This is not a drill! AMD Radeon RX 480s are frying PCIe slots and killing off motherboard (ships)! Mission abort, we repeat, mission abort!
Or so the saying goes in movies.
Consumers who recently purchased the new graphics processing unit (GPU) from AMD don't actually have to "abandon ship" as the company has finally acknowledged its mistakes and is now working on a patch to address the issue.
The AMD Radeon RX 480 has reportedly been frying off PCIe slots in some isolated cases, leading to motherboard deaths. The cause, according to some reports and recent benchmark testing, was discovered in the GPU's overall power consumption that breaks the standard limit of 150W TDP for most systems; the RX 480 was estimated to be consuming 170W and more. Specifically, the GPU draws as much as 90W from its PCIe bus, far exceeding the 75W cap, in these scenarios.
The issue was first reported on AMD's subReddit, which at first was ignored by moderators who eventually banned the original poster (OP) from replying to comments because apparently, they were having none of user complaints because of the GPU's successful public reception. Humorously, the post is now tagged as not safe for work (NSFW).
"[The] moderators here are now flaring this as 'rumor/FUD' despite plenty of testing having been done to corroborate this," the OP wrote, adding that he was calling "into question the honesty and impartiality of this subreddit" as he has "seen no effort at all to clean up the other posts about the issue that contain false information." (read: For AMD moderators, NSFW means "this claim is not safe for the company's well-received work.")
Reports of other similar cases started to pour in, however, with some users posting on the AMD forum community. One poster provided more insight into the issue and attached the necessary documentation to prove its claim just in case AMD forum moderators decided to flag it as some sort of hoax that would damage the company's reputation.
"If you believe your system has been damaged by this product, I suggest you seek legal counsel," Reddit OP suggests.
Fortunately (to a certain level), the company finally acknowledged the AMD Radeon RX 480 PCIe problems after about three days since the issue was brought to its attention, stating that a software fix can easily resolve the issue.
"Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal," replies AMD in a statement. "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)."
The company, on the other hand, did not state its plans for people whose motherboards were already fried. We'll have you updated as soon as the company posts an announcement.
