6990 is a hot potato, significantly hotter than my 6970 was.

UPDATE: After further discussion with other forum members, I have concluded my 6990m must have been defective. Others have reported max furmark temps of 79C and this has been confirmed by more than one member. My 6990m eventually died so my defective theory makes sense. See this post.

I just repasted my 6990 with ICD. No real change in temps, but that is because Dell uses pretty good paste and does a good job putting it on. All tests are 10 minute Furmarks 1920x1080

My 6990 maxes out at 94.5C on the hottest sensor, the rest average 89C.

My 6970 maxed out at 73.5 on the hottest sensor after re-pasting, that is a significant difference. Who would have thought those extra 160 shadders would make so much heat.

6990 before re-pasting.


6990 after re-pasting.


Much cooler 6970 after repasting.

 

Are your fans on during idle? Mine stays on FOREVER.

 

Well that's bad news for anyone that wants to drop 2x 6990's in their R2. Not that it makes it impossible though.

 

Do you have the back of your R3 elevated off the desk?

 

Will try furmark but mine is quite a bit cooler after ICD. I came out of game about 56C within 10 seconds.

 

While at idle there is no real noise, but when I game it is loud, but I use headphones so it isn't an issue.

No the back is flat on the desk with about 5" of desk behind it.

I am honestly a little surprised hot much hotter it is. I was very impressed by the 6970s low temps, especially coming from an Asus G73. I am curious to see if everyones 6990 is this warm. Not that it is an issue until you go over 100C.

 

Odd, when I run benchmarks the hottest I've seen is 79 C

 

I keep mine elevated 1-2 inches off the desk but I make sure I don't block the intake vents. Dropped the temps about 7-8 degrees. You should give it a try.

 

Furmark isn't really a benchmark (it is, but it isn't). Furmark is just for completely maxing out your GPU. We used it a lot in the Asus forum to test the cooling capabilities or your laptop. Most games and other benchmarks will not come anywhere near furmark in temps. If you want to see how hot your GPU will get get, furmark is a quick and easy way to go. Usually 5 minutes is all you need, but I do 10 just to be sure I am maxed out.

If someone else could do a run for 10 minutes and post their temps that would be cool. I would like to see if all 6990s are this hot.

 

Hottest I've seen on mine running 3dMark11 and Vantage is around 65-70 C, tops. No repaste or supplemental cooling, just laptop sitting on a hard surface.

 

Couldn't you undervolt the card a bit to drop the temps even further?

 

Temps don't really matter that much as long as your laptop isn't experiencing thermal shutdowns. This was a huge issue for the Asus G73 which many users had overheat. My temps are fine and I'm not worried about them. I am just curious if others are the same.

I wouldn't undervolt a card unless I needed to. The manufacturers set the voltage for a reason. I don't see a reason to mess with it.

 

I've been noticing mine average about 65 celcius just idling on a wooden desk, so it does seem to be a little hot. The ambient temperature around me has been anywhere from 26-30 though, so I think that may contribute somewhat.

 

undervolted mine (while on stock clocks), never gets above 63 C under FULL load. fans almost never spin up.

 

Mine sits/idles at about 57C, but idle temps make bad comparisons, there are too many variables, did you just play a game, windows Aero, card variations, etc. Load temps seem like a better way to compare laptop temps to me.

Is it stable like that? You probably mentioned this in your other thread, if so would you link it here for others to see. What do you use? Sapphire Trixx? What voltage?

 

I used Radeon Bios Editor and flashed it to my card. I actually run overclocked (720/1000 instead of 715/900) at a mere 1.0V down from 1.1V, and I did a repaste when I got my laptop. All other clock voltages I set to .9 except for 500/900 and 400/900 which I set to .95V

I have had not a single issue running my card like this. Never an error in 3dmark 06 or vantage, I regularly use Dolphin/PCSX2 which push my gfx as well, and they always perform great. Like I said, hottest i've seen is 63-65 C

 

Thanks Technos,

I just finished gaming CoDL:Black Ops for about 20 minutes, max temp was 79C, the other 3 sensors were 75C. Obviously gaming is significantly less intense than Furmark. I wonder how your lower voltage does on furmark. I may have to try it.

Is it hard to flash back to stock if you don't like the changes?

 

no, its easy. back in my undervolt thread I made a total package of what you need, i also included the stock vbios incase something goes wrong or you don't like the settings.

