AMD Radeon R9 M295X Core Clock Throttling, Heat, and Performance

[cuppino83]

Hello everyone,
first of all sorry for my bad English but I am an Italian user.
I think we all are doing too many problems for the temperatures of rimac.
Until now no one seems to have broken the gpu.
The mac has excellent performance in all areas, including gaming.
Let's enjoy our rimac.
If one day we will see what to do will fail.
None of us can 'know if it was designed to operate at such high temperatures.

 

[andy9l]

AMD Radeon R9 M295X Core Clock Throttling, Heat, and Performance

Hello everyone,

first of all sorry for my bad English but I am an Italian user.

I think we all are doing too many problems for the temperatures of rimac.

Until now no one seems to have broken the gpu.

The mac has excellent performance in all areas, including gaming.

Let's enjoy our rimac.

If one day we will see what to do will fail.

None of us can 'know if it was designed to operate at such high temperatures.

The M295X GPU is throttling to avoid overheating. It is not giving the performance we paid for. The iMac cannot cool it sufficiently when it is under load. Also, Apple themselves told me those temperatures are not safe.

It's not about failing, it's about throttling and excessive heat/fans during simple tasks like watching video in the short term. The failing GPUs may or may not come later.

 

[carlob]

The M295X GPU is throttling to avoid overheating. It is not giving the performance we paid for. The iMac cannot cool it sufficiently when it is under load. Also, Apple themselves told me those temperatures are not safe.

It's not about failing, it's about throttling and excessive heat/fans during simple tasks like watching video in the short term. The failing GPUs may or may not come later.

I think you should start to speak for yourself: maybe your imac has issues with heat/fans when watching videos or performing simple tasks, mine not. I can watch all the videos I want without heat issues, I can perform every task I usually perform on my computer - besides playing WoW - without heat or fan issues, I never heard the fan kicking up during normal use of my imac, not even during time machine backups as somebody wrote in another thread.

 

[andy9l]

AMD Radeon R9 M295X Core Clock Throttling, Heat, and Performance

I think you should start to speak for yourself: maybe your imac has issues with heat/fans when watching videos or performing simple tasks, mine not. I can watch all the videos I want without heat issues, I can perform every task I usually perform on my computer - besides playing WoW - without heat or fan issues, I never heard the fan kicking up during normal use of my imac, not even during time machine backups as somebody wrote in another thread.

You posted your own benchmark results in the other thread. Even on a lower resolution than anyone else, your GPU was at 106C - outside the safe operating range of your graphics card, I might add.

When you upped the resolution appropriately, your iMac - like the others - only just outperformed the 2013. I think someone even posted one that outperformed, but I may be wrong.

It's the product, not my unit.

Edit: I admit, I'm being a bit sweeping with statements today. My apologies. I've just packed up my 5K iMac for return - not a happy chap.

 

[AlifTheUnseen]

I think you should start to speak for yourself: maybe your imac has issues with heat/fans when watching videos or performing simple tasks, mine not. I can watch all the videos I want without heat issues, I can perform every task I usually perform on my computer - besides playing WoW - without heat or fan issues, I never heard the fan kicking up during normal use of my imac, not even during time machine backups as somebody wrote in another thread.

You should read this thread - it's definitively affecting a lot of people.

 

[Astelith]

You should read this thread - it's definitively affecting a lot of people.

So I'm one of the 2-3 lucky man to have a perfectly working 5K ? I don't think so, I clearly wrote about an issue affecting the fan control by 3rd party software like iStat menu and Macs Fans Control, specially in Windows.
I invite the people on this thread to reinstall the tools, specially Macs Fan Control and check if the fan is spinning correctly, the temp. should not go above 101° because below 90° the fan is quiet and it should start spinning to keep a maximum of 100°/101° (target temp, the Throttling starts at 104°/105°).
I still have to see a screenshot of temps above 104° with 2700 rpm fan speed.

 

[andy9l]

I invite the people on this thread to reinstall the tools, specially Macs Fan Control and check if the fan is spinning correctly, the temp. should not go above 101° because below 90° the fan is quiet and it should start spinning to keep a maximum of 100°/101° (target temp, the Throttling starts at 104°/105°).
I still have to see a screenshot of temps above 104° with 2700 rpm fan speed.

