc

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Apr 29, 2015
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I've been having an issue lately with my r9 280x at 75c it resets my computer. Only one fan is working currently so i rigged up a second 120mm to it to help out but it doesn't help it much. So my real question is should I just buy an aftermarket cooler and hope that it fixes my issue or just buy a new gpu all together I was leaning towards the gigabyte 290x. I currently do gaming at 1080 on my main monitor the second one is for music/misc things. Any and all help/advice is appreciated. 🙂 Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
New gpu would be better. Since you are seeing 75°C temps, my guess is its the vram side of the board that has the defunct fan, not the gpu side. That being the case, there's no telling just exactly how much damage has been started. If you did 'fix' the fan, with a replacement (eBay has plenty relatively cheap) it's a fools choice as to just how much longer the card will continue to work at optimal performance.

The 290x is still a decently powerful card that has one pro and two cons. It's cheap, compared to what they used to run. Hot. One of the hottest running gpus out there, blower style is actually a serious bonus as all that heat is vacated, not recycled into the case. Power hungry. Without a decent 650w psu, a 290x is iffy. That...
New gpu would be better. Since you are seeing 75°C temps, my guess is its the vram side of the board that has the defunct fan, not the gpu side. That being the case, there's no telling just exactly how much damage has been started. If you did 'fix' the fan, with a replacement (eBay has plenty relatively cheap) it's a fools choice as to just how much longer the card will continue to work at optimal performance.

The 290x is still a decently powerful card that has one pro and two cons. It's cheap, compared to what they used to run. Hot. One of the hottest running gpus out there, blower style is actually a serious bonus as all that heat is vacated, not recycled into the case. Power hungry. Without a decent 650w psu, a 290x is iffy. That card can and will spike wattage, easily clearing 350w at times, depending on manufacturer and card, even though most times its a 250w card. That kind of instant power draw can play hell on a crappy psu.

Honestly, you'd be better off with a r9 390. Newer, better all around card, runs cooler, same price range.
 
Solution
Thanks for the feedback. @turkey3_scratch that's what I thought as well but every time the temp get to 75+ it resets I've even went as far as underclocking it and running games at lower settings to negate this effect to no avail. :-(

@Karadjgne I was also thinking that a new gpu would be the best choice seeing as I will need to get one either way, but I was under the impression that the 300 series was just another rebrand, but I am by no means an expert (although I do consider myself a closet nerd) there is still quite a bit I do not know.
 
The current 300 series is basically a rebranded 200 series, but they have been slightly overhauled. That means tweaks to memory, core clocks, optimized cooling etc. You are also looking at 8Gb of ram on the 390 vrs 4Gb of ram on a 290x. This may or may not have much affect, depending on the games, resolutions, what's on the other monitor etc.

You are looking at the wrong temps. Sort of. There is 2 sides to the card, the voltage regulatory circuitry side, VRM's, vram etc closest to the rear of the card and the graphics processor chip (gpu) on the front side. This is the only place a temp sensor is located, so it's not unusual to see 75° there, but in the mean time, inadequate cooling will cook the vram and VRM's which will easily reach 90°C + and not affect the gpu side much at all. This is the cause of the problems, ultra high temps on a lopsided heat exchange.
 
The side that the fan went out on was the right side looking at it with the video ports on the left side so that very well could be the issue. I'm on the side of thinking that a new gpu would be the best/easiest route to go just so I'm no sinking money into a possibly damaged card. While I have the funds and my wife's agreement (for the most part) I mine as well just get a new one. I'll look at some reviews of the 300 series and make my choice. One last question though as I only plan on doing 1080 for the near future at least 2 years I don't necessary need an overkill card is the 390 what you would recommend or is another option better? Just for maxed out games 1080 that is.

PC specs
Msi 970 gaming mobo
fx 8320 @ 4.4 with hyper 212 evo
corsair vengeance 8 gb
r9 280x 3gb
128gb toshiba boot drive
2 500gb wd hdd
ocz mod xstream-pro 600w psu.
 
R9 290x, r9 390, gtx970 is as high as 1080p could possibly want. Most games will max everything including DSR resolutions and even the most badly optimized games will still get good playability. If you don't play such highly crappy optimized games, even a r9 290 would be good, just as long as it has 3Gb or better to take advantage of Mantle.