Question I should of known better then NOT to check my "NEW" XFX 6700XT Paste for I been hunting Gremlins!

[funboy6942]

Its been acting weird this build, with or without a fresh install, it would boot, then try to get past bios, and sometimes not get past bios at all. Instability issues up the butt, and normally I check ALL my stuff, board/video/n all, but I forgot to with my new card as of almost a year ago, for it did not act like "card" problem, and it was not constant at all, and the fans did not ramp up at all either, and from what I could tell, temps seems ok, till..........



New/Used, no matter what you really need to check, for it would of been out of warranty if I did not check, when the thermals would of been too much, and went south. But I do not have to worry no more. And I went from installing my X3 new driver, to once done, froze and never came back on till just now after doing a full clean and paste, but had it all over the outside rim of the chip and NO WHERE to be found on it at all, but what was there that turned to liquid due to all that heat.

 

[Despoiler]

It looks like they used some incredibly cheap thermal paste.

 

[Stuka87]

XFX is always a brand I have avoided. Though in todays day and age beggars can't be choosers.

Not thrilled with the surface of the heatsink side. Not only does it have scratches, but you can see the grain of the metal. If I had taken it apart and see that, I would have done at least a basic lapping job on the heatsink side.

 

[Shamrock]

and this is why I always buy a Sapphire

 

[funboy6942]

It does not matter who you buy, I have seen this on everything from graphic cards, to prebuilts, laptops, you name it from ALL makers, for I would highly recommend not to think I buy EVGA etc, over XFX (cheaper) it will be perfect. I would say everyone check, and put your findings and lets see

 

[Despoiler]

XFX is always a brand I have avoided. Though in todays day and age beggars can't be choosers.

Not thrilled with the surface of the heatsink side. Not only does it have scratches, but you can see the grain of the metal. If I had taken it apart and see that, I would have done at least a basic lapping job on the heatsink side.

They've made some mistakes on past models, but corrected them. You should check out Buildzoid's video on the Radeon 6900 series cards. He straight-up says he would buy the XFX card based on its board design if it had the unlocked version of the GPU.

I realize I might be prone to purchaser bias, but I am impressed with my 6900xt Merc 319 Black. Very solidly build. Dead sexy too. I tweaked the fan curve (how AMD cannot get this right after all these years is beyond me) and it runs cooler at all times and I cannot hear it over my computer. Will likely check on the thermal paste if temps get wonky, but no indications thus far there is an issue.

[media]

 

[Shmee]

XFX used to have double lifetime warranties, which was awesome. In recent years though, with companies shortening warranties on new cards, I would generally recommend powercolor or sapphire for AMD board partners.

Also, in the last couple generations, powercolor typically has the best built and best performing air cooled halo card, with their Red Devil series. In some reviews I have seen, the 5700XT Red Devil was regarded as the top RDNA card, with great cooler and PCB design. And it was one of the 6900XT Red Devil cards that was advertised to beat RTX 3090s in performance when overclocking.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Guys, I frankly wouldn't trust most parts made during the pandemic/supply chain/labor shortages.

OEMs will downgrade workmanship/QC/Part Grades in order to hit their negotiated quotas.

Essentially swapping in a part with a 1 Million Hour MTBF with a part that has a 100K Hours MTBF will still get the card to run for a couple years, but it'll make that bathtub curve for part failures much shallower than in prior gens.

Won't shock me if this whole generation shows higher than normal part failures due to these factors.

 

[funboy6942]

Despoiler:

I do not usually get any "problems" related to a thermal problem with a card till little later when the crap they use thin out, and wonky crap starts going on with the pc. But in almost ALL cases I have come in with my own or others, I have seen about 80-90% of them all, no matter the brand, had poor, improperly installed, or in my case almost none. It was just a gremlin for month, doing all kinds of wacky stuff, and though my fans hardy were on, and even with my temp gun saying it was cold, it really came down in one of my tests after redoing all my stuff with my don, and retesting with Valley, that right around the 2-3rd time I was testing it to watch my temps, and look for graphical or temp problem, in the 3rd test, it reported my GPU running at 500+ Degrees!!! HOLY CRAP! I then told my son something is up, did I ever take it apart before or ever since I got it, and that was a no, so I have him pull down my floating case from the bottom of my desk, pulled and popped it sticker cherry, and above is what I saw. I have replaced the paste, or lack thereof, and since making this thread, have yet to have any more problems at all, and things are running smoother.

