According to Der8auer, AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX standard graphics card looks to have a significant flaw in its cooling design.
Users have been reporting a significant problem with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX “MBA” standard graphics cards over the last week that led to overheating and thermal throttling. While AMD’s original answer was that everything was “Normal” and rejected an RMA to a customer, this caused reference designs to perform worse since they were operating at lower clock rates. However, the firm has recently softened its stance and requested impacted customers to contact the support staff.
Der8auer now claims that he has received 48 such proven examples so far, and some people have even mailed him their cards for additional analysis, in his second video on the overheating problem. It was previously believed that the problem could be resolved by removing and reinstalling the cooler and providing the appropriate pressure, but that no longer seems to be the case, and the situation seems to be much worse.
Der8auer put the cards through tests that included horizontal installation, a cooler mount to boost pressure, and even altering the spacer nuts and washers, which is what Igor’s Lab had suggested in their own results earlier that day. However, it seems that none of them solved the overheating problem since the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX standard graphics cards continue to reach temperatures of 110C Junction.
All of these leads Der8auer to the conclusion that the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card issue isn’t just a mounting issue, but rather a flaw in the cooler, more especially the heatsink that makes use of a vapour chamber.
Der8auer postulates that the vapour chamber may have a manufacturing defect or a design flaw that prevents the liquid within it from properly flowing around the card. Der8auer seems to be pretty certain that the vapour chamber is the problem, and he promises to release a follow-up video in which he dissects the block to examine how it manages the vapour flow.