Some Powercolor 7900XTX suffers from temperature issues (QC problem related to thermal paste application and cooler mounting)

[KeradSnake]

Summary

Some Powercolor Red Devil 7900XTX suffers from high temp (including, in usual fashion, hotspot temp), further investigation from Igor (IgorsLab) discovers that the card was having a temperature issue due to QC issues related to the cooler mounting and thermal paste application from the factory (Image from IgorsLab). Powercolor already contacted IgorsLab regarding the issue and telling users affected by this issue to contact Powercolor but so far no announcements made on their social platform

 

Quotes

Quote

Red Devil 7900XTX Temps QC issue, VideoCardz: 

...It didn’t take much time for Igor to notice the card suffers from high-temperature issue. A double-digit delta between average GPU temperature and the hotspot is nothing extraordinary. The reference RX 7900 XTX card has 18 to 19 Kelvin difference while Sapphire’s Nitro+ is around 22K, notes Igor. However, PowerColor Red Devil had a 30K difference, which implies there is clearly an issue. For the Red Devil, that’s a difference between 80°C and 110°C. The card was disassembled and Igor confirmed that the thermal paste had uneven distribution on the die. There were areas where there was no paste at all, clearly showing that there was an issue with application. He quickly reapplied the thermal paste the proper way and assembled the card back. This made a massive difference for the temperature, eliminating the issue. The average GPU temperature decreased from 80°C to 75°C while the hotspot temperature had a substantial drop to 93-95°C. 

 

Of course, the reviewer reached out to PowerColor to report on the problem and the company has already issued a short statement. PowerColor confirms there was an issue with the production line. The company promises to implement new thermal grease and change how the cooler was installed. The company claims that this issue affected a small percentage of the cards, but it is unclear if the same problem could have affected other models that were on the same production line. Igor claims that the issue is not isolated

Statement from Powercolor to Igor: We have identified an issue on our production line where some cards are experiencing higher hot spot temperatures than usual. We verified that this happens to a small percentage of the total output, and we are already in the process of replacing the thermal grease. With the new input from IgorLabs we are also verifying if changing the way we mount the cooler onto the card adds to improved thermal performance . We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible to ensure that our customers receive only the highest quality products. If anyone is experiencing this issue, please reach out to info@powercolor.com.

 

My thoughts

7900XTX seems can't take a break from QC issues. While to be fair this is a fairly easy fix, not everyone would want to teardown their 7900XTX or even have the know how to do the teardown, yeah maybe just a small percentage of them but still, it's frustrating to know your finished build have to be disassembled (well, the gpu have to be disassembled) because while gaming the temps were not great and the bad news is that they don't quickly announced the issue so you have to make a guess on what's actually going on with your card until someone tells you or you dig deeper to know it's a thermal paste/ cooler mount issue, which on a card like 7900XTX especially on their 3rd party model you'd think it's going to be good out of box, but no you have to go through (maybe) half an hour of disassembly to repaste and remount it, or if you live in a region where warranty void if removed stickers actually does what it says if the RMA peeps sees that it's broken or peeled, you have to bring it for RMA and wait for a few days, maybe a week worst case. So yeah, basically for any Radeon card makers: 7000 series, bare chiplet cards, not a bare monolithic. Don't forget to spread it even and correctly cover the entire die. It's not a Ryzen CPU where you can just do X four dot pattern and call it a day. And please, if there's any of this problems and you acknowledge it, immediately announce it to the public with clear detail so people know what to do if they are affected.

 

Sources

- https://hothardware.com/news/powercolor-radeon-rx-7900-xtx-red-devil-gpus-overheatings

- https://www.igorslab.de/en/powercolor-rx-7900xtx-red-devil-mit-eingebautem-herstellungsfehler-wenn-der-hotspot-zum-standard-wird/5/

- https://videocardz.com/newz/powercolor-rx-7900-xtx-red-devil-cards-may-suffer-from-high-gpu-temperatures-due-to-incorrect-application-of-thermal-compound

[TrigrH]

The fact that powercolor is an AMD exclusive AIB makes this even worse.

 

From memory, AMD cards have hotspot related issues since vega. You would think by know they would be checking this more thoroughly. 

[Arokhantos]

What makes this more annoying is any aib try to chicken out warranty first chance they get, telling you you are allowed to customize card by law, here in the Netherlands, but you have to put it back in factory condition or you pay for repairs, void warranty seal is considered factory condition, at same time they create artificial shortages so if you rma you be without card either for really long time or end up with a refund, im not sure how other aib handle right to repair laws but im not happy about powercolor, altho they make great cards their thermal paste aplication im having my doubts on that even last 3 years like the warranty, it feels like planned obsolescence , cos they know you end up repasting anyway, cos thats basic maintenance you end up having to do anyway.

 

My liquid devil 7900 XTX hits usually 85c max at 404 tbp 88c during hot day 95c at 460w peek 100c hotspot

most people if asked hit about 80c hotspot when watercooling when testing 3D occt but under report their hotspot.

I wish some big YouTubers would go after aib that try chicken out warranty for stupid reasons, if not needed warranty ever since i watercooled, if had 1 damaged evga gtx 480 sc that i damaged my self input filtering cap knocked off i just reported it to evga and got it fixed for 25 euros paypal no problem.

 

but powercolor just trying to assume user damage automatically as soon as a void warranty seal is broken, which is not legal here in Netherlands and i believe also not in America.

[Doobeedoo]

It seems smaller batch but yeah good to know what's up. At least they changed how it's done at the factory.

[Quackers101]

not the first time AMD cards had similar issues, and I guess some for Nvidia too.

Where there was decent coolers on them, but didn't cover every area... that could lead to failures or running excessively hot.

So sucks to see this again, adn this be mostly OEMs?

[Mark Kaine]

power color was always a low end brand, so not surprising. 

[jigassa]

What would be a correct delta between both temperatures?

[IkeaGnome]

8 minutes ago, jigassa said:

What would be a correct delta between both temperatures?

If only it was in the original post..

Quote

The reference RX 7900 XTX card has 18 to 19 Kelvin difference while Sapphire’s Nitro+ is around 22K, notes Igor. However, PowerColor Red Devil had a 30K difference, which implies there is clearly an issue.

 

[Arokhantos]

21 hours ago, jigassa said:

What would be a correct delta between both temperatures?

 

Ignore it just get PTM7950 and make sure hotspot remains at acceptable range, the delta can be worse as result of the edge temp being below avg even, it does not have to be high as result of issues, it can be high as result of much lower edge temps as well.

[WereCat]

5 minutes ago, Arokhantos said:

 

Ignore it just get PTM7950 and make sure hotspot remains at acceptable range, the delta can be worse as result of the edge temp being below avg even, it does not have to be high as result of issues, it can be high as result of much lower edge temps as well.

While PTM7950 is great the biggest issue with most modern AMD cards is the mounting pressure of the cooler and that's why washer mod is quite popular mod on AMD cards. Simply changing the thermal compound will often not help.

[Arokhantos]

3 minutes ago, WereCat said:

While PTM7950 is great the biggest issue with most modern AMD cards is the mounting pressure of the cooler and that's why washer mod is quite popular mod on AMD cards. Simply changing the thermal compound will often not help.

 

it may be popular but bend pcb is just gonna have long term damage its not worth it for those few extra degrees

[darknessblade]

I have a powercolor red devil RX7900XT.

Not sure if that series also has issues, 

If so I haven't seen them myself, Mosly because I underclocked my GPU instead of overclocked.

This saved roughly 200W in total PC power-consumption, and I barely took a hit of 5% in performance.

 

_{[note PC build in signature is outdated]}