More Video Cards Need This: AMD RX 7900 XTX Reference Design Hands-On
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Date: 2022-11-04
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Comments and reviews: 14
Donald
I am imagining a scenario where a case like the NZXT H5 Flow, that positions a fan to blow directly towards the front of the GPU, where the incoming air temperature is measured and there is some sort of intelligent fan curve (please god don't let them call it AI controlled fan curve) that improves the noise normalized temperatures of the card. So I want them to not only expose the information of the thermistor to the user, but actually use the information to make the card better (quieter or delay the length of time until it ramps up). This is exciting to see being developed, but I also hope for the future improvements that should make their way into practical use. Good job AMD, keep up the innovation . Great job Steve and the rest of the GN crew for presenting the case(s) for the use of this new idea in GPUs, hold the manufacturers to task for the implementation too.
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I am imagining a scenario where a case like the NZXT H5 Flow, that positions a fan to blow directly towards the front of the GPU, where the incoming air temperature is measured and there is some sort of intelligent fan curve (please god don't let them call it AI controlled fan curve) that improves the noise normalized temperatures of the card. So I want them to not only expose the information of the thermistor to the user, but actually use the information to make the card better (quieter or delay the length of time until it ramps up). This is exciting to see being developed, but I also hope for the future improvements that should make their way into practical use. Good job AMD, keep up the innovation . Great job Steve and the rest of the GN crew for presenting the case(s) for the use of this new idea in GPUs, hold the manufacturers to task for the implementation too.
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Gamers
We're actually super excited about this idea. AMD wasn't sure how much people would care about it, so let them know in the comments as they'll probably read them! We can do this stuff with thermocouples easily enough, but it's not really the same as just having hardware build the functionality to get case ambient straight into the hardware. If AMD exposes the right dials to users, you could get creative with case builds and noise optimization for high ambient environments. It's small, especially compared to a brand new multi-chiplet architecture, but it's the small details that count on this stuff!
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We're actually super excited about this idea. AMD wasn't sure how much people would care about it, so let them know in the comments as they'll probably read them! We can do this stuff with thermocouples easily enough, but it's not really the same as just having hardware build the functionality to get case ambient straight into the hardware. If AMD exposes the right dials to users, you could get creative with case builds and noise optimization for high ambient environments. It's small, especially compared to a brand new multi-chiplet architecture, but it's the small details that count on this stuff!
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Lightstep9
Love the delivery of more temp sensor and how they can protect the rest of the card by providing accurate thermal info. I hope this becomes a permanent feature. They have a great looking reference design, very clean and sleek ! Another big item is the more sane power draw, having watt per FPS benchmarks I feel needs to be a core performance marker. This may be finally the year to pick up an AMD video card, my main concern is the usual - the drivers and how well they support my games, I am grateful for Vulkan support and also hope this will be the default go to standard for all cards : )
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Love the delivery of more temp sensor and how they can protect the rest of the card by providing accurate thermal info. I hope this becomes a permanent feature. They have a great looking reference design, very clean and sleek ! Another big item is the more sane power draw, having watt per FPS benchmarks I feel needs to be a core performance marker. This may be finally the year to pick up an AMD video card, my main concern is the usual - the drivers and how well they support my games, I am grateful for Vulkan support and also hope this will be the default go to standard for all cards : )
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LeitoAE
That is why I disabled passive cooling. I have my own fan curve that makes GPU fans spin at minimum level that is just around 500rpms. Still cannot hear it, but moves enough air to keep everything nice and cool. Did that when GPU prices ramped up 4 years ago to make my GPU live as long as possible.
Some time ago I played with some old 1st gen 3 core phenom pc and tried to make it semi passive cooling like we have in GPUs. I was amazed how much improvement I got from making the fans spin at minimum level. In my opinion it is simply not worth it to be semi passive in traditional PC.
