A Reddit user recently posted that his AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card is reaching 110C Junction temperature while playing the new Modern Warfare II. However, when he contacted AMD with an RMA request, he was rejected, the company stated that “The temperature is normal, if there is any problem, please contact us.” Another user successfully requested a refund for a previously opened box. Since then, the company has received quite a bit of backlash for the issue, especially with the increasing number of cases arising.
More cases of high temperature AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards continue to crop up, and companies like PowerColor are taking steps to help consumers.
Prior to this new development from AMD, NVIDIA received backlash for overheating and melting 12VHPWR connectors on the flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU, which exceeded thirty individuals and reported cases of issues after the graphics card was launched.
What’s unique about AMD’s situation is that it currently affects reference and AMD-manufactured Radeon RX 7900 series GPUs. It includes any card sold by an AMD partner or company, but not custom-made GPUs that use the same graphics architecture. It is believed that the flaw may be in the multiple coolers or the mounting design, as De8auer demonstrates in the video below:
Three years ago, AMD published an article on the company’s blog titled, “AMD Radeon Community Update: more control over GPU power and performance, enhanced thermal monitoring, maximum performance.” When discussing junction temperature in AMD Radeon VII GPU Enhanced Thermal Monitoring, they posted this statement:
… Instead of setting a conservative, “worst-case” crash temperature for the entire division, RadeonTM RX 5700 series GPUs will continue to opportunistically and aggressively raise their clocks until one of the many available sensors hits a “hotspot” or “Junction.” the temperature is 110 degrees Celsius. Operation at up to 110C node temperatures during normal gaming use is expected and within specification. This enables RadeonTM RX 5700 series GPUs to offer much higher performance and clocks while maintaining acoustic and reliability targets.
One of AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX’s Technical Engineering Leads, “Kevin”, states that as of yesterday, the company is aware of the hotspot issue and is actively investigating and putting together an action plan to “reproduce and collect the serial. numbers”. He further explains that the current COVID situation overseas is slowing down the process, but agrees that the mechanical issue falls under creating and executing an RMA for consumers. However, they are also looking for firmware updates to fix isolated incidents where a software fix would be needed instead of a hardware replacement. “Kevin” also discusses edge heating, the temperature of the GPU near the edge of the silicon, noting that 90° edge temperatures are abnormal, but 70° edge temperatures are nominal.
Reddit user and PowerColor Platform representative PowerColorSteven is doing his part to help consumers with an ongoing issue with AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards. For those who don’t remember Stephen, we mentioned in this article that the company previously had an issue where AMD RX 6700 XT series GPUs were shipped with the thermal shrouds still attached, which at the time would cause high temperatures. graphics card. The sales rep has been following this issue closely for the past few days and recently posted this as a pinned topic on Reddit.
Uh… just adding this here in case anyone hasn’t seen my other posts.
if you are dealing with a 110c problem and no one is helping you. it doesn’t matter which (AIB you bought this from) you bought it from. send me an email or direct message (as my emails are not working properly today) (also please don’t use chat, that thread is not working properly). I gather my list of drama contacts to see how many problems we see. they asked if it was just a few users. I said it was more than a handful, so now I have to show some support for my fat mouth. send me serial numbers. I email the dram guys how many units are affected. powercolor. sapphire gigabyte. amd direct. whatever it is. send me serial numbers. Hopefully amd will get some news for us all, but regardless, once I hear anything substantial I’ll post to provide some level of guidance on how to go about fixing this issue.
— User “PowerColorSteven” aka “seller or something” on Reddit
However, it is difficult to determine which companies accept RMAs and fulfill them, as the number of reported cases indicates that some are allowed and others are rejected, even if it is the same manufacturer. Several other theories about the problem are also emerging, ranging from uneven cold plates to using a graphite heat pad to fix the problem. With the number of cases increasing during initial reports, it is not recommended to mitigate the problem, but to delay it until official announcement or widespread RMA adoption is permitted by AMD.
News sources: Tom’s Hardware, Reddit (AMD), AMD blog, Reddit (PowerColor)
