AMD Confirms Radeon RX 7900 XTX Thermal Solution Issues, Committed To Provide A Solution To Affected Users
Users began reporting a significant problem with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX ‘MBA’ reference graphics cards over the last week, which caused overheating and thermal throttling. Because reference designs were running at lower clock speeds, they performed worse, and while AMD initially stated that everything was “normal” and refused an RMA to a customer, the company later softened its stance and invited affected users to contact the support staff.
After a few days of investigation, AMD is still determining the root cause of the throttling and overheating issues, but has provided us with the following statement, which more or less confirms the issue may be related to the thermal design, something that hardware experts such as Der8auer and Igor’s Lab have also pointed out.
We are working to determine the root cause of the unexpected throttling experienced by some while using the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards made by AMD. Based on our observations to-date, we believe the issue relates to the thermal solution used in the AMD reference design and appears to be present in a limited number of the cards sold.
We are committed to solving this issue for impacted cards. Customers experiencing this unexpected throttling should contact AMD Support (https://www.amd.com/en/
support/contact-call). via AMD
AMD claims that the issue only affects a small number of Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards, however Igor’s Lab claims that the actual number of impacted graphics cards could be in the thousands. Igor has spoken with a few system builders/distributors who claim that the problems have been known for weeks and that it is not just one batch but multiple (4-6 to speak). The following are some quotes from Igors Lab:
The problem is already known for more than two weeks and is communicated between AMD and the distributors (internally) .. How exactly the problem will be communicated to the end customer has not yet been finally decided. … AMD’s statement was originally supposed to be made on January 3, 2023 at 6 p.m. CET, but it was postponed.
As assumed, the cause is the evaporator chamber… Several batches are affected. Currently, 4-6 batches and thousands of graphics cards are assumed. Only MBA cards are affected. (quote from email)
We had to return 300+ graphics cards of Asus MBA, Sapphire MBA, PowerColor MBA, XFX MBA to the retailers/warehouse/wholesale…
Complete systems also had to be disassembled for this procedure. (quote from email)End customers have to contact the vendor or AMD support directly. Distributors and stores have to send the affected graphics cards to wholesalers and warehouses. (quote from email)
There have also been claims that the problem appears approximately 2-3 weeks after using the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards, so if this is accurate, there may be more cases popping up shortly. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX MBA ‘Reference’ graphics cards were among the first to enter store shelves, and because they were the only ones priced at MSRP, many people purchased them. However, these same graphics cards are now experiencing thermal throttling and overheating issues, which may necessitate a big recall or RMA.
