GPU throttling?

[Ákos Maróy]

I wonder how ATI GPUs are throttled, and what the default throttling
state is.

I'm using an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830 card, which is not officially
supported by the radeon or the radeonhd drivers, neither the official
ATI binary driver. thus, I'm using the vesa driver to drive this card.

the laptop I'm using this card in idles at around 56-59 C, with all CPU
cores at their minimum (checked a number of ways, they really are). I
wonder if the amount of heat could be in part as a result of the GPU
always running at its maximum...

could this be the case?