PowerColor messed up the application of thermal paste on some
Hardware

PowerColor messed up the application of thermal paste on some Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devils

Igor’s Lab has discovered air cooling issues on PowerColor’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil graphics cards. Remember that the manufacturer also offers a variant of this accelerator, but equipped with LSS and called Liquid Devil.

    Image Credit: Igor's Lab

Image Credit: Igor’s Lab

As part of the tests of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil, the German publication noted a significant difference between the temperature of the graphics card’s GPU and its hot spot (hot spot). In itself, the difference between these indicators is quite common. With the reference Radeon RX 7900 XTX, for example, it is 18 to 19 degrees, with the Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 model. With the PowerColor Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil, however, it was around 30 degrees. In this case we are talking about the difference between 80 and 110 degrees Celsius.

Igor’s lab disassembled the graphics card and found that the thermal paste was spread unevenly across the GPU. In some places on the chip there was no thermal paste at all.

    Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil GPU and hot spot temperatures with poorly applied thermal paste

Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil GPU and hot spot temperatures with poorly applied thermal paste

After correctly attaching the new thermal interface to the GPU, the significant difference between the overall temperature of the GPU and the hottest spot of the chip disappeared. The graphics chip’s temperature dropped from 80 to 75 degrees Celsius and was 93-95 degrees Celsius at the hottest point.

    Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil GPU and hot spot temperatures with properly applied thermal paste

Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil GPU and hot spot temperatures with properly applied thermal paste

The auditor submitted a report to PowerColor. The company confirmed that it was aware of this issue. PowerColor reported that a technical error occurred during the assembly of one of the batches of graphics cards. The company promised to replace the thermal paste on the assembly line and consider changing the cooling system installation process. According to PowerColor, a small percentage of graphics cards were affected by this issue. However, it is not known if this is just the Radeon RX 7900 XTX Red Devil models or if the issue occurs with other graphics card models that were assembled on the same assembly line.

“We have identified the cause of the problem. It is connected to our production line. We checked and found that only a small percentage of graphics cards manufactured were affected by this issue. We are already replacing the thermal paste used when assembling accelerators. After contacting Igor’s Lab, we also check if changing the graphics card cooler installation process will improve thermal performance. We are trying to fix this issue as soon as possible.”– PowerColor issued an official statement.

For those experiencing overheating issues, the company recommends contacting [email protected] for help for a more efficient and faster solution.