“Defective batch of AMD Radeon RX 7900 cards suffers from high GPU temperatures”
The high GPU temperatures experienced by some Radeon RX 7900 reference cards may be caused by a faulty vaporchamber in one or more video card batches. An OEM reports this to Igor’s Lab. The temperature problems came to light last week.
Sources from a vapor chamber manufacturer state that the temperature problems are caused by a defect in the cooler, writes Igor Walllossek of Igor’s Lab. At least one batch of reference cards would have left the factory with too little liquid in that vapor chamber, resulting in high hot spot temperatures. That would also explain why the temperatures differ between horizontal and vertical mounting of the video card, Walllossek writes. The condensate in the cooler cannot rise if the GPU is mounted horizontally.
The temperature issues with certain Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX reference cards came to light in the past week. The video cards reached high hotspot temperatures of up to 110 degrees Celsius in some cases, leading to thermal throttling.
The vapor chamber in the AMD Radeon RX 7900. Source: der8auer, via YouTube
Professional overclocker Roman Hartung, aka der8auer, researched the problem last week. Hartung tested four different Radeon RX 7900 video cards in vertical and horizontal orientation. The overclocker then also came to the conclusion that the high temperatures are caused by a problem with the vapor chamber. Meanwhile, Hartung opened the vapor chamber, but found no design flaws. That makes Igor Walllossek’s statement plausible, although it has not yet been officially confirmed.
AMD acknowledged last week that certain RX 7900 reference cards suffer from high hotspot temperatures. The company advised users a statement to Tom’s Hardware to contact its customer service. AMD has not yet commented on the cause of the problem and has not yet commented on Hartung and Walllossek’s findings. Not all RX 7900 reference cards seem to be affected by high hot spot temperatures. The exact scale of the problem is not known.