What are "safe" VRM temperatures?

[bconngeminil.c]

I have a 7970, got the Accelero Xtreme cooler for it installed and the CPU temp almost never goes above 65 C even when running FurMark, but the VRM readings on hdwinfo shows over 100C for VRMs!!!

Is this normal?

What kind of VRM temps are people considering safe?

[Soultribunal]

Depends on who makes the VRM's. I've seen ones rated very high indeed.
If we can get a picture of one we can trace it back to its maker and see what its 'Safe' Temperature is.

That is probably pretty normal temps though,

ST

[Adzsask]

I know my old CF 5870's with batmobile coolers VRM temp... 125C the top card was sitting at when gaming heavily for hours. Used them for a little under a year, they are now in a bit coin mine rig,and have been mining @ 100% for months and are still alive and strong.

[frontier204]

A lot of VRMs are rated at 125°C (as they are usually power MOSFET chips, and those are normally rated at either 85°C or 125°C). As Soul mentioned, the VRMs vary between manufacturers (even 2 seemingly identical cards) so the best way to find out is to try to find the little chips near the PCI-E power connectors (usually 3-terminals at one end + grounding tab at the other) and look up their part numbers.

That said, you probably have 125°C rated chips given that your GPU still functions.

[Soultribunal]

Originally Posted by frontier204

A lot of VRMs are rated at 125°C (as they are usually power MOSFET chips, and those are normally rated at either 85°C or 125°C). As Soul mentioned, the VRMs vary between manufacturers (even 2 seemingly identical cards) so the best way to find out is to try to find the little chips near the PCI-E power connectors (usually 3-terminals at one end + grounding tab at the other) and look up their part numbers.

That said, you probably have 125°C rated chips given that your GPU still functions.

Yeah I've seen them go that hot for sure. Its only a matter of finding out which ones you have. THat being said they can't be the 85 degree ones or you would have cooked your card by now.

-ST

[Eluder]

The VRMs on my DirectCU2 Top 7970 also hit 100C while gaming, I'm actually disappointed with this, but hey, I guess if they're rated for this they must be ok?
The Core stays nice and cool at under 70C with heavy loads (BF3 ultra w/2xSSAA @ 2560x1440).