So honestly I would not wait, for way back when I was a kid, companies used to do stuff to stuff when they made them to have a dedicated "failure" rate, so that they would know from the time of purchase, when their failure rate may kick in, and get sales in parts for the products. Now I wonder why a company, SAY XFX, would put enough paste AROUND the chip, so when you get your flashlight out, and look between the hs and pcb, would see GLOBS of paste all over, till you remove it, and its all over BUT the chip, and had they not put more on mine, would of had a failure rate after the warranty due to excessive heat, seeing the globs of paste around the chip, till I started seeing those cool trippy colors letting you know the gpu cannot take no more of which, it would of been too late. I will not have that problem at all not more, but in doing so, seeing all that glop all around the chip but on the chip, using some cheap cheap cheap crap for what was on the chip was like grey water, nothing like what was around it, so that tells me this gpu die got REALLY hot, making that paste into water, sooner then expected, but I have not even owned this card a year, I DID not think it was the card at all, though it was other stuff, including software, but I should of listened to myself, or maybe I had no time and told my son to just slap it in there, but the 10-15 min it would of taken to look at it day one, would not of had me for the last month and a half-2 months trying to figure out the crap that was all going on for it was soooo damn weird the way things were acting, and sometimes not acting, but I am prefect now, and I highly recommend checking out the failure rate between the metal before its too late.

OH and I have to mention that between my 5700 and my other 6700 XFX has the most sexy cards I have seen in a VERY long time! BUT WHY is quality control so crappy, and not just with them.

 

[Ranulf]

and this is why I always buy a Sapphire

And my counterpoint is I now avoid Sapphire after their RX 480 Nitros. Loud, power hungry and cause stability issues because of it (probably pci-e draw over 75w problem amd had). Not to mention their Trixx software program for the clocks/leds/power was just cheap, sloppy software. It couldn't even stay minimized to the sys tray.

Point is, they all have their flaws, lemons etc.. I loved the Sapphire 7870 I had before the rx 480 too.

 

[Stuka87]

(probably pci-e draw over 75w problem amd had).

That issue only impacted reference cards, and it only happened for a few weeks at initial launch before the first BIOS update which fixed the issue.

I had an RX480 Nitro+ that I never had a single issue with. In fact, its still running to this day in a friends computer. It was purchased on launch day, so it was one of the very first cards made. Never had sound or stability issues. It sounds like you may have had a card with some sort of issue. Which can obviously happen for any brand.

 

[Ranulf]

That issue only impacted reference cards, and it only happened for a few weeks at initial launch before the first BIOS update which fixed the issue.

I had an RX480 Nitro+ that I never had a single issue with. In fact, its still running to this day in a friends computer. It was purchased on launch day, so it was one of the very first cards made. Never had sound or stability issues. It sounds like you may have had a card with some sort of issue. Which can obviously happen for any brand.

And my experience in at least one non uefi system says it was down to the chips and/or software across the sapphire nitro cards and an asrock 570. The 570 is just more stable but some games will cause it to blue screen. Both of my Nitro cards were the original batches as well.

 

[funboy6942]

Ive had to bake (heat gun) to reflow like I did back when the 360 rod was going on ans made my own "x" clamp, and heated up several 570/580/gtx970/ and 2 1070's to make them come to life. I have yet to see if others that say fans come on, pc acts like it wants to boot, for those I have had all good luck with, but I cannot even afford them anymore let alone anything past a 1070 at this point and try.

I am to assume since I am the only one in the poll, that no one has, or knows how to put new paste on their gpu/cpu/mobo :O and this is a tech forum I see a many lder" cards in the profiles of replies, all of which, IMO, needs the paste redone due to age and all that heat it has been producing for many many years, never being touched, maybe even ur cpu/mobo too by the looks of my poll .

 

[Golgatha]

I voted eVGA only because they missed putting thermal pads on the backplate of my GTX 1080 back when it was first released. They did proactively send out kits to fix the issues once the public brought it up as a widespread issue.