Should I underclock my Sapphire R9 280x Vapor-X for less noise/temperature under load?

curioususer123

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I just had a look at http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-R9-280x-third-party-round-up,review-32817-4.html and was shocked to see the cheaper models of the R9 280x have lower temperature and noise under full load - I could've got them instead, but it's a bit late now!

Why is the R9 280x Vapor-X much louder? I've played Tomb Raider 2013 on ultra and Skyrim with custom texture mods and my temperature was at maximum 67 degrees but it was quite loud. I had a look at the Asus R9 280x DirectCUll and now I regret not getting that one.

The default GPU clock on a R9 280x is 1070mhz, memory clock is 1550 and VDDC is 1256 - how much should I downclock to still get maximum fps on my games but not make it sound like an airplane?
 
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It could be a few things really. Maybe there was too much thermal paste on the card they tested. My HD7950 was a mess when i first removed the cooler. I was idling at 60c and under...
67 degrees is pretty low for load temps. Why not manually adjust the fan speed? If it's loud at say 60%+ then try setting it lower till it's not so noisy anymore and keep an eye on your temps while you play. Even 80 or 90 degrees is acceptable really. Cards are actually able to go past 100c and handle it, but I don't recommend it. lol. I try to stay below 80c at max and have never had an issue.

Doing it this way, you won't have to down clock your card, and your temps may not change very much at all.
 

curioususer123

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That's what I'm thinking, but I'm wondering why the Vapor X performed so poorly in that test? I ran the Unigine Heaven's benchmark on ultra at 1920x1080 but I still only got 63 degrees. What does in loop mean?
 


Running a loop for a benchmark means they ran it over and over for a certain period of time. That would be why their temps were higher.

 
That card is supposed to be one of the top performers in temperature and noise so I'm going to make a few other suggestions first.
Sorry if you already know this BTW.
Cable management: It's surprising how much impact just a few wires can have on thermals, tuck them out of the way using cable ties.
Airflow: Front and side fans IN top and rear fans OUT. Put the strongest fans on the case front. A lot of cases ship with 'meh' fans, replacing them with better alternatives may not only lower temperatures but quieten the system.
Check the airflow: A good test for airflow is to run with the side panel off, if the card runs cooler, you need to improve airflow.
That 67C is very good under load so you could set a custom fan profile in Afterburner, trading higher temperatures for less noise, I like to keep my cards under 75C but 80C is by no means excessive.
 

curioususer123

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I've ran two benchmarks, the fan speed for the vapor-x corresponds to the temperature, so at 56 degrees you'll have 56% fan speed. I left the benchmark to run twice at 43% fan speed (much quieter, its this loud watching videos) and the temperature hovered around 72 degrees, while on automatic fan speed it was around 66 degrees.
 

curioususer123

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My cable management is actually really good, there is nothing inside the case. Should I lower the core clock to 1000 Mhz? The HIS R9 280X IceQ X² clocks at 1000Mhz compared to 1070 on the Vapor X and is much quiter with 69 degrees under load.

I've ran my Vapor X at automatic for over 10 minutes using the same benchmark and I've been hovering around 66 to 67 degrees, was there a problem with their card?
 

curioususer123

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I'm not sure what stable is to be honest! I haven't over or underclocked before!
 


If those are your temps now I see no reason AT ALL for lowering your clocks. Barely breaking 70c is not an issue at all. I mean really, why did you buy the Vapor-X version again and pay more money for it? I assume it was for the higher clocks. lol.

 

curioususer123

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I did the Unigine Heaven's benchmark mode in max settings with 1920x1080 with different fan speeds, I did this until the temperatures didn't go up anymore. I hope I did the test correctly - it was the one with the floating island and dragon!

Anyway in the automatic fan profile the temperature remained steady at

66-67 degrees C

At 43% fan speed (this is when I couldn't hear the GPU fan over the case/cpu fans - and I have a quiet case) it maxed 75 degrees.
 

curioususer123

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I'm not even a hardcore gamer haha - I bought it because it was either that or the Dual-X - but I do very much prefer a quietish gaming experience.
 


