AMD: ‘small percentage’ of RX 7900 XTX reference cards have defective vaporchamber

A small percentage of AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference cards experience high temperatures and throttling due to a faulty vapor chamber. The company confirms this in an interview with PCWorld. The defective video cards are replaced with new ones.

The temperature issue with some Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference cards was caused by a ‘small batch’ of faulty vaporchambers, confirms Scott Herkelman of AMD’s Radeon division against PCWorld. The CEO confirms that a number of vapor chambers contain too little liquid, as was already speculated.

Herkelman says it concerns a small percentage of the vapor chambers, but does not mention exact numbers. The issue only affects Radeon RX 7900 XTX cards with the reference design, not graphics cards with a custom cooler. The RX 7900 XT is also not affected by the defect.

Herkelman continues that AMD and partner companies will exchange affected Radeon RX 7900 XTX cards for new ones. AMD calls on users to contact the customer service of the manufacturer that sold their video card: AMD itself or a partner company. According to AMD, there are enough video cards in stock to exchange the affected models.

The temperature problems came to light at the end of December. Several users reported that their reference video card suffered from high hotspot temperatures of 110 degrees Celsius, causing the GPU to experience thermal throttling. After research and inquiries from professional overclocker der8auer and journalist Igor Wallosek, the problem turned out to be caused by a faulty vaporchamber, which AMD has subsequently confirmed.