The fan should not need to run at 2,700rpm for the same task a 2013 iMac would do at <2,00rpm. That's the frustration. 2,700rpm is loud - like sheer desperation to cool down. And we're predominantly talking about 1440p/1080p tasks here, not 5K.

Regardless, the 5K iMacs are quite evidently not keeping temperatures below 101°C by themselves, and are thus causing GPU throttling. So either we manually run our fans at full-tilt, or we accept throttling. That's not a choice that one should expect to have to make after spending this kind of money.

You sound like a knowledgeable guy - if I'm missing something, please do point it out. I'd love to cancel my return! She's all boxed up...

 

[carlob]

You posted your own benchmark results in the other thread. Even on a lower resolution than anyone else, your GPU was at 106C - outside the safe operating range of your graphics card, I might add.

You said watching videos and performing simple tasks, not running benchmarks. Benchmarks are designed to put a computer under heavy load in any case.

Everything I do with this imac - besides gaming - doesn't kick the fan up and this includes watching videos, doing office work, using lightroom or photoshop quite a lot, surfing web and many other tasks. Now I admit I don't use it to run benchmarks. Good look with your replacement if you are getting one.

----------

You should read this thread - it's definitively affecting a lot of people.

Actually I posted quite a bit in this and other threads. This is for sure affecting many people writing on this forum, I'd say mostly gamers and people obsessed with benchmarks. The 295 gpu runs hot and this is a fact, the consequences of this fact are still to be seen. I just don't care (but applecare instead ). As for throttling I'm not a gamer and besides WoW that by the way runs fine it's not something that, if it is proved to be true, is affecting me.

Plus I'm sure that most of the issues are software related, likely non optimized drivers and gpu firmware, and will be ironed out in the subsequent releases of Yosemite.

 

[Astelith]

Before returning you should at least reinstall all the fan related software and then if the problem persist a full os clean reinstall.
Throttling = sw or Hw malfunction
In the worst case you have a faulty unit but I think at 99% a software reinstall will fix the issue.
You can complain about the fan noise but throttling is a fault not normality, I've found this iMac not much louder than my ex 2011 27" and the fan start to spin up only during games, not even on heavy photo video editing

 

[andy9l]

You said watching videos and performing simple tasks, not running benchmarks. Benchmarks are designed to put a computer under heavy load in any case.

Everything I do with this imac - besides gaming - doesn't kick the fan up and this includes watching videos, doing office work, using lightroom or photoshop quite a lot, surfing web and many other tasks. Now I admit I don't use it to run benchmarks. Good look with your replacement if you are getting one.

I personally have always been referring to fairly intensive tasks - I had no problem with simple tasks. My understanding is that, whilst benchmarking, you should not experience GPU throttling unless you've got insufficient cooling in your system. The stress should cause your fans should ramp up, yes, but no throttling.

I did, however, mention that I once caught my 5K iMac fans ramping up whilst watching a 60 FPS 1080p video from my iPhone 6 - the video I posted here, specifically, before it was exported to 30 FPS. That was the final straw. My iPad could play that video all day long without any heat, but my top-end iMac couldn't.

I'm doing a full refund return, and not asking for a replacement. I am definitely going to stick around in these threads to find out what comes of these hot machines. If things improve after firmware updates, I'll be excited to buy again. Until then, I remain concerned that the current i7/M295X 5K iMac is flawed, and I'm waiting for 2nd-gen.

I have said my fair share of negativity towards these machines, but I'm also more than happy to praise where appropriate. That screen has put me off buying any other screen short of 4K ever again. It's wonderful. And I'm thoroughly disappointed that I'm returning this Mac.

 

[SmallDane]

I invite the people on this thread to reinstall the tools, specially Macs Fan Control and check if the fan is spinning correctly, the temp. should not go above 101° because below 90° the fan is quiet and it should start spinning to keep a maximum of 100°/101° (target temp, the Throttling starts at 104°/105°).
I still have to see a screenshot of temps above 104° with 2700 rpm fan speed.

As mentioned in this thread, I did a full reinstall of OS X and tested on a clean system. It changed nothing in my situation. I can't be 100% sure that it's the exact same issue. But I also returned my Retina iMac because of unacceptable heat and fan noise under relatively moderate workloads.

