The high GPU temperatures experienced by some Radeon RX 7900 reference cards can be caused by a faulty vapor chamber in one or more batches of video cards. An OEM reports this to Igor’s lab. The temperature problems surfaced last week.
Sources at a vapor chamber manufacturer say the temperature issues 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 temperatures differ between horizontal and vertical video card mounts, Walllossek writes. Condensation in the cooler cannot rise if the GPU is mounted horizontally.
Temperature issues with some Radeon RX 7900 XT and XTX reference cards surfaced last week. Video cards have reached high hotspot temperatures of up to 110 degrees Celsius in some cases, leading to thermal throttling.
Professional overclocker Roman Hartung, aka der8auer, researched the problem last week. Hartung tested four different Radeon RX 7900 video cards in portrait and landscape 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 steam chamber, but found no design flaws. This makes Igor Walllossek’s statement plausible, even if it has not yet been officially confirmed.
AMD acknowledged last week that some RX 7900 reference cards suffer from high hotspot temperatures. The company has recommended to 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 the findings of Hartung and Walllossek. Not all RX 7900 reference cards seem to suffer from the high hot spot temperatures. The exact extent of the problem is not known.