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That is why I disabled passive cooling. I have my own fan curve that makes GPU fans spin at minimum level that is just around 500rpms. Still cannot hear it, but moves enough air to keep everything nice and cool. Did that when GPU prices ramped up 4 years ago to make my GPU live as long as possible.
Some time ago I played with some old 1st gen 3 core phenom pc and tried to make it semi passive cooling like we have in GPUs. I was amazed how much improvement I got from making the fans spin at minimum level. In my opinion it is simply not worth it to be semi passive in traditional PC.
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Narei
I recently bought an MSI 6600XT and noticed a new ambient temperature entry in the GPU section in Hardware Monitor. So the concept isn't new, but not sure how it's implemented.
The downside is they don't expose the fans to aftermarket controllers like Fan Control. Since this could be useful for the other parts, what would be a good ambient temp to kick in the case fans? Fan Control can read that ambient temp and my current curves let the case fans drop to 0 RPM when idle.
Or am I misunderstanding the possible use case of the ambient temp sensor?
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I recently bought an MSI 6600XT and noticed a new ambient temperature entry in the GPU section in Hardware Monitor. So the concept isn't new, but not sure how it's implemented.
The downside is they don't expose the fans to aftermarket controllers like Fan Control. Since this could be useful for the other parts, what would be a good ambient temp to kick in the case fans? Fan Control can read that ambient temp and my current curves let the case fans drop to 0 RPM when idle.
Or am I misunderstanding the possible use case of the ambient temp sensor?
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RAYNE0912
I Really like the addition of that sensor, it feels good to be able to pull up system info and get a clearer idea of how well my gear is performing. Very tempted to buy a temp probe to put right behind my intake fans to track my room temp now that I've seen this idea. combining that with this card it would be cool to see how much the air temp increases between the case intake and gpu intake, could be a really nice way to see if your airflow is optimized or not.
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I Really like the addition of that sensor, it feels good to be able to pull up system info and get a clearer idea of how well my gear is performing. Very tempted to buy a temp probe to put right behind my intake fans to track my room temp now that I've seen this idea. combining that with this card it would be cool to see how much the air temp increases between the case intake and gpu intake, could be a really nice way to see if your airflow is optimized or not.
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KY D I
In my custom loop liquid cooling setup with self-made Arduino-NANO based fan controller, I also use the case ambient temperature and even the room ambient temperature as well as the liquid temperature to control the fans. I've been wondering why no engineer had this idea ever before. I am using this system since 3 years now... And I had this idea already 12 years ago when I was still dreaming of a water cooled high end PC, while my laptop was screaming me deaf.
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In my custom loop liquid cooling setup with self-made Arduino-NANO based fan controller, I also use the case ambient temperature and even the room ambient temperature as well as the liquid temperature to control the fans. I've been wondering why no engineer had this idea ever before. I am using this system since 3 years now... And I had this idea already 12 years ago when I was still dreaming of a water cooled high end PC, while my laptop was screaming me deaf.
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Oskar
Yah, that's not what a ambient thermistor is useful for :D
You use it to set up the fan curves so that they don't spin needlessly. Say you want the fans to start spinning when the GPU core hits 40c. Your ambient is 30, so fans start spinning and cool the GPU. Then 3h later the ambient is 40c, and spinning the fans do nothing, except produce noise.
It's not there to thermal manage poorly designed components. It's there to be able to run the fans smarter.
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Yah, that's not what a ambient thermistor is useful for :D
You use it to set up the fan curves so that they don't spin needlessly. Say you want the fans to start spinning when the GPU core hits 40c. Your ambient is 30, so fans start spinning and cool the GPU. Then 3h later the ambient is 40c, and spinning the fans do nothing, except produce noise.
It's not there to thermal manage poorly designed components. It's there to be able to run the fans smarter.