 

[Fester1952]

This is not a Retina iMac issue. I have a mid 2012 rMBP with Nvidia 650m GPU and Logitech Harmony Touch. Exactly the same thing happens to me, start the Myharmony software and my MacBook fans kick into noisy high speed. Exit Myharmony and they promptly spin down again.

I think you'll find it has more to do with Logitech's crappy implementation of Silverlight in the Myharmony app.

Didn't do it on my mid 2011 iMac

 

[ioxakoyba]

I am sorry, but saying that a some kind of software update / OS X resinstall would fix this issue with iMac 5k is just a naive dreaming. The cooling of iMac is just not designed for this kind of TDP the current m295X ouputs, which results to outrageous temperatures (over 105 C) when components are stressed to full load (just I have shown in the iFixit teardown pictures - the cooler is just too miniscule).

I watched the video of GPU-Z andy9l posted in the couple of replies ago and I was terrified. The GPU ramps very fast to over 100 celcius. Also the throttling seemed to get worse and worse the longer the test went. (I didn't see the lowest point of the throttle MHz, it may get even below 700Mhz if the test was running longer?)

There is absolutely no driver update that can fix this (except the one that would downclock the GPU about 50%, and I guess this is not the one everybody wants).

(It may be possible that some kind of driver updates fix the excessive heating when browsing YouTube videos. It is possible that now GPU is used for decoding videos, but if this will be changed so that CPU does the job instead, maybe the heating problem will get a little bit less prominent - but only when decoding video material).

However, it's a fact that no driver update can fix the issue if the GPU is stressed full load (like it is when gaming and with different kinds of GPU stress tests, like Furmark). This revision of iMac will overheat to 105-110C if you run Furmark for an hour, I am sure.

Also, I want to point out that there is no reason to say that actually these "full load" situations won't happen in real life. They do if you game with that machine. (Most modern games are even more demanding than these stress tests, because they use excessively CPU as well). So playing any modern Direct X 11 game with this thing simply boils the GPU to 105-110C within a minutes - and makes it to trotthle.

(And to you all who say that these machines are not made for gaming. I ask you why not? If you can game with model 2012 iMac with 680MX or model 2013 iMac with 780M withouth throttling or melting the GPU, why do you stand for Apple and claim that now with the 2014 model it's just not made for gaming.)

I myself have decided not to buy this peace of hardware as Apple is just underestimating their clients. I am a long time PC enthustiastic and a Nokia Symbian user (yes, I am from Finland!) and I have just tried to move to Apple ecosystems by purchasing a Iphone 6 (actually two of them, another to my wife), iPad Air and Macbook Retina Pro. But I am not going to purchase this peace of iMac hardware, because Apple has just failed so badly and underestimates their clients.

Instead I am going to build a Hackintosh machine using overly priced Apple Cinema Display (no retina of course, and old Cinema version instead of Thunderbold because of the Displayport connectivity) and build a killer gaming machine on Jonsbo/Cooltek UMX1 Plus Silver chassis that matches the Apple display aluminium stand design perfectly. I am going to put Geforce GTX 980 inside that chassis that should work passively (fans on 0 rpm) on desktop and very quietly on gaming as well.

I guess that will sweep 5k iMac with noise and gaming performance with numbers 6-0, and will costs about half of the 5k's price. Of course building such machine is not for everybody..

 

[Astelith]

I am sorry, but saying that a some kind of software update / OS X resinstall would fix this issue with iMac 5k is just a naive dreaming. The cooling of iMac is just not designed for this kind of TDP the current m295X ouputs, which results to outrageous temperatures (over 105 C) when components are stressed to full load (just I have shown in the iFixit teardown pictures - the cooler is just too miniscule).

I watched the video of GPU-Z andy9l posted in the couple of replies ago and I was terrified. The GPU ramps very fast to over 100 celcius. Also the throttling seemed to get worse and worse the longer the test went. (I didn't see the lowest point of the throttle MHz, it may get even below 700Mhz if the test was running longer?)

There is absolutely no driver update that can fix this (except the one that would downclock the GPU about 50%, and I guess this is not the one everybody wants).

(It may be possible that some kind of driver updates fix the excessive heating when browsing YouTube videos. It is possible that now GPU is used for decoding videos, but if this will be changed so that CPU does the job instead, maybe the heating problem will get a little bit less prominent - but only when decoding video material).

