Replacing GPU and need Suggestions

[asimon00]

Hello,

I recently purchased a RX 6800xt and I need to replace it. It unfortunately has unbearable coil wind. I am now in the market for a GPU that does not have a coil wind that has close to the same performance. I have read that the regular 6800 does not have this issue but I am open to other ideas. Is the 6750 worth looking at? I only game at 1080p @ 144hz.

 

This is the card I bought :https://www.newegg.com/xfx-radeon-rx-6800-xt-rx-68xtalfd9/p/N82E16814150848?Item=9SIA2W0F8N6968

My budget to replace this card is around 550-580$

Thanks!

[NaClKnight]

I'm not aware of any reviews that specifically mention coil whine; is it possible you got unlucky in the silicone lottery?

The 6800 (non XT) features comparable performance, maybe 10-15% less IIRC

 

Have you tried adjusting the GPU power limits?

[asimon00]

12 minutes ago, NaClKnight said:

I'm not aware of any reviews that specifically mention coil whine; is it possible you got unlucky in the silicone lottery?

The 6800 (non XT) features comparable performance, maybe 10-15% less IIRC

 

Have you tried adjusting the GPU power limits?

How do I adjust the power limits.

Here are some links about the coil wind:

https://community.amd.com/t5/graphics/radeon-6800-xt-coil-whine-after-reaching-100w-power-usage/td-p/524236

In the reviews section on both new egg and amazon other people had the same coil wind issue.

[ninjitsu]

Have you contacted the manufacturer? They might replace the card for you.

[NaClKnight]

41 minutes ago, asimon00 said:

How do I adjust the power limits.

Here are some links about the coil wind:

https://community.amd.com/t5/graphics/radeon-6800-xt-coil-whine-after-reaching-100w-power-usage/td-p/524236

In the reviews section on both new egg and amazon other people had the same coil wind issue.

I ask because my Sapphire Nitro + SE 6800 XT has no audible coil whine at all and I've never heard anyone complain about it on this card specifically before.

I was suggesting using MSI Afterburner or AMD adrenaline to adjust the power, like Performance->Tuning and then changing the settings to either Quiet or Manual and further lowering the power curve. MSI Afterburner is another tool to do the same thing, with more granular control.

 

[asimon00]

11 hours ago, NaClKnight said:

I ask because my Sapphire Nitro + SE 6800 XT has no audible coil whine at all and I've never heard anyone complain about it on this card specifically before.

I was suggesting using MSI Afterburner or AMD adrenaline to adjust the power, like Performance->Tuning and then changing the settings to either Quiet or Manual and further lowering the power curve. MSI Afterburner is another tool to do the same thing, with more granular control.

 

can you step me through what I need to do? I can get to this page but I have no clue how to effectively lower the power curve.

[NaClKnight]

23 minutes ago, asimon00 said:

can you step me through what I need to do? I can get to this page but I have no clue how to effectively lower the power curve.

Sure, I can provide some instructions,

 

First, try the Undervolt GPU setting under Automatic tuning and see what stable undervolt it suggests and if that does anything for coil whine. You can manually undervolt to get better performance, but if you just want to address coil whine it's a good place to start

 

Secondly, this will be an inexact science, but the limits on the AMD software are conservative enough that you are very unlikely to damage your card. Choose the custom profile if the undervolt doesn't help.

 

Bumping GPU Tuning max frequency or the Power Tuning Power Limit down by 5% are safe options that may/will cost you a few percentage points worth of performance. But that loss will be smaller than the loss you'd face switching to a 6800 or 6750 XT so it's worth it. The coil whine may only occur at your card's max frequency

 

Under GPU tuning you can also bump the max frequency up by 3-5% intervals or the voltage down by 5% intervals, or both. This is how a normal undervolt works, but we're after lower coil whine, not higher clocks. Probably.

 

Whatever you pick, stress test for at least 2 minutes. This will be a little guess and check but that's the nature of this thing. You can also run a stress test like OCCT, a benchmark like TimeSpy, or just play any game. If the PC crashes, that means you adjusted something too far.