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TheSteelRodent
Would be nice if they would all make thermocouples a standard feature as ambient temperature makes a massive difference to the cooling efficiency, and for those of us in Europe and other places that don't have AC that's something we don't have much control over. I for one live in a place where it's more or less impossible to get the room temperature below 23 C all year round and that means the fans have to work harder to keep the components cool.
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Would be nice if they would all make thermocouples a standard feature as ambient temperature makes a massive difference to the cooling efficiency, and for those of us in Europe and other places that don't have AC that's something we don't have much control over. I for one live in a place where it's more or less impossible to get the room temperature below 23 C all year round and that means the fans have to work harder to keep the components cool.
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Marshall
Anything that helps more generally keep a system cool, and stable is a good thing. AiB's will have to take a look at it, I'm sure it will come down to price/advantage. You know what I REALLY hope happens eventually? Companies just sell the bare PCB, so that people that water cool are not wasting all that material used to make the sink, silly I know, but even though I go to fairly great lengths to recycle those, would feel better not having too. =)
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Anything that helps more generally keep a system cool, and stable is a good thing. AiB's will have to take a look at it, I'm sure it will come down to price/advantage. You know what I REALLY hope happens eventually? Companies just sell the bare PCB, so that people that water cool are not wasting all that material used to make the sink, silly I know, but even though I go to fairly great lengths to recycle those, would feel better not having too. =)
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DAGATHire
so does it spit the air out on both sides of the card, looks that way,
Im not convinced thats a great idea. Spiting the hot air out directly onto the mobo on the inside, which by default will wash over an M.2 drive which is usually mounted around that point. on the mejority of mobos. Unless there are blockers in there we can't see to redirect the air. But it has oppen fins on the outside and the inside from what i can see here.
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so does it spit the air out on both sides of the card, looks that way,
Im not convinced thats a great idea. Spiting the hot air out directly onto the mobo on the inside, which by default will wash over an M.2 drive which is usually mounted around that point. on the mejority of mobos. Unless there are blockers in there we can't see to redirect the air. But it has oppen fins on the outside and the inside from what i can see here.
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Gabriel
I spent 3 weeks testing various fan placement and fan speed configurations in my 5000 D, having the thermocouples would have made things SOO much easier. The only temperatures I had to go on were GPU core and memory temps, but those fluctuated during the benchmark so I had to take 20 min averages. Having thermocouples on the front and back GPU fans would have cut down the work significantly.
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I spent 3 weeks testing various fan placement and fan speed configurations in my 5000 D, having the thermocouples would have made things SOO much easier. The only temperatures I had to go on were GPU core and memory temps, but those fluctuated during the benchmark so I had to take 20 min averages. Having thermocouples on the front and back GPU fans would have cut down the work significantly.
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RogueWraith909
I wonder... did they deliberately design it for verticle mounting? Use bottom of the case fans to drive extra air through and vent out the top of the case? Looks good! Think one of these is going to be my choice, first all AMD build and if i can find the right adapter my first verticle mount GPU. Does anyone know what PCIE version it's using? I know Nvidia went with PCIE 4...
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I wonder... did they deliberately design it for verticle mounting? Use bottom of the case fans to drive extra air through and vent out the top of the case? Looks good! Think one of these is going to be my choice, first all AMD build and if i can find the right adapter my first verticle mount GPU. Does anyone know what PCIE version it's using? I know Nvidia went with PCIE 4...
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George
This is the reason why the binding source of my gpu fans is the hotspot of the core the highest temp point of anything and all of the fans are ALWAYS running + a really aggressive.
That's how you keep your GPU alive, i'd rather get a reasonably noisy GPU from the fans kicking up than to have the card stop working because a single component on was not cooled enough.
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This is the reason why the binding source of my gpu fans is the hotspot of the core the highest temp point of anything and all of the fans are ALWAYS running + a really aggressive.
That's how you keep your GPU alive, i'd rather get a reasonably noisy GPU from the fans kicking up than to have the card stop working because a single component on was not cooled enough.
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