 

Wow, from most people who have posted the 6990m doesn't seem so hot, 79C isn't bad at all! I hope my 6990M stays this cool when I get my sager NP8150. Are you guys impressed by the card so far, I'm so excited to get mine!

 

lets just say I can play all my wii, gc, and ps2 games fullspeed and rendered in 1080p (not crappy 480i)

 

Game wise the temps are outstanding. Furmark is too hot for my taste, but it doesn't really matter. I guess the games never really stress the card so it never really gets hot.

@Technostress, I just flashed to 1.0 volts. Will see how it goes.

UPDATE: CoD is 2-4 degrees cooler so far.

Guess I am eating my own words!

 

Undervolting to 1.0v brought the max temp down to 87.5C on the Shadder. Everything else came down about 2C. Impressive change from 0.1v.

I wonder what the long term effects of undervolting are? Anyone?

 

It's all good Just glad you are seeing some noticeable improvements. This also bodes well for the m17x-r2
folks who ordered the 6990's as well I'd think.

 

nothing negative at all. If its stable, its stable, and that's that. You're still running within spec, its not like an overclock or overvolt!

 

You will reduce heat, thus electrical resistance on the circuit, thus less electromigration will occur and as a result components, in this case gpu's, will last longer.

If it is stable is just an improvement

i run my 6970's at 0.98V flashed @700/1000, i can use them up to 735/1050 without problems. If i need to bench, i'll just flash with stock voltage and then back on my daily use undervolted config. I'm almost sure that at stock frequency the cards are even stable at 0.95V. I will give it a try later

 

interesting difference between the 6990m and 6970m: the 6990m takes ANY VID value between .9 and 1.1, whereas the 6970m would only take predefined values such as .9, .95, 1, 1.05, or 1.1. I am currently running stock 715/900 stable on .97V, further testing will be done!

 

and i'm running mine at 0.96V who told you that 6970's don't take all the VID values on the range?

 

I tried that back when I had a 6970m. I tried flashing it to .93V, but it didn't work. it would default back up to 1.0 for some reason. It could never stick to any "undefined" value.

 

Mine (when I had it) never surpassed 75C during gaming. I couldn't imagine it getting up around 90C.

 

Update: the absolute bottom of the barrel undervolt for stock clocks is .96v

At .95v, the system is too unstable.

 

Also here. .96 is the best i can get, i've been playing several games during the day with no issues. i'll keep it like this

 

How do you undervolt? I've edited with RBE even flashed to 1v at stock clocks and it still comes up 1.1v.

BTW 1920x1080 8xAA "Max burn" in furmark and its maxing out at 71C. This is with IC diamond.

 

what's undervolting and does it lower performace?

 

Not if you keep the clocks the same

 

undervolting can prolong the life of the cards and as ewit said keep the same performance with the same clocks. The point of course is that undervolting reduces temperatures due to there being less power being drawn.

 

aside from going to low and affecting the stability, is there any downside to undervolting?

 

You guys just using a tool like Trixx to undervolt, or is it more complicated than that?

 

No downsides, just stability if is too much. Of course it reduce the ability of the cards of being overclocked

I personaly mod my bios with rbe and flash the cards from dos

 

Thanks Cpt! +1 Rep

 

Is the 6990m much better than the 580m and is it the best GPU right now?

Thanks

 

About the same but no physx. Not sure if that is worth 300 but u can upgrade later and sell 6990 possibly make a bit

 

Oh that suck, guess notebookcheck.net once again is false once again. Are you positive on this, are there some games that the 6990m is better than the 580m?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/598992-580m-vs-6990-benchmarks.html

 

You are implying what?

 

It is not accurate that is why I am confuse.

 

*implying* Nothing I said two posts ago they were about the same

 

oi. its pretty accurate!

but we need some actual game benchmarks rather than 3dmark. but ive put up mafia 2.

 

So are you saying it similar or is the 6990m better?

 

This is not a difficult question. The 6990m is better than the 580M in every game UNLESS the game takes advantage of PhysX, which are not many. IMO, there is no reason to buy the 580m when the 6990m is around.
Proof: Radeon HD 6990M is ''World's Fastest'' Mobile GPU

 

A bit its usually not enough to be noticeable like less than 5%. I was trying to live with SB graphics. Now thats a HUGE difference.