AMD confirms RX 7900 XTX throttling issue related to reference thermal solution

AMD has said unequivocally that the thermal solution is to blame for the performance difficulties seen on the Radeon RX 7900 XTX base models.

AMD has confirmed issues with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX thermal solution, and the company is committed to providing a solution to those affected.

Over the last week, consumers have reported a significant problem with the standard graphics cards of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX ‘MBA’. This issue led to overheating, which in turn led to thermal throttling.

This decreased performance for reference designs because they were forced to operate at slower clock speeds. Although AMD’s initial response was that everything was “Normal” and the company declined an RMA request from a customer, the company later reversed its stance and asked users who were adversely affected to get in touch with its support team.

After a few days of investigation, AMD is still determining the root cause of the throttling and overheating issues. Still, the company has provided us with the following statement, which more or less confirms the problem might be related to the thermal design. This is something that has also been pointed out by hardware experts such as Der8auer and Igor’s Lab. AMD is still determining the root cause of the throttling and overheating issues.

We are working to determine the root cause of the unexpected throttling experienced by some while using the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards made by AMD. Based on our observations to-date, we believe the issue relates to the thermal solution used in the AMD reference design and appears to be present in a limited number of the cards sold.

We are committed to solving this issue for impacted cards. Customers experiencing this unexpected throttling should contact AMD Support (https://www.amd.com/en/support/contact-call).

via AMD

AMD claims that the issue is only present in a small number of Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards; however, it appears that the number of really impacted graphics cards might be much more significant and could be in the thousands, as stated by Igor’s Lab. Igor has had conversations with several different system builders and distributors, and they have informed him that the problems have been known for weeks and that it isn’t just one batch but numerous that are afflicted (4-6, to speak). The following is a selection of quotations from Igor’s Laboratory:

The problem is already known for more than two weeks and is communicated between AMD and the distributors (internally) .. How exactly the problem will be communicated to the end customer has not yet been finally decided. … AMD’s statement was originally supposed to be made on January 3, 2023 at 6 p.m. CET, but it was postponed. 

As assumed, the cause is the evaporator chamber…  Several batches are affected. Currently, 4-6 batches and thousands of graphics cards are assumed. Only MBA cards are affected. (quote from email)

We had to return 300+ graphics cards of Asus MBA, Sapphire MBA, PowerColor MBA, XFX MBA to the retailers/warehouse/wholesale…
Complete systems also had to be disassembled for this procedure. (quote from email)

End customers have to contact the vendor or AMD support directly. Distributors and stores have to send the affected graphics cards to wholesalers and warehouses. (quote from email)

via Igor’s Lab

There have also been claims that the problem manifests itself about two to three weeks after beginning to use the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards; hence, if this is accurate, there may soon be an increase in the number of reported incidents.

The Radeon RX 7900 XTX MBA ‘Reference’ graphics cards were among the first designs to enter the shelves. Several people purchased them since they were the only ones priced at the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). But at the moment, precisely the same graphics cards are having problems with thermal throttling and overheating, which may result in a significant recall or RMA.