The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT gets hot – but it's supposed to

AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT
(Image credit: Future)

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT has been out for about a month now, and while it's delivering some great 1440p gaming experiences, the graphics card has a tendency to pump out some noticeably high temperatures.

However, in a blog post Team Red released, it details that AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics cards that hit 110 degrees Celsius are operating within specs and are totally fine. This is due to how these graphics cards measure temperatures. Rather than throttling at an average temperature, like most GPUs, the RX 5700 XT will only throttle when the hottest part of the GPU hits the 110 degrees Celsius thermal junction temperature.

AMD states that this allows these Radeon graphics cards to "offer much higher performance out of the box, while maintaining acoustic and reliability targets." Team Red also assures customers that they'll have access to both the peak temperature of the chip, along with a more standard average temperature, so they'll have insight as to how their graphics card is performing.

So, while some users might not be comfortable with their graphics cards hitting triple-digit temperatures, AMD claims that this is working as-expected. And, given how its processors operate at high temperatures, too, that shouldn't be too surprising. 

Heating up

One thing that might be looking at however, is the effect this could have on the rest of your system. Sure, the graphics card is more than capable of handling these high temperatures, but if the air its shooting out is overheating other components, like the chipset, there could be some problems. However, this is just pure speculation on our part.

However, there are already plenty of third-party AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics cards showing up, so if you're not comfortable with high temps, there should be a third-party option available to you that keeps things a bit cooler. 

At the end of the day, though, AMD does say these high temps are normal and are nothing to worry about. So, if you've been seeing high temperatures on your graphics card, you can rest assured that it's not about to melt in your PC case

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Bill Thomas

Bill Thomas (Twitter) is TechRadar's computing editor. They are fat, queer and extremely online. Computers are the devil, but they just happen to be a satanist. If you need to know anything about computing components, PC gaming or the best laptop on the market, don't be afraid to drop them a line on Twitter or through email.

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