However, it's a fact that no driver update can fix the issue if the GPU is stressed full load (like it is when gaming and with different kinds of GPU stress tests, like Furmark). This revision of iMac will overheat to 105-110C if you run Furmark for an hour, I am sure.

Also, I want to point out that there is no reason to say that actually these "full load" situations won't happen in real life. They do if you game with that machine. (Most modern games are even more demanding than these stress tests, because they use excessively CPU as well). So playing any modern Direct X 11 game with this thing simply boils the GPU to 105-110C within a minutes - and makes it to trotthle.

(And to you all who say that these machines are not made for gaming. I ask you why not? If you can game with model 2012 iMac with 680MX or model 2013 iMac with 780M withouth throttling or melting the GPU, why do you stand for Apple and claim that now with the 2014 model it's just not made for gaming.)

I myself have decided not to buy this peace of hardware as Apple is just underestimating their clients. I am a long time PC enthustiastic and a Nokia Symbian user (yes, I am from Finland!) and I have just tried to move to Apple ecosystems by purchasing a Iphone 6 (actually two of them, another to my wife), iPad Air and Macbook Retina Pro. But I am not going to purchase this peace of iMac hardware, because Apple has just failed so badly and underestimates their clients.

Instead I am going to build a Hackintosh machine using overly priced Apple Cinema Display (no retina of course, and old Cinema version instead of Thunderbold because of the Displayport connectivity) and build a killer gaming machine on Jonsbo/Cooltek UMX1 Plus Silver chassis that matches the Apple display aluminium stand design perfectly. I am going to put Geforce GTX 980 inside that chassis that should work passively (fans on 0 rpm) on desktop and very quietly on gaming as well.

I guess that will sweep 5k iMac with noise and gaming performance with numbers 6-0, and will costs about half of the 5k's price. Of course building such machine is not for everybody..

So you are telling to an iMac 5K owner (me) who had run dozen of test on both benchmark and real use of productivity (Photoshop + plugins, Final Cut Pro X, Cubase + Plugins) and gaming (WoW, Metro Last light, Dragons Age Inquisition, Final Fantasy XIV, all in Os X 5K when possible and Windows 4K) that this product overheat only because you have watched a video ?

Don't buy the iMac than, but please, stop writing things that you don't know...

The reality is : the iMac 5K with properly working software can handle productivity at default fan speed (and low temp, >60/70) and intensive GPU tasks or gaming at 1800 to 2300 rpm in the case the also the CPU is heavily used, always below 101° with no throttling with other 400 rpm left of margin.

I'm not lucky to have a functional iMac, mine it's just how this machines is designed to work, 101°C or the "noise" with the fan at 1800 or 2300 bothers you ? Go for a Windows Desktop custom PC with liquid cooling and a SLI/XFire

 

[Vapor matt]

I am sorry, but saying that a some kind of software update / OS X resinstall would fix this issue with iMac 5k is just a naive dreaming. The cooling of iMac is just not designed for this kind of TDP the current m295X ouputs, which results to outrageous temperatures (over 105 C) when components are stressed to full load (just I have shown in the iFixit teardown pictures - the cooler is just too miniscule).

I watched the video of GPU-Z andy9l posted in the couple of replies ago and I was terrified. The GPU ramps very fast to over 100 celcius. Also the throttling seemed to get worse and worse the longer the test went. (I didn't see the lowest point of the throttle MHz, it may get even below 700Mhz if the test was running longer?)

There is absolutely no driver update that can fix this (except the one that would downclock the GPU about 50%, and I guess this is not the one everybody wants).

(It may be possible that some kind of driver updates fix the excessive heating when browsing YouTube videos. It is possible that now GPU is used for decoding videos, but if this will be changed so that CPU does the job instead, maybe the heating problem will get a little bit less prominent - but only when decoding video material).

However, it's a fact that no driver update can fix the issue if the GPU is stressed full load (like it is when gaming and with different kinds of GPU stress tests, like Furmark). This revision of iMac will overheat to 105-110C if you run Furmark for an hour, I am sure.

Also, I want to point out that there is no reason to say that actually these "full load" situations won't happen in real life. They do if you game with that machine. (Most modern games are even more demanding than these stress tests, because they use excessively CPU as well). So playing any modern Direct X 11 game with this thing simply boils the GPU to 105-110C within a minutes - and makes it to trotthle.