Good to go then. :)

 

curioususer123

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I'm wondering why the article's temperatures are so high.
 


It could be a few things really. Maybe there was too much thermal paste on the card they tested. My HD7950 was a mess when i first removed the cooler. I was idling at 60c and under load I hit 85c. After I cleaned it up and replaced the thermal paste with the proper amount, I would idle around 44c and under load hit 65c. This running at 1070mhz core and 1500mhz memory clocks using a modded bios. :)

Different room temperture, different case, different voltages depending on ASIC quality as well. Could be any of the things I listed honestly.
 
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curioususer123

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I've lowered my GPU clock to 1000 Mhz since I don't use the extra FPS my GPU gives anyway. My memory clock is at 1550 Mhz and VDDC is at 1256, should I lower them too? Or does the memory clock have affect on temperature.
 

mreapz88

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I have the same card, also very scarred of it at first but no worry.
Stock it just has a stupid fan schedule.
Download MSI afterburner and create a custom fan profile.

I play crysis 3/ bf4 at ulta with max 42% fan, it stays below 78 C always.
And ofcourse i dont even hear it anymore.
 

Sosk

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tbh i had this exact same problem , my psu is cooler master GX 650w bronze , my card gets relatively hot when any game is opened reaching 80c *i have no air coolers* so i kept searching everywhere , tweaking the card and playing with the cores and vddc .. and what is actually confusing me as hell , is that my card doesn't exceed 65c when the vddc is 1100 instead of 1256 .. now i don't understand where the problem is , and i didnt suffer any glitches or problems , and the frames in the games is the same as the stock 1256 .. so what's goin on ? that's what i have no idea about .. all i know is that the card is cool and didn't suffer any loss in performance .. it would be great if someone explain this situation to me.
 

leeb2013

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you could just do a custom fan profile so the fans are at a lower speed until it gets hotter, but then for any prolonged usage it'll just delay the point at which it gets noisy, then it'll be noisy and hot.

My recommendation would be to reduce the voltage. Your card is basically a 7970, although I've more experience with 7950, it should be similar. It shouldn't need 1.256v to run at 1070MHz. I found that anything over 1.15v increases the heat and power a lot. Try reducing the voltage, run a few benchmarks and games to check for stability. My 7950 boosted to 1.25v @ 925MHz and got hotter than necessary. Yet they'll happily run at 1130MHz @ 1.193mV (I normally use them at 1030MHz @ 1.1v so they're really cool and quiet). I fixed it into the bios, so no more stupid boost.
If you can't drop the V very far, then just down clock a bit to say 1040MHz, this will barely affect importance, if it does, just increase the memory clock to make up for it. You should then be able to get the voltage down nearly as low as 1.1v, it will be really cool and quiet then. You could even slow the fans down even further.
If you reach a good compromise and are feeling confident, (and it has a bios switch), you could fix this setting into the bios.
 

leeb2013

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because you dropped the voltage and not the clock, less voltage = less power = cooler. They set the voltage so that every card is guaranteed to run at that core freq. But most cards don't need so much voltage, as you have found.
 

Sosk

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thanks for the quick reply and explanation , also just to add as a hint before i forget .. tomb raider , batman origins and all these games work very good with 1100 vddc , but on guild wars 2 the game crashed after few mins of playing , so raising the vddc to 1125 fixed the problem , that's all :) .. and thx again for ur explanation
 

curioususer123

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Hey everyone, I undervolted my R9 280x vapour-x to 1175 VDDC from 1256, the GPU was as stable as ever but a lot cooler, are there any dangers to undervoltng besides stability?

Here's benchmarks from 10 minutes of Heaven.

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Also, a bit of a stupid question, I have a fan underneath the GPU since it takes air in, but I'm not sure if the fan is blowing in or out! Is the label meant to be in the case for air to be blown in?