AMD Releases Statement On Radeon RX 480 Power Consumption; More Details Tuesday
by Ryan Smith on July 2, 2016 5:05 AM EST
Following up on this week's Radeon RX 480 launch, there has been some questions raised about the power consumption of the card. This is after some sites whom directly tap the power rails feeding the card discovered that at least some of their samples were pulling more than the standard-allowed 75W over the PCIe slot and/or 6-pin PCIe external power connector.
To that end, it would appear that AMD's staff is working weekend duty, and they have just sent over the following statement.
As you know, we continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximize their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPU's tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday (July 5, 2016).
If some of the data is to be believed, these cards are exceeding 150W total at times, which would mean there is either something causing them to run in the wrong power state, or they are just outright exeeding their power limit and need to be throttled back. As we don't do per-rail testing I don't have anything meaningful to add at this second, but it will be very interesting to see how AMD responds next week.
Update 07/06: AMD has since released their status update, which you can find here.
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MapRef41N93W - Saturday, July 2, 2016 - link
"Unprecedented 8Gbps for GDDR5" LOL.......... Typical AMD idiotic statement.D. Lister - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
Shhhh, nobody tell them about the 1070, it's funny this way. :pWeyoun0 - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
AMD has excelled at frying motherboards for decades. Why stop now?atlantico - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
Nvidia has excelled and bricking their GPUs with their shoddy drivers for decades, when they're not BSODing the system. Why stop now?Weyoun0 - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
Yes, deflecting the issue will fix the problem. Typical AMD tactic. Although you may not be an AMD rep, I have seen similar nonsense come from AMD reps when confronted about serious issues. This type of stubbornness and arrogance has infected AMD from top to bottom and is why AMD is a failing company.Weyoun0 - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
So many times I have seen costumer complaints to AMD about serious issues and they just say. "well look at Intel/Nvidia doing this and that". Even though my issue is with AMD product. Are they suggesting I buy Intel/Nvidia instead? Maybe they are. If I kill someone and tell the judge "Charles Manson killed more" will he let me off the hook?Oxford Guy - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
However, when consumers reward bad behavior from corporations as they did with the 970 it creates a climate where corporations feel that they can take advantage of people.Nvidia's false specs/VRAM gambit paid off nicely. The market rewarded their corruption.
Yojimbo - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
The vast majority of the GTX 970 cards that were sold were sold after the true memory subsystem architecture was well-known. What consumers rewarded was a well-engineered and highly valuable (from the consumers' point of view) card.You can believe that NVIDIA purposefully tried to trick people into buying the card if you wish, but that narrative really doesn't make any sense. Don't throw it around like it's fact instead of your own (refutable) speculation.
Oxford Guy - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
"The vast majority of the GTX 970 cards that were sold were sold after the true memory subsystem architecture was well-known."1) Red herring
2) Not "well-known"
Nvidia still hasn't corrected the specs on its own site. Many enthusiasts did not/do not understand the tech issue or the business ethics implications well.
"What consumers rewarded was a well-engineered and highly valuable (from the consumers' point of view) card."
Your spin won't change the fact that SLI sales in particular were extra-strong because the overpriced top model was supposed to have the same amount of VRAM. Nor will it change the fact that the 970 was sold under false pretenses, bait and switch, and continues to be.
As for speculation, I am wondering how anyone can possibly believe the story that the company's engineers created a product without telling anyone in management what they were making and what ended up being made. Sure, let's pretend that Nvidia's management is so useless that they don't direct product design, oversee their staff, and bother to know what their staff has made to sell. I have some nice swampland in Florida you may find highly valuable.
Weyoun0 - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
A red herring is trying to blame Nvidia for AMD's spectacular failures.