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Question AMD RX 6900XT coil whine?

KentState

KentState

Diamond Member
I've been getting the itch to turn my desktop into an all AMD build and have been eyeing the PowerColor Liquid Devil Ultimate. My biggest concern though is the potential highly audible coil whine issues, even with the top end AIB cards. The 3090 I have today doesn't exhibit any and the only thing I hear are the fans during the summer. Is this issue blown out of proportion or is this something I should be concerned with?
 
I have a AMD reference 6900xt purchased directly from AMD and I have no coil whine.


no idea about AIB cards.
 
The most common cause of coil whine is very high FPS because people don't lock their FPS down. If you run with vsync on, or with a frame limit, coil whine is pretty unusual. And if you do get it, you can sometimes fix it if you can find the coil that is displaying the issue by adding a PCB safe epoxy to it. Quality products typically have this on them already. But it can crack off, or maybe was never there to start with.
 
I doubt I will be running with vsync on in most games since it's a 4k/144hz monitor. However, if the 6900XT cards produce coil whine when pushing that resolution, I'm not in favor of taking a new card apart and epoxying the card. I will just stick with my 3090 which doesn't have the issue.
 
It's hard to tell because it's not possible to get anything close to accurate figures on the likelihood of it happening for a given card or series of cards. It's probably more overblown fear than anything because you can probably find at least one person posting about coil whine for any given card, but you don't get everyone else who isn't having a problem to report on it.

I'm not sure why you'd want to trade a 3090 for a 6900 XT though unless there were one specific title where the Radeon has a big advantage. Even if you're getting a nice AIB card to replace a stock 3090, you're getting a side grade at best.
 
Mopetar said:
I'm not sure why you'd want to trade a 3090 for a 6900 XT though unless there were one specific title where the Radeon has a big advantage. Even if you're getting a nice AIB card to replace a stock 3090, you're getting a side grade at best.
Click to expand...

I haven't owned an AMD card since the 7970 Ghz and wanted to try a current one. The 3090 should cover the cost of a 6900 XT like a Liquid Devil or XFX Speedster ZERO. I would still have a 3080 Ti on hand which performs about the same and overclocks better for me.
 
I wouldn't fret about it too much in that case. If it's not to your liking it isn't as though it's hard to get rid of a high-end GPU right now, possibly for even more than you paid for it.
 
KentState said:
I doubt I will be running with vsync on in most games since it's a 4k/144hz monitor. However, if the 6900XT cards produce coil whine when pushing that resolution, I'm not in favor of taking a new card apart and epoxying the card. I will just stick with my 3090 which doesn't have the issue.
Click to expand...
3090 is a superior card anyway. Probably the better choice all around.
 
KentState said:
I doubt I will be running with vsync on in most games since it's a 4k/144hz monitor. However, if the 6900XT cards produce coil whine when pushing that resolution, I'm not in favor of taking a new card apart and epoxying the card. I will just stick with my 3090 which doesn't have the issue.
Click to expand...

Assuming you actually run it at 144Hz, even that is not very high of an FPS. I have a 165Hz display, but I rarely run it at that refresh rate as there are plenty of downsides to high refresh rates. It would need to be a specific game, twitch FPS or something. Coil whine is more of an issue if you hit many hundreds of FPS. I had an older card that would do it in menus that hit 600+ fps.
 
I had a 6900XT reference card. It had some whine with the reference cooler. When I installed the EK waterblock, it had unbelievably loud coil whine. It was so bad I literally ran looping benchmarks and closed the door to my room and I could still hear it on the other side of the door.

I sold it on this very forum due to the coil whine. When I reinstalled the reference cooler, it was basically non-existent.

I bought a Strix 6900XT hoping the different VRM components would have a lesser chance of whine. I also skipped the Acrylic waterblock and went for Acetal, as it is softer and should absorb more sound. I figured the acrylic waterblock basically amplified the sound on my first 6900xt.

Now between the Strix having some coil whine at what seems to be half the frequency (of the original ref 6900xt) and the Acetal waterblock, it's completely tolerable and quiet enough I don't really get bothered by it unless I have the case side panels removed.
 
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Justinus said:
I had a 6900XT reference card. It had some whine with the reference cooler. When I installed the EK waterblock, it had unbelievably loud coil whine. It was so bad I literally ran looping benchmarks and closed the door to my room and I could still hear it on the other side of the door.

I sold it on this very forum due to the coil whine. When I reinstalled the reference cooler, it was basically non-existent.

I bought a Strix 6900XT hoping the different VRM components would have a lesser chance of whine. I also skipped the Acrylic waterblock and went for Acetal, as it is softer and should absorb more sound. I figured the acrylic waterblock basically amplified the sound on my first 6900xt.

Now between the Strix having some coil whine at what seems to be half the frequency (of the original ref 6900xt) and the Acetal waterblock, it's completely tolerable and quiet enough I don't really get bothered by it unless I have the case side panels removed
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. The XFX Speedster ZERO seems to be very well reviewed and no complaints of coil whine. It also has similar clocks to the Liquid Devil which is $500 more with a similar EK block.
 
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