What's the best GPU temp monitor?

[hkp0lice]

I just got an XFX GFFX 5900XT and was wondering what temps my GPU is

 

[DONTSLEEP]

IN the driver panel theres a Gpu monitor already there.

 

[hkp0lice]

IN the driver panel theres a Gpu monitor already there.

Where? I don't see it anywhere in the nVidia panel. I tried Forceware 56, 53, and 61 no temp monitor

 

[hkp0lice]

I just checked out the forceware drivers review @ hardocp and saw this:
http://hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTA3Nzc2NTgzMUJVQTFhekNscGlfM18xX2wuZ2lm

I don't have that temperature setting feature, but my BIOS is 4.35.20.27 could it be too old, or does my card not have this feature at all?

 

[fac_29]

Download MBM5 and see if you can set that up to monitor your GPU Temps. I know it works with MSI cards, not sure about Pine Cards/XFX.

If you cant find a Temp it may not support Temp Reading/Monitoring, which i find hard to believe for an FX5900XT, but its a possibility i suppose...

 

[DONTSLEEP]

Yeah I thought that feature was available on 5600 ultras and above.

 

[hkp0lice]

Ok, I just tried flashing to 5950 Ultra bios, and still no temp monitor

Even tried putting it in my bro's nF2 setup, nothing. Rivatuner's hardware monitor doesn't work either

Anyone with an XFX 5900XT please post if your card has the temp monitor?

 

[blurry]

Although it's nice to have the temp monitor, there are benefits to not having one. You can overclock more freely since you have no GPU throttling. Just use common sense and back those sliders down when you start seeing any irregularities.

 

[DONTSLEEP]

I agree Gpu throttling sux but just because he doesnt have the GPU monitor does that mean no Gpu throttling? I wonder.

 

[fac_29]

No, just because your card doesnt display temps doesnt mean it doesnt use thermal throttling.

Sounds like your XFX Card dont have temp monitoring? Strange. XFX are a Budget Manufacturer. A division of Pine. Maybe they cut back on things like that?

 

[blurry]

Obviously if i doesn't have hardware temp monitoring, then it won't have throttling enabled. That's how the throttling works. It checks the temps and throttles back to keep it cool and at a safe temperature.

 

[fac_29]

Obviously if i doesn't have hardware temp monitoring, then it won't have throttling. That's how the throttling works. It checks the temps and throttles back to keep it cool and at a safe temperature.

Ah, thats not necessarily true. All Nvidia cards have thermal throttling ability, its built into all the GPUs. But not all cards can display temps from the GPU even though it can read them. I know my card has Thermal Throttling yet cant display temps.
The same goes with Motherboards and CPU's, some can read and display temps from the CPU diode yet some some cant. Yet ALL can(and have too..) read temps from the diode for CPU Overheat Protection.

 

[blurry]

Ah, thats not necessarily true. All Nvidia cards have thermal throttling ability, its built into all the GPUs. But not all cards can display temps from the GPU even though it can read them. I know my card has Thermal Throttling yet cant display temps.
The same goes with Motherboards and CPU's, some can read and display temps from the CPU diode yet some some cant. Yet ALL can(and have too..) read temps from the diode for CPU Overheat Protection.

How do you know your card has thermal throttling when you can't even change the settings? That's the indication that your card has no thermal throttling. BTW, not all Nvidia cards have thermal throttling ability.

 

[DONTSLEEP]

How do you know your card has thermal throttling when you can't even change the settings? That's the indication that your card has no thermal throttling. BTW, not all Nvidia cards have thermal throttling ability.

No,Gpu throttling is in the core technology and all 5600ultra and higher Nvidia cards have it built in.

I dont know why pine wouldnt include the temp monitor in their card but I can tell you they're not making new cores just for the 5900XT.So I believe it will throttle but you just wont know when.The limit is probably set in the bios and for some reason temp monitoring is not available.

Edit:ya know what? forget it I dont really know! lol,cause he said he flashed his bios to the 5950 and still no monitor.

 

[blurry]

Clarification: You must have the temperature setting tab in order to have gpu throttling with a GeForce FX. Otherwise you have none (meaning not active).

 

[DONTSLEEP]

The link is broken but Im beginning to think your right anyway.What does it say?

 

[fac_29]

Well i was a bit at odds about this a couple of weeks ago because according to MSI my card has Thermal Monitoring, and so i assumed it was for temp reading but couldnt find it anywhere so i emailed MSI and they told me the Thermal Monitoring was to prevent the Core from overheating but my card couldnt actually display the temps.
This is from MSI's site about my card:

Rocket Science for a system-level solution
• 0.13u process technology for higher levels of integration and higher operating clock speeds
• Copper vias and wiring
• Advanced thermal monitoring and thermal management
• AGP 8X including Fast Writes and sideband addressing

And heres the link:
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/vga/vga/pro_vga_detail.php?UID=446&MODEL=MS-8912

And i know when its working cuz when i benchmark with 3D Mark 2001Se very heavily with my overclock i start to see quite a heavy drop in my scores after a while...Even without an overclock i start to see a bit of a drop when benchmarking heavily. To me that is definitely the thermal monitoring and thermal management(thermal throttling) working.

DONTSLEEP
No,Gpu throttling is in the core technology and all 5600ultra and higher Nvidia cards have it built in.

We had a discussion about this last week in the cooling forum and some ppl were popping up with FX5200 Ultras saying they could display Temps too, which suprised me because i thought it was just higher cards. After a bit of research i found that even some FX5600's had it. The VTD's, i have a TD.

Some other guy said he thought every FX card could display temps because every FX GPU has Thermal Throttling.

 

[blurry]

Have u tried MSI's "3D! Turbo Experience" utility to read the temps (should have came bundled on the MSI Multimedia "Beyond 3D" install CD)? The utility also reads the graphics core’s voltage and fan speed among other things so I'm curious why MSI would give that kind of response.

 

[fac_29]

Yeah i tried that, didnt work. The Temp, Voltage and RPM Tachometer are just greyed out. I even tried MBM5 with the MSI plugin. Some guys were saying they'd got their standard MSI FX5600's to work with MBM5. All i can think is that they must have the the VTD's, the ones that come with a video input and remote control.

Just been reading this review, and according to this Thermal Throttling is native to all FX Cards:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1519&page=3

Shame they never made Temp/Hardware Monitoring a standard feature too
Probably to keep costs down eh. They'd have to add an extra chip to monitor and display those.

 

[hkp0lice]

I personally have never experienced thermal throttling.... I've pushed my vGPU upto 1.9v, and I can bench at 598Mhz GPU no probs, but playing games for long periods of times causes lockups, no slow downs. You'll expect that it would start throttling before it locks up, but it doesn't. Either because the throttling point is VERY high (locks up before it reaches it) or it's disabled because the driver can't monitor the temps....