I’m rendering a fractal flame video using Flam4CUDA and it’s going to take longer than I initially thought. I’m wondering if I’m damaging something and if I should stop the render.
I’ll end up running my PC for 3.5 days straight and my GPU running at its apparent maximum core frequency and voltage for 3 days. I had overclocked it to 1500MHz and it’s running at 1588MHz. With my +87mV overvolt, the voltage is 1262mV. The GPU core clock and the voltage run at those numbers no matter what; They haven’t changed for the 1.5 days I’ve been rendering the video.
The VRAM is overclocked at 8000MHz but is only running at 6010MHz on this application. The fans run from 70% to 85% (1700RPM to 2000RPM) depending on what I set them to. My memory usage on the GPU is about 1100MB out of a possible 4GB. The power target hovers in-between 75 and 85%.
For some reason, the GPU Tweak utility says my GPU usage hovers in-between 45 and 50%. Is that number from the aggregation of the use of all resources such that even if the GPU is running above the overclock I set it to, it still counts as GPU usage of about 50% because I’m not fully using the rest of the GPU like VID, FB, fan speed and VRAM?
So far, my CPU temps go from low 40s to high 40s depending on the time of day. My GPU temps go from high 40s to high 50s, sometimes peaking into the low 60s.
The CPU is a non-overclocked Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz cooled with a Corsair H50 water cooler. The GPU is a ZOTAC GTX 970 AMP Omega.
So, am I likely damaging components? What should I know about this? Do you need more info to provide an opinion?
Generally you want to keep any semiconductor under 45 deg C or so. Coincidentally, the human heat pain threshold is right around 42 to 45 deg C, so one old rule of electronics is that if it’s too hot to leave your thumb on it then you need to add some cooling.
That said, CPUs and GPUs these days are designed to run a bit hot. Anything under 50 to 55 or so is ok for a CPU and GPUs routinely run at about 55 or 60 or so.
Your CPU temps are perfectly fine. Your GPU is pushing it a bit, but not enough that I would worry a whole lot about it. Cooler is better, but I’d say you are fine as-is.
Under 45 C? The internal temperature sensor on my 2011 MacBook Pro is constantly at 85-90 C and its run like that for the last 4 years. Not sure if I’m lucky or if the sensor is just inaccurate. its occasionally hit 95 C and then it turns off and I have to leave it for a few minutes but when it comes back its fine… so far…
As to the OP, FWIW I’ve run my video card at pretty much 100% for a couple of months. Quite a while back I played with some cryptocurrency mining on my Radeon. It ran hot, hard, and long enough that it put a dent in my electric bill. Seems no worse for wear. As long as your fans are running (and it sounds like they’re not even running at 100%, so as far as the GPU itself is concerned, it thinks it’s fine).
Obviously, though, this is going to wear on your chip a bit. How it handles it is unfortunately very much conditional on your individual GPU. Any defects in the material or manufuacturing, the bond between the chip and the heatsink, and so on. It should be fine, but you never know. I’ve had cards run for years under some heavy abuse (as with my current card, abuse noted above), and I’ve had cards fail in the middle of a game or on the Windows Desktop for very little reason.
If you have to leave it off for a few minutes it ain’t the sensor. Your symptoms are consistent with it actually overheating, and it’s dying at about the temperature I’d expect it to stop running at (on most computers you can set a force shutdown temp in the BIOS that’s lower than that to prevent damage).
You are cooking that poor thing to death. I’m surprised that it has lasted for 4 years.
All good, all my data is backed up and I’m planning to buy a new one soon. I did swap the internal HD for an SSD recently and those are less susceptible to heat. In a worst case scenario I should be able to extract the SSD, put in at external cradle and suck the data off it.
As far as I’m aware Apple laptops are designed to run hotter than generic PC laptops. I can leave my hand on the case right by the power input for several minutes and it doesn’t burn me, so that temperature is somewhere deep inside the system.
It’s just in the options button. But you can only go to 2x speed. It would probably be better for you to speed it up yourself if you wish to demonstrate it to people. Re-rendering video will a blink of an eye compared to what you did.
Heck, I’m not sure you couldn’t just increase the framerate and upload it to YouTube. It’s going to re-render your video anyways.I know it drops 60fps to 30fps for most resolutions.
