PowerColor reacts to Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil hotspot issue
Igor’sLAB discovered an issue with PowerColor Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil.
The Red Devil is PowerColor’s flagship model based on an air-cooler. The company also offers a water-cooled version called Liquid Devil.
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.
PowerColor RX 7900 XT Red Devil factory thermal grease application, Source: Igor’sLAB
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.
PowerColor RX 7900 XT Red Devil hotspot issue (before and after repaste), Source: Igor’sLAB
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.
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 [email protected]
— PowerColor on RX 7900XTX Red Devil hotspot issue
PowerColor invited Igor’sLAB team for a factory tour in Taiwan during Computex. Hopefully, this will lead to improved production quality of new graphics cards.
Source: Igor’sLAB
