Potential customers of Radeon RX 7900 XTX, as well as owners of new top-end AMD graphics cards, continue to worry about the possible nuances of the cooling system of reference design adapters.

PCWorld’s Gordon Mah Ung interviewed AMD’s Scott Herkelman at CES 2023 about thermal issues with the Radeon RX 7900 coolers. Scott is SVP and General Manager of AMD Radeon, so he was the one to ask about these problems.

Scott Herkelman admitted that AMD discovered the problem and now the company is aware of it. However, it only affects a very small percentage of the cards that were made, without going into detail about exactly how many cards.

It has now been confirmed that the problem of overheating is related to the liquid inside the vapor chamber, or rather to its insufficient amount. This is confirmed by Der8auer, who was one of the first to say that something was wrong with the vapor chamber.

“It all comes down to a small batch of vapor chamber actually have an issue, not enough water and it is a very small percentage (…) that is the root cause,” Scott Herkelman, AMD.

AMD and partners that sell MBA (Made by AMD) graphics cards are now offering replacements to users affected by this issue. AMD claims that there are enough spare adapters, which means that the rumors about their shortage are not true. AMD is asking those who experience GPU overheating issues to 110°C to contact support and request a replacement.

AMD has acknowledged a problem with a “small batch” of Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards

It is important to note that this problem is only related to AMD’s Radeon RX 7900 XTX “reference” design. This does not apply to Radeon RX 7900 XT models, just like partner cards with original cooling. At the end of the day, problems with the vapor chamber only affect performance, but since AMD wants its customers to have the best possible experience, the replacement program shouldn’t be difficult for the end user. However, it is better that such situations do not arise at all, especially for buyers of such expensive graphics cards.