Last April when I built a new PC, I chose an MSI 5700xt Evoke OC as my graphics card. I usually don't keep up with PC tech until I need to build a new computer, and so I went with Rock Paper Shotgun's best graphics card for 1440p recommendation. I purchased the cheapest 5700 xt I could find on Newegg, and at 400 bucks, the Evoke wasn't exactly cheap. Unfortunately, I had no idea how loud my card was--at 100 percent rpm, the fans sound like an aircraft taking off. Lowering the fan curve through AMD's Radeon software resulted in a card that frequently reached over 90 degrees Celsius while gaming. 5700 xts run hot, but that's way too hot, and every once in a while, usually after gaming over an hour, my computer would suddenly shut down, which was probably the 5700 xt shutting itself off before it cooked. Right now there's a global shortage of graphics cards due to high demand and economic complications from Covid, so upgrading isn't an option, unless I want to drive thirty miles and camp out in front of Best Buy every morning. The Evoke actually is a fine card performance wise--it hits over 60 frames per second at 1440p at high quality in every game I play--so if I could just figure out how to cool it without the fans making my ear drums bleed, there's no reason to switch it out. Here's what I did.
First, I upgraded my case fans. My Fractal Design Meshify C came with two excellent 120 mm fans which I used for front intake, but the screw holes for 120 mm fans aren't set low enough to allow airflow under my graphics card, so I purchased two 140 mm Cooler Master silent fans. One of these fit perfectly at the bottom front of the case and helped quite a bit. I have them on a smart curve that's pretty aggressive, and at their max rpm of 1000 they aren't noisy, as advertised.
Secondly, I underclocked and undervolted my card. This is very easy to do in the Radeon software. My card's default clock is 2150 Mhz, and its default voltage is 1200 mV. I found that reducing the core clock to 1900 Mhz and the voltage to 1000 mV was stable and significantly impacted temperature. I went from 89 degrees C in Amid Evil to the high 60s and low 70s. Performance wise, I didn't seem to lose more than a frame or two per second in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2. I think most of us would sacrifice a couple frames for a fifteen degree reduction in graphics card temperatures. I want this baby to last! Who knows when we'll be able to buy a decent GPU for less than a Playstation 5? 5700 xts are going for nearly 1000 bucks on Amazon! That's fucking crazy, considering I bought mine for only 400 dollars nearly a year ago.
Lastly, I adjusted the fan curve. This is also easily done in the Radeon Software. I went 30 percent at 30 degrees, 45 at 50, 55 at 70, 60 at 80, and 70 at 85. The fan is bearable at 60 percent; at 80, you can bear it with headphones. This is just a loud card, but since tempertures stay lower with my underclock, my fans usually don't go over 55 percent now.
So now my GPU doesn't drive me crazy. The lesson here is to read the reviews before you purchase, and to also scour the internet when you have a hardware problem, because there's usually a fix out there.
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