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I am not sure if this has anything to do with it but I just upgraded my kernel in Ubuntu 13.10 from 3.11.0-15 to 3.11.0-17. I never thought about temperatures before but I just decided to download a monitor to see what the temperatures were. I have a AMD Radeon 4870 which at idle will sit at 84-86 Celsius. The weird thing is that even when I am playing a game like Counter Strike my GPU temp will stay at about 87-88 Celsius which is not much higher than at idle. Counter Strike is a pretty graphically intense game. Maybe it is just the temp that my card like to be at. Even when I put my fans from low to medium the temperature stayed the same. Should I be concerned at those temperatures or is it not that big of a deal?

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That is normal for radeons -- they run hot. It speeds its own fan up when it runs hard to stay about that temperature.

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    Could you provide any references?
    – Braiam
    Feb 21, 2014 at 2:10
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    @Braiam, no.. just what I have observed over 8 years of using them under both Windows and Linux.
    – psusi
    Feb 21, 2014 at 4:29
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I agree with psusi.

104C is the maximum safe temperature according to AMD/ATI. (although I couldn't find any documents from AND to substantiate that). I have an AMD AIW, and that hits 75C-80C easily.

Now, the fact that your 4870 is OLD, and it has a better processor than my card, that might be OK. Keeping that in mind, it may very well be full of dust. make sure that you clean the fan real well. You may want to take it to an auto shop, and use there air drier to blow the dust out, or you can get a can of compressed air to do that.

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Ubuntu doesn't now switch between your GPU automatically. With the latest release of Ubuntu, Hybrid Graphics are now officially supported by Ubuntu.

You need to install following package

1.fglrx

2.fglrx-pxpress

After then you can switch you AMD gpu when needed.

Type sudo apt-get install fglrx fglrx-pxpress to install it. I have not tested it yes but you can find more on webupd8.enter image description here

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  • As far as I know AMD doesn't support proprietary drivers for the 3000/4000 series past 12.04. Every time I try to get fglrx and the Catalyst Control Center my system completely breaks and I need to restore an image.
    – spot9901
    Feb 21, 2014 at 14:45
  • According to Ubuntu wiki,Ubuntu officially support Hybrid graphics in Ubuntu 13.10 and in 12.04.3 LTS.
    – g_p
    Feb 21, 2014 at 14:53
  • I see what you mean. The Hybrid graphics are supported for 13.10 but they do not support the 2000/3000/4000 series anymore, so even if I was to install fglrx they would overwrite the open-source Radeon graphics, and that would break my system. Thanks for the reply. I'm sure that will help people with newer cards.
    – spot9901
    Feb 21, 2014 at 15:48

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