(And to you all who say that these machines are not made for gaming. I ask you why not? If you can game with model 2012 iMac with 680MX or model 2013 iMac with 780M withouth throttling or melting the GPU, why do you stand for Apple and claim that now with the 2014 model it's just not made for gaming.)

I myself have decided not to buy this peace of hardware as Apple is just underestimating their clients. I am a long time PC enthustiastic and a Nokia Symbian user (yes, I am from Finland!) and I have just tried to move to Apple ecosystems by purchasing a Iphone 6 (actually two of them, another to my wife), iPad Air and Macbook Retina Pro. But I am not going to purchase this peace of iMac hardware, because Apple has just failed so badly and underestimates their clients.

Instead I am going to build a Hackintosh machine using overly priced Apple Cinema Display (no retina of course, and old Cinema version instead of Thunderbold because of the Displayport connectivity) and build a killer gaming machine on Jonsbo/Cooltek UMX1 Plus Silver chassis that matches the Apple display aluminium stand design perfectly. I am going to put Geforce GTX 980 inside that chassis that should work passively (fans on 0 rpm) on desktop and very quietly on gaming as well.

I guess that will sweep 5k iMac with noise and gaming performance with numbers 6-0, and will costs about half of the 5k's price. Of course building such machine is not for everybody..

I have a rimac maxed out and love it, i don't use it for benchmarks or gaming. but driver updates can help with video and other issues with temps. I have built many PC gaming machines with water cooling and phase change cooling. always looking for max frame rates and highest detail. anyone who purchased a rImac for gaming should have thought a little harder on what they wanted from it.

with all this speculation on how long these machines are gonna last and how hard the GFX cards are working and heat and melting rImac's i have yet to see any report of a failure due to heat yet. If some one is so convinced the machine will fail and lets face it they are all under warranty at the moment why dont they prove the theory and run fur mark for a week, or will it fail more quickly? or will it not fail?

No one knows as there have been no failures yet to prove the point, just speculation to the fact they will fail, so who's going to prove the point and watch there rImac fail? after all its under warranty so could one of the people who consistantly say its a doomed machine prove it please, as its getting a bit repetative with all this doom and gloom but no real evidence to back it up!

so don't send it back, make it fail and prove your point! then send it back.

 

[cynics]

So you are telling to an iMac 5K owner (me) who had run dozen of test on both benchmark and real use of productivity (Photoshop + plugins, Final Cut Pro X, Cubase + Plugins) and gaming (WoW, Metro Last light, Dragons Age Inquisition, Final Fantasy XIV, all in Os X 5K when possible and Windows 4K) that this product overheat only because you have watched a video ?



Don't buy the iMac than, but please, stop writing things that you don't know...



The reality is : the iMac 5K with properly working software can handle productivity at default fan speed (and low temp, >60/70) and intensive GPU tasks or gaming at 1800 to 2300 rpm in the case the also the CPU is heavily used, always below 101° with no throttling with other 400 rpm left of margin.



I'm not lucky to have a functional iMac, mine it's just how this machines is designed to work, 101°C or the "noise" with the fan at 1800 or 2300 bothers you ? Go for a Windows Desktop custom PC with liquid cooling and a SLI/XFire

No need for that, just get any iMac without a 295x that's ever been made. PC all in ones have come along way too you can find better performance with a lot less noise too.

 

[cuppino83]

The M295X GPU is throttling to avoid overheating. It is not giving the performance we paid for. The iMac cannot cool it sufficiently when it is under load. Also, Apple themselves told me those temperatures are not safe.

It's not about failing, it's about throttling and excessive heat/fans during simple tasks like watching video in the short term. The failing GPUs may or may not come later.

I'm playing crysis 3 with bootcamp (windows 8)
1440p, texture very hight, details hight, vsync on.
They are the last level.
Fps always between 40 and 60. Only in two levels and only for about 2-3 seconds the fps dropped to 27.
The maximum temperature was always 102 °.
The fan did not make excessive noise.
I am very happy with this computer.
A exceeded all my expectations.
I am really enjoying using it.
My setup is: i7, 16gb ddr3 (original) 1tb fusion drive and r9 m295x.
If one day should break would complain bitterly with apple, but if the mac it works and no one is broken ... what are we talking about?
20 pages of delirium unfounded. (for now at least)

 

[andy9l]

20 pages of delirium unfounded. (for now at least)

No, several pages of people posting screenshots of evidence with the occasional poster, such as yourself, making claims that theirs isn't like everyone else's.

