Anyone here running a HD 4770?

[Mario F.]

Awesome GPU for the 99 euros price tag. I run most modern games at top settings in 1440x900 without any problems. And when I turn on AA, particularly MSAA, this thing even beats my other GTX 280 at this resolution!

But the thing I don't like is the temps. I have a PowerColor. For some reason it doesn't come with the cooler shown at AMD (with the air exhaust). It's just a dissipator and a fan.

On this machine with no airflow, I get idle temps on the early to mid 60s centigrade, and load temps jump to the early to mid 90s centigrade. I get better results with the side panel removed: early 50s idle, mid 80s on load. Clearly an airflow problem.

But I can't solve it now. So do you think these temps (with the machine closed) are off the roof and I really need to do something about it now, or I can relax and get a new case with proper airflow only when I can?

[psychopath]

So do you think these temps (with the machine closed) are off the roof and I really need to do something about it now, or I can relax and get a new case with proper airflow only when I can?

They sound pretty close to the temps I got on my 3850 (single-slot, no exhaust) when I was using it. That was in a well-cooled Antec Sonata III (2x 120mm fans).

Unless there's something about the 4xxx series I don't know about, I'd say you're fine for now.

[Elysia]

Have you looked at how much the power the computer draws (idle vs. load)?
I'm interested in knowing... Gfx cards these are are true power suckers...

[Mario F.]

Don't have an easy way of measuring it, unfortunately.

But this is definitely a problem of bad airflow (the case has none and it's very tight) coupled with definitely a bad cooler by PowerColor.

During 2 hours testing the GPU while playing BioShock, with the side panel opened I got no more than 86C. And this was just hit once. The card remained between 84C and 85C for the most part. And these are MemIO temps. The cooler doesn't get to those. The DispIO is much cooler, going no higher than 79C.

This is frankly much better results than with the case closed.
-1 for PowerColor. The same card from XFX has the exhaust cooler and that would definitely help here. Unfortunately, I took too much time to order it and when I finally did, the supplier was having an hard time getting the XFX. I went with PowerColor.
But +1 for AMD. Awesome card!

And it does annoy me slightly, because these 40nm cards were supposed to be cooler.

[Elysia]

Ah, that's a shame. But energy measurers are very cheap.
You usually just plug them into the socket and connect whatever you want to measure in the measurer's socket.

[Mario F.]

Yeah. Should buy it. Perhaps something like this?
Energy Meter w/LCD Display - Smarthome

[Elysia]

Yeah, one like that. I have a similar one home.