R9 280X Crossfire overheating 97 degrees frame rate drops

[rud]

Hi,

Edit: I have two x Gigabyte 280X OC windforce cards I assume revision one because they have the plastic shroud.The topic previously had 91 degrees in the title but I literally did two laps from a cold boot and the top card is at 97 and bottom card was at 71 within 5 minutes. Once I hit 97 degrees the screen started to sort of show a off color, clearly something is cooking.
I also under clocked the GPU and Memory just then, Default 1100/1500. Now 1000/1400. And after 20 minutes in game it's 98 degree top card. Didn't bother checking bottom sorry. But my main concern is the top card.

I've been pretty happy with these cards so far, I got them for $340 each and so far each game has performed rather well.
I haven't overclocked my cards yet all my games so far have been running without the need to OC GPU's.

Today I decided to really tests the cards and turn up everything on Assetto Corsa, great game, best looking driving game for PC atm.

Crossfire worked and each card was 90% load and for a few minutes everything was running at full steam.
But slowly the frames started to drop and when I checked via windows the top card was 97 degrees, I should add I've been running the cards with 100% fan speed manually turned on. Why you may ask? Well I was warned about possible heat issues, but they normally referred to the 290X cards. Plus I just upgraded from GA 2x6990's that I used to crank, compared to that card this card at 100% fan speed is about half the noise.

So you might be thinking it's my case or something? Well I have a Thermaltake Chaser A71 with all the fans. A large fan on the side, top, front and back. Huge case.
My CPU doesn't go over 50 degree's with a NH-14 cooler, i7 @ 4.4Ghz. I only have one SSD and one cdrom. Very basic system.
The case is new, so all fans and dust covers are free of any dust or other crap. The PSU is modular, so I only have the minimum plugged in. The motherboard and other HDD power cables are all hidden behind the motherboard, the case is really good with cable management.

There is nothing in the case that is stopping these cards from breathing, they are spaced as far as possible and no other PCI-E cards are installed between the two graphics cards.

I haven't waited for a crash but 3 more degrees and I got an oven in my computer that can slow bake my dinner for me. I'm not anyone who particularly cares about temps as long as it runs but this is new hardware, a new system, and I don't exactly want to stress my cards for an extended period of time, because we all know that these temps are only reducing the lifespan of the hardware.

So what can I do about the heat? I feel like returning these because they don't perform at stock speeds without overheating.

[rud]

        Date        , GPU Core Clock [MHz] , GPU Memory Clock [MHz] , GPU Temperature [°C] , Fan Speed (%) [%] , Fan Speed (RPM) [RPM] , GPU Load [%] , Memory Usage (Dedicated) [MB] , Memory Usage (Dynamic) [MB] , VDDC [V] ,

2013-12-08 16:09:02 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3636   ,         99   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:03 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3635   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:04 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3638   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:05 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3643   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:06 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3636   ,         97   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:07 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3632   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:08 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3637   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:09 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3634   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:10 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3638   ,         94   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:11 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3634   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

2013-12-08 16:09:12 ,             1000.0   ,               1500.0   ,               97.0   ,             100   ,                3636   ,        100   ,                        3363   ,                       209   ,  1.200   ,

[Nelly]

Not much help here am afraid, but have you tried running each card on it's own?  See if you get the same high temps?  If you do it could be a faulty batch, worth checking out anyway, and yeah I know crossfire the top card usually runs alot high in temps.

[zam]

So what did you finally do? Shop I bought mine is kinda terrible and don't want to admit that equipment has a fault. After few mails when I was treated like an idiot ( i was asked to wait for new catalysts....., then I was said quote:
> >AMD have advised 95ºC is a perfectly safe temperature at which the GPU can
> > operate for its entire life, AMD's newest cards use dynamic clockspeed to
> > tune the chip frequency and voltage depending on the temperature of the
> > GPU itself. When you point it at 95ºC you'll get the most out of the chip.
it is from huge online uk shop. The thing is I am not living in sahara, or australia, ambient temp in room where equipment is stored is below 20*C.

Finally they issued RMA. Anyway I am still afraid their tech support is as competent as customer service. On the other hand it is really hard to convince someone equipment is faulty when all it does is 20% underperforming( solo), few hardware errors, and overheating in crossfire( withc makes it underperforming even more than when it is working solo). 20% underperforming on that price range is a difference between 280x  and 290x - 250 GBP. I  have rev. 2 cards but it doesn't change anything. Bios is sth like 015.041 while newest bios on gigabyte site is like 015.039 so not gonna try that.

Here is my screenie: card underclocking to 500MHz under full load while second one have 80*C and works normally aka 1100MHz, normal benchmark scores. I also tried swapping them - same. one is underclocked and working on 95 * C - the faulty one.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1B9m3Kw_NdrOXplUWlWUDZDUVU/edit?usp=sharing