I want to believe you - I want this iMac - but so far, anyone claiming theirs is "fine" and doesn't experience throttling is yet to provide any kind of evidence.

Please understand this; I have an i7/M295X 5K iMac sitting next to me. It's boxed up. I don't want it to be. If someone can provide some hard evidence that their GPU is not throttling during intensive tasks (gaming is just an easy test), then I'll be on the phone to Apple in a shot to sort out a replacement.

 

[Astelith]

No, several pages of people posting screenshots of evidence with the occasional poster, such as yourself, making claims that theirs isn't like everyone else's.

I want to believe you - I want this iMac - but so far, anyone claiming theirs is "fine" and doesn't experience throttling is yet to provide any kind of evidence.

Please understand this; I have an i7/M295X 5K iMac sitting next to me. It's boxed up. I don't want it to be. If someone can provide some hard evidence that their GPU is not throttling during intensive tasks (gaming is just an easy test), then I'll be on the phone to Apple in a shot to sort out a replacement.

Fine, tell me what for you is an intensive task and will be my pleasure to make all the screenshot you want

 

[andy9l]

Fine, tell me what for you is an intensive task and will be my pleasure to make all the screenshot you want

I guess any game/program/benchmark you've got access to that consistently pushes the GPU to the full 850MHz!

Honestly, you'd give me a glimmer of hope.

 

[thundersteele]

I guess any game/program/benchmark you've got access to that consistently pushes the GPU to the full 850MHz!

Do we even know the official specifications of the GPU? Notebookcheck seems to indicate that 850MHz is the max. turbo frequency, so maybe the GPU is not expected to operate at that frequency for extended periods.

Benchmarks from Barefeats and arstechnica have shown that the m295x beats the m290 and also the 780m in most tests and games. So in that sense it does deliver what one can expect from a GPU upgrade. Alienware has announced new 15'' notebooks with the m295x GPU, so maybe that will be a good opportunity to see how it can perform with better(?) cooling, and how it holds up against NVidias offerings.

 

[SmallDane]

Alienware has announced new 15'' notebooks with the m295x GPU, so maybe that will be a good opportunity to see how it can perform with better(?) cooling, and how it holds up against NVidias offerings.

I assume the resolution won't be comparable though. It's a mobile GPU, so it will probably be a much better fit for the much smaller screen.

 

[vagos1103gr]

i play x-plane 10 on OS X with mac fan control open and auto and the gpu temp never exceed 101 with 2150 fan. i was playing half an hour with 1440 and extreme settings. i think people that the gpu goes up to 103 has problem or with sw or hw.

 

[SmallDane]

i play x-plane 10 on OS X with mac fan control open and auto and the gpu temp never exceed 101 with 2150 fan. i was playing half an hour with 1440 and extreme settings. i think people that the gpu goes up to 103 has problem or with sw or hw.

X-Plane is not very GPU intensive at all according to this benchmark. So it's not a good test of the GPU temps.

 

[Astelith]

Here for you some test, I have to say that was very difficult to find a software able to get the GPU at 100% with max frequency (850), usually, in games or heavy tasks the Boost is very variable, running from 785 (more or less) to 830+.
The CPU and GPU at full load makes the fan to goes at max speed, I assume for safety reasons.

GPU @ Full Load, Full Clock, no CPU Load, 30 min, Temp. stable at 97/98° C Fan @ 1300 - Clock stable at 850, no Throttling, Silent


GPU @ Full Load, Full Clock, CPU Full Load @ All Cores, 15+ minutes, GPU Temp. stable at 85° C, CPU Temp 90-98°C, Fan @ 2700 - Loud



I wasn't able to simulate a 50%/75% workload on the CPU, like most of high end games usually do, but after this, I see no point to go further testing, the total dissipation of the machine is more than enough, noisy in this (no real usage) test, but completely safe for the components, and as you can see, no trace of Throttling.
Another proof that a working fan will do the job.
If your Retina iMac overheat check the software, reset the SMC, Pram, open a support ticket... or call the Ghostbusters !


* The big spike in the GPU graph is one screenshot capture