AMD responds to GPU overheating issues with RX 7900 XTX

By Alan Truly December 30, 2022

As the number of AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX owners reporting overheating grows, the company has responded. Initially, complaints were met with a simple statement that temperatures of 110 degrees Celsius were normal and not a cause for concern.

That meant requests to return AMD RX 7900 XTX reference graphics cards were denied. While reaching 110 degrees Celsius might be acceptable, thermal throttling is unexpected behavior. AMD is now asking anyone experiencing throttling to contact AMD customer support for assistance. This isn’t the first problem with AMD’s latest GPU so hopefully, this is taken care of quickly.

RX 7900 XTX installed in a test bench. — Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

If you notice a sudden drop in performance and fans running at full speed, you might be experiencing thermal throttling on your AMD RX 7900 XTX card. To check, open performance monitoring software, such as AMD Adrenalin. Check the graphics performance against the temperature. If the GPU slows suddenly as the temperature climbs to 110 degrees Celsius, that indicates the card is throttling to keep temperatures within safety limits.

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is more powerful than the RX 7900 XT, featuring additional cores for Compute, ray tracing, and AI, along with more memory and a wider memory bus. This all adds to greater power requirements. The RX 7900 XTX uses up to 355W, 40W more than its lower-cost sibling.

While more is usually better with a graphics card, AMD might have pushed its technology a little too far this time, if throttling proves to be a common issue. Nvidia’s top GPU, the GeForce RTX 4090 has had its share of heating issues as well, which AMD has subtlety mocked at its press conferences.

So far, the number of people having trouble is limited, but the issue is significant enough for AMD to take note. Stay tuned and we’ll keep you informed on the latest news as this story develops.

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