 

I'm no expert on GPU tuning so threads like this https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/k7q0fz/rx_6800xt_undervoltoverclock_thread/?utm_source=BD&utm_medium=Search&utm_name=Bing&utm_content=PSR1 Can be a useful next step but i hope I've given you enough knowledge to play with these tools and salvage your relationship with tthat GPU

 

[asimon00]

1 hour ago, NaClKnight said:

Sure, I can provide some instructions,

 

First, try the Undervolt GPU setting under Automatic tuning and see what stable undervolt it suggests and if that does anything for coil whine. You can manually undervolt to get better performance, but if you just want to address coil whine it's a good place to start

 

Secondly, this will be an inexact science, but the limits on the AMD software are conservative enough that you are very unlikely to damage your card. Choose the custom profile if the undervolt doesn't help.

 

Bumping GPU Tuning max frequency or the Power Tuning Power Limit down by 5% are safe options that may/will cost you a few percentage points worth of performance. But that loss will be smaller than the loss you'd face switching to a 6800 or 6750 XT so it's worth it. The coil whine may only occur at your card's max frequency

 

Under GPU tuning you can also bump the max frequency up by 3-5% intervals or the voltage down by 5% intervals, or both. This is how a normal undervolt works, but we're after lower coil whine, not higher clocks. Probably.

 

Whatever you pick, stress test for at least 2 minutes. This will be a little guess and check but that's the nature of this thing. You can also run a stress test like OCCT, a benchmark like TimeSpy, or just play any game. If the PC crashes, that means you adjusted something too far.

 

I'm no expert on GPU tuning so threads like this https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/k7q0fz/rx_6800xt_undervoltoverclock_thread/?utm_source=BD&utm_medium=Search&utm_name=Bing&utm_content=PSR1 Can be a useful next step but i hope I've given you enough knowledge to play with these tools and salvage your relationship with tthat GPU

 

When I try the auto undervolt option it just says that it fails everytime, any suggestions on how to fix that

[NaClKnight]

Just now, asimon00 said:

When I try the auto undervolt option it just says that it fails everytime, any suggestions on how to fix that

If the Auto Undervolt option fails you'll likely have to try the manual Undervolt options that i mentioned in my post in the "Secondly" section or the "Quiet" Tuning preset 

[asimon00]

I have honestly tried and it still makes a hissing sound, and its pretty loud. Really unhappy with how I have to tune the card in order for a noise to go away. In my opinion it should just be functional out of the box. Is the 6800 that big of a drop off?

[NaClKnight]

5 hours ago, asimon00 said:

I have honestly tried and it still makes a hissing sound, and its pretty loud. Really unhappy with how I have to tune the card in order for a noise to go away. In my opinion it should just be functional out of the box. Is the 6800 that big of a drop off?

10-15 percent dropoff to the non XT version isn't huge. 

 

Damn, sorry we couldn't get it resolved satisfactorily. I've never had coil whine on my 6800XT so this is all guess and check

[asimon00]

18 minutes ago, NaClKnight said:

10-15 percent dropoff to the non XT version isn't huge. 

 

Damn, sorry we couldn't get it resolved satisfactorily. I've never had coil whine on my 6800XT so this is all guess and check

I really appreciate your help, I think I might try to order a replacement from Newegg as other people said that theirs do not have any coil wind while some others say the same as me. 

[JimmyJJones]

2 hours ago, asimon00 said:

I really appreciate your help, I think I might try to order a replacement from Newegg as other people said that theirs do not have any coil wind while some others say the same as me. 

That XFX card definitely has coil whine and it's not your fault and besides wearing noise canceling headsets or ignoring it, there is little you can do.

 

Coil whine is caused by the inductors on the card and has nothing to do with silicon lottery.

