I’ve a confession to make: I’ve some of the highly effective GPUs you should purchase, the AMD RX 6950 XT, and I intentionally make it underperform. Let me clarify.
I recognize that off the again of a GPU pricing disaster, which noticed virtually everybody unable to discover a card like this (not to mention afford it), that sounds tremendous improper. I’m fortunate that one of many perks of this job is getting to check out the type of high-end parts that I wouldn’t in any other case shell out the money for. However even then, I can’t carry myself to unleash the total energy of this superior GPU.
It’s unhappy to say, however in my day-to-day dwelling with this graphics card, I discovered myself valuing a quieter, cooler system greater than the additional efficiency GPUs of this type can present.
Taming the beast
The 6950 XT is a power-hungry card. It’s the identical GPU because the 6900 XT however pushed to its restrict, so after all, it runs scorching. When put in an mATX case it runs loud, too, even with an enormous cooler. It’s not essentially the type of GPU I might have purchased myself, however now that I’ve one, what am I going to do, not use it?
However that was a really actual prospect after a number of days of retreating to headphones after the testing was completed. How may I proceed to get pleasure from excessive body charges and element settings in video games, however not need to hearken to its followers hitting 2,200 RPM as quickly as the sport menu seems? The answer, it seems, was the make the cardboard run worse.
The PowerColor Pink Satan 6950 XT has a BIOS change, ostensibly for backup functions in case you brick one in all them making an attempt a heavy overclock. However the secondary Silent BIOS additionally lowers clock speeds and undervolts the GPU. Enabling that received me midway there. With that, we have been solely hitting round 1700 RPM on the followers, and the junction temperatures dropped by round 5 levels, resting underneath 100 at load for the primary time since I’d gotten the cardboard up and operating.
This was an thrilling growth. Perhaps there was a method to have my PCB cake and eat it too. However it nonetheless wasn’t fairly quiet sufficient for my sensibilities and temperature thresholds.
Subsequent, I performed with the settings in AMD’s Adrenaline driver software and made additional headway. The automated undervolting had a minor impact of its personal, however a number of further RPM and a single-degree drop in temperatures wasn’t going to chop it. I may have manually adjusted the fan curves myself, however finally, setting the tuning profile to Quiet was sufficient.
Clock speeds dropped a bit of extra, and fan speeds adopted go well with. Abruptly I had a card that even with a 4K Furmark run wasn’t going over 265W, with a most junction temperature of simply 80 levels. Simply as necessary? Fan speeds by no means went over 1,500 RPM, maintaining the cardboard cool and quiet sufficient that it solely simply registered over the whir of the system followers.
No, efficiency isn’t the identical. The core clock now barely breaks 1,900MHz, and my Time Spy rating isn’t fairly nearly as good, however I don’t care. I’ve a near-silent 6950 XT that also performs higher than virtually some other GPU on the market, and it didn’t require a customized cooler or heavy tweaking. Now, I can sport in relative peace, and it takes far, far longer for my little house workplace to warmth up. I’m dwelling the dream.
It seems I’m not alone
I know this submit reads like probably the most whiney of first-world issues — consider me, I’ve learn it via a number of occasions earlier than posting. I’m additionally conscious that there are different methods round this drawback with out tamping down on the cardboard’s efficiency, reminiscent of higher system cooling, or gaming with the air-con on.
I might have been too ashamed to put in writing about it myself if I hadn’t discovered that my fellow DT author and high-end GPU proprietor, Jacob Roach, can be a sacrilegious downclocker. His day by day driver gaming PC has an RTX 3090 inside, and it’s stupendously highly effective (though my card’s higher). However in accordance with him, it’s usually a bit a lot and, frankly, greater than he wants.
“I’ve been limiting the body price with my 3090 for some time,” he mentioned after I talked about how I felt unhealthy for making my RX 6950XT carry out worse than it could possibly. “I simply can’t deal with the noise and warmth, even when the cardboard is able to extra.”
That is one thing that each of us have needed to take care of as our respective nations grapple with warmth waves. There is likely to be a case of gaming with top-of-the-line graphics playing cards pulling over 300W if you happen to stay someplace tepid or it’s not the center of summer season, however when the temperatures rise outdoors and also you need to conceal inside enjoying video games, switching on a miniature house heater to do it doesn’t really feel very snug as soon as temperatures begin rising.
It additionally doesn’t sound snug, as a result of simply as gaming with a scorching PC subsequent to your legs or in your desk could make you scorching and bothered, they will get actually loud too. My mATX case doesn’t give this 6950 XT sufficient room for its triple followers to chill it successfully, so even when I do run it full tilt, I run into some thermal throttling after prolonged use. The longer I play, the more serious it will get, for each the cardboard and me.
The longer term appears to be like heat
Whereas Jacob and I may not use our GPUs to their full potential, there’s no denying that the RTX 3090 and the RX 6950 XT are extremely power-hungry and scorching GPUs, they usually’re not alone. Your complete lineup of recent graphics playing cards from each camps has had a bump in TDP this era, and if the rumors are to be believed, the subsequent era will solely exacerbate this drawback.
And it’s a drawback. Jacob and I are prime examples that if you happen to don’t have a bigger house with loads of air flow or succesful A/C operating on a regular basis, enjoying video games with a few of these high graphics playing cards is decidedly uncomfortable, each from a noise and warmth perspective. I’m not all that excited a few graphics card that’s even hotter and doubtlessly louder, even whether it is far more performative.
It’s not that I wouldn’t preserve it if I used to be given one. However don’t be stunned if you happen to discover me downclocking it to oblivion to make my gaming periods cooler and quieter.
Editors’ Alternative