In context: It seems both graphics card giants’ latest product launches have been less than smooth. Nvidia had to deal with the melting power adapters on its RTX 4090, and some Radeon RX 7900 XTX MBA (Made By AMD) reference cards have been experiencing 110C hotspot temps. In the case of the latter, team red has given an official response: the company is aware of the problem and advises those experiencing it to contact customer support.

News arrived last week that some AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX reference models are experiencing thermal issues involving GPU hotspot temperatures, or the maximum temperature read by the sensor, reaching as high as 110C.

A Reddit user who wrote that their Radeon RX 7900 XTX was experiencing 110C junction temps while playing Modern Warfare II contacted AMD with an RMA request but was denied as the company said this is the normal junction temperature for the card. Other RX 7900 XTX users facing the same issue, which occurs even when the cooling fans are pushed to their max, were also denied RMAs.

AMD has now responded with an official statement to Tom’s Hardware: “We are aware that a limited number of users are experiencing unexpected thermal throttling on AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards (reference models made by AMD). Users experiencing unexpected thermal throttling of an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX should contact AMD Support.”

It’s speculated that the high temps are being caused by the baseplate on the reference cooler not making full contact with the GPU die and the memory controller dies, resulting in heat getting trapped and hotspot levels soaring.

It does appear that only reference and AMD-manufactured Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs sold by AMD and its partners are affected. Aftermarket cards featuring custom cooler designs seem to be safe.

The problem isn’t present in every MBA Radeon RX 7900 XTX. Our review of an AMD reference graphics card model tested in a 21C room saw a peak hot spot temperature of 80C after an hour of gameplay with a peak average die temperature of 67C. This was achieved with a fan speed of 1900 RPM.

One of the software engineering technical leads on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX wrote on Reddit that AMD is investigating the matter and “correlating steps to repro and collecting serial numbers.” They add that the ongoing Covid situation overseas is not helping matters as some factory representatives are out of the office on sick leave. It’s hoped that a firmware update might be able to fix the issue in certain cases. Elsewhere, PowerColor is collecting user reports on the matter.

The high temps will be especially unwelcome for AMD after it threw shade at Nvidia over its rival’s melting 16-pin 12VHPWR adapters with a tweet showing off its Radeon RX 7900 series’ dual 8-pin connector




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