 

Some board makers do more to make sure there is not coil whine as I'm pretty sure the Sapphire card doesn't have one as long as the Fraps are capped.  Remember coil whine is more frequency dependent than power dependent.  Changing the frame rate will often change the frequency and possibly end or deaden the coil whine.

 

That being said could coil whine is application specific.   Sometimes it can be solved through capping the frame rate.  Have you tried this?

 

A surprising number of people are literally deaf to the pitches coil whine makes, so taking an individual's word on coil whine not occurring on a card is usually not a good idea.  Unfortunately most of these people don't realize they are deaf to these frequencies.  Many people play with headsets and therefore won't hear coil whine.  Other people have better sound insulated cases or other louder parts in a computer.  

 

I would read the reviews made on a card.  If more than one person points out there is coil whine, there is likely coil whine on that card.

[asimon00]

12 hours ago, JimmyJJones said:

That XFX card definitely has coil whine and it's not your fault and besides wearing noise canceling headsets or ignoring it, there is little you can do.

 

Coil whine is caused by the inductors on the card and has nothing to do with silicon lottery.

 

Some board makers do more to make sure there is not coil whine as I'm pretty sure the Sapphire card doesn't have one as long as the Fraps are capped.  Remember coil whine is more frequency dependent than power dependent.  Changing the frame rate will often change the frequency and possibly end or deaden the coil whine.

 

That being said could coil whine is application specific.   Sometimes it can be solved through capping the frame rate.  Have you tried this?

 

A surprising number of people are literally deaf to the pitches coil whine makes, so taking an individual's word on coil whine not occurring on a card is usually not a good idea.  Unfortunately most of these people don't realize they are deaf to these frequencies.  Many people play with headsets and therefore won't hear coil whine.  Other people have better sound insulated cases or other louder parts in a computer.  

 

I would read the reviews made on a card.  If more than one person points out there is coil whine, there is likely coil whine on that card.

The reviews are spotty, some people say that there is coil wind and others say that their unit does not have it. I have capped the framerate but it still makes a small hissing sound almost. If you are aware of any possible solutions I am all ears. I tried to get newegg to send me a new one but they are out of stock and were super unhelpful.

[QuantumSingularity]

Try a different PSU or if you have a fully modular one, change the port to which the power cables are connected. Had a similar issue with a noisy RTX 3080 of a customer which whined like a mad dog, turned out it was a PSU fault. 

[JimmyJJones]

1 hour ago, asimon00 said:

The reviews are spotty, some people say that there is coil wind and others say that their unit does not have it. I have capped the framerate but it still makes a small hissing sound almost. If you are aware of any possible solutions I am all ears. I tried to get newegg to send me a new one but they are out of stock and were super unhelpful.

A small hissing sound is "normal" for most advance graphics cards - especially if it sounds like white noise as oppose to a high pitched terrible out of tune raspy opera singer.  If you can close your case, sit it 3 feet away, and can't hear it while your air conditioner is running, that's usually fine.  If you've watched Jayz talk about the realities of water cooling, one of the things people find out after putting a water block on their gpu and quieting everything else is that almost every advanced card has a small bit of coil hiss.  That can be frustrating, especially after spending the money and time to watercool everything and now you "suddenly" realize some of the white noise your card was making wasn't the fan . . .

 

"A small hissing sound almost" doesn't sound like a problem unless that framerate cap is too low for you.  Doing something about it would be very troublesome and would involve taking apart the GPU and applying sound insulation to the inductors while at the same time making sure they didn't overheat . . . or adding sound insulation to the inside of your case.

[Coaxialgamer]

Coil-whine is caused by the power electronics on the board itself vibrating at an audible level. The GPU itself has nothing to do with it. A particular board design might be more susceptible to it, but any graphics card is liable to have coil while.

 

It may also start or stop depending on local conditions, such as temperature or humidity.

 

My point is that I wouldn't necessarily strike the 6800xt out just yet if that's the GPU you want. A new card, especially using a different PCB design, may be perfectly fine. I just don't know if aftermarket boards were designed for that chip or not.