when to pull the plug

[tron619]

when using find max core w/ ati tool i was monitoring my temperatures and within a minute and 30 seconds the temp on my card had reached mid 70's and only gone from 519mhz to 525/526 mhz.. so being as cautious as possible i stopped the test after reading that temps in the high 80's are bad for the card.. i figured at the rate the temp was rising i should stop.. so was the temp increase in that short amount of time with only a 5hmz increase normal? should i re-find the max core and let it go longer? what is the critical temp at which i should be aborting the find max core test?

[demonbrawn]

Until you decide to do that, you should definitely get a different cooler for your card. Yeah, mid 80s is most assuredly a BAD temp. Mid 70s is about the highest you should let it go. I got water cooling on my x850 and now it doesn't go above 43 degrees while playing games.

Edit: by the way, what card do you have?

[tron619]

my card is X850xt... card idles at low to mid 40's and even during game play stays well below the mid 70 range.. any suggestions on y the card heated up so rapidly during the test? and is an after market cooler necessary if im not voltage modding?

[demonbrawn]

Oh, yeah I see you have a stock cooler on your ati. Those coolers are not very good. Yeah, ATItool will heat your card up faster and hotter than any game ever will. When I performed find max memory test on my HIS X850XT with the stock cooler on it (it was even ICEQII, which is a pretty good stock cooler), it shot up 20 degrees and it hadn't been clocked more than 10 points over.

Edit: Also, make sure you have your fan speed setting at 100% starting at the temperature you want in ATItool, that helped drop my temps during gameplay by at least 12 degrees. In all reality, you can overclock your card higher than that and not see temps, due to the fact that ATItool intentionally goes through a "heat up" phase. However, if you want to overclock your card and play games or any other graphically demanding activity, I would suggest going with an aftermarket cooler, because ATI's stock coolers are basically crap. Although mid 70s temps aren't necessarily "bad", dropping them would more than likely extend your card's life.