Does HD 3850 have thermal protection?

[lemonadesoda]

Quick question: does HD 3850 have thermal protection built into the GPU core? If it gets too hot will it automatically "choke" so as not to fry itself?

Reason for question: My powercolor has NO fanspeed control. It sounds like a leafblower. Awful. I just cannot do internet and office productivity software with that thing going.

So I am moving the fan from 12v to 5v. It stays pretty cool under ATI Tool GPU test <55°C. But obviously I cannot monitor temps in-game full screen.

If the temps get too high... is there a risk of frying the GPU? Or will thermal control kick in = I'll lose FPS in-game but the GPU is safe.

[newtekie1]

If it gets to hot, the card should shut itself down before it fries. Though I would keep a program open when gaming to monitor temps in a graph, Rivatuner works best here it can even log the temps for you. Just do this the first few time, or just play some crysis and check after that, just to see what you gaming temps are like. Crysis seems to make my GPU put out more heat then anything else.

[DOM]

you can run fur bench mark on stability at small res. that one gotten mine the hottest

[lemonadesoda]

Thanks for the "run a test" suggestions, but the issue is I dont want to have to monitor. Today, it is spring, and reasonably cool. My setup if fine, and cool. In 3 months it will be mid summer and hot. I dont want to be worried "will my GPU fry"... and I dont want to have to keep running benchmarks or monitoring logs.

Just need to know "will the GPU protect itself" or not. If it chokes, or shuts down without damage, thats OK. When it happens... I'll remedy the situation. I just dont want a blank screen in the summer and a dead GPU!

[DOM]

Im saying to try that if you like the temps you'll be good with games ;)

also it doesnt take long to get it hot with that like 30sec-1min or less

and idk about the thermal protection built into the GPU core :(