Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT owners may not like the higher temperatures (e.g., 110 degrees Celsius) they’re seeing in their reference cards, but the new thermals are normal and by design. That’s according to a recent blog post by AMD, which elaborates on how its new cards measure temperature differently.
While older GPUs utilized a single sensor to report core temperature, the RX 5700 series (and Radeon VII) has multiple sensors spread out across the GPU, which allows for more accurate temperature reporting (there’s an implication that pre-Navi cards may have ran at similarly high temperatures). It’s inherent to AMD’s new AVFS (Adaptive Voltage and Frequency Scaling) system, whereby voltage is automatically adjusted for peak performance.
This doesn’t mean that the efficiency of these GPUs are remarkable, but it should reassure enthusiasts that they’re operating at safe levels.
The 110-degree junction temperature is not evidence of a problem or a sudden issue with AMD graphics cards. AMD now measures its GPU temperature in new locations and reports additional data points that capture this information because it adopted more sophisticated measuring methods.