AMD confirms that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX temperature issue is related to the cards’ thermal solution

What just happened? After weeks of complaints, AMD has finally confirmed that the unexpectedly high temperatures and throttling of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference cards are caused by issues with their thermal solution.

AMD’s reputation has been tarnished by reports that some Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference graphics cards are experiencing thermal issues involving GPU AP temperatures, or the maximum temperature read by the sensor, of up to 110 degrees Celsius.

AMD initially stated that 110°C was a normal crossover temperature, so it denied RMA requests from some buyers and advised users experiencing unexpected thermal throttling to contact AMD support.

An investigation by Roman “der8auer” Hartung recently led to overclocking issues being blamed on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX’s vapor chamber; It is believed that some batches of cards lack sufficient liquid levels.

Igor Wallossek of Igor’sLAB notoriously received an email from a system integrator stating that 4 to 6 batches of Radeon RX 7900 XTX MBA cards (Made By AMD), covering thousands of units, are affected by the issue.

AMD has finally issued an official press release that appears to confirm the investigations. “We are working to determine the root cause of unexpected bottlenecks that some are experiencing when using AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards manufactured by AMD. Based on our observations to date, we believe the issue is related to the thermal solution used in the AMD reference design and appears to be present in a limited number. of cards sold,” the company wrote.

“We are committed to resolving this issue for affected cards. Customers experiencing this unexpected limitation should contact AMD Support (https://www.amd.com/en/support/contact-call). »

Only AMD-built Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs sold by AMD and its manufacturing partners appear to be affected. Aftermarket panels with custom coolant designs appear to be safe. And all of these MBA cards don’t overheat—the one we used in our testing did.

However, the problem affecting thousands of units is not a trivial problem. We’ll have to see if AMD issues a mass recall/RMA.

The controversy comes at the wrong time for AMD. Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7000 processors aren’t selling as well as expected, especially in Germany, where Zen 3 chips are outsold by its successor about five to one. The reports also diverted attention from an issue with Nvidia’s 16-pin 12VHPWR adapter, which AMD gleefully poked fun at in a tweet before news of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX cards arrived.