Saturday, July 2nd 2016
Official Statement from AMD on the PCI-Express Overcurrent Issue
AMD sent us this statement in response to growing concern among our readers that the Radeon RX 480 graphics card violates PCI-Express power specification, by overdrawing power from its single 6-pin PCIe power connector and the PCI-Express slot. Combined, the total power budged of the card should be 150W, however, it was found to draw well over that power limit.
AMD has had out-of-spec power designs in the past with the Radeon R9 295X2, for example, but that card is targeted at buyers with reasonably good PSUs. The RX 480's target audience could face troubles powering the card. Below is AMD's statement on the matter. The company stated that it's working on a driver update that could cap the power at 150W. It will be interesting to see how that power-limit affects performance.
AMD has had out-of-spec power designs in the past with the Radeon R9 295X2, for example, but that card is targeted at buyers with reasonably good PSUs. The RX 480's target audience could face troubles powering the card. Below is AMD's statement on the matter. The company stated that it's working on a driver update that could cap the power at 150W. It will be interesting to see how that power-limit affects performance.
"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 8 Gbps 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)."
358 Comments on Official Statement from AMD on the PCI-Express Overcurrent Issue
this should be helpful
I imagine the most vocal protests will come from people who don't use RX 480's (ahem, Nvidia peeps) in the exact same way it was AMD users who had a field day over the 3.5Gb memory 'thing'.
It's a real thing that is being looked at, that affected few people, being hijacked by morons. Just like the 970 non issue.
No matter what people have said in this thread, that's the 1st time i read a review (*2 reviews actually, TPU & Tom's) that recognises the GPU as a possible threat for the rest of the hardware !!
As for 8pin being a solution, just a small hint since everyone is screaming EVERYONE SHALL FOLLOW PCIe SPECS!!!!11111oneoneone. 8pin is actually not officially supported by PCI Express certifying body. Meaning, if card has 8pin power connector it's kinda violating PCIe specifications (well, not violating, just not following it). Dual 6pin, no problem. single 8pin or 6pin+8pin ain't officially supported by PCIe specifications.
Also, going single 6pin ensures maximum compatibility with wide range of PSU's. If you go with single 8pin, it's already questionable if target PSU's even have it. Because I think cheaper ones still only have just 6pin...
forums.geforce.com/default/topic/862417/windows-10-geforce-drivers-are-killing-samsung-and-lg-notebook-lcd-display-panels/
2) Through drivers they will likely undervolt the card right? won't this reduce the performance? i think it's the obvious outcome.
Plus, if the PSU only has a single 6-pin it is probably very close to the edge of actually being able to provide enough power to actually use that 6-pin, so going over spec on power consumption is probably a very bad thing. You're talking about generic shit units that might be rated for 500w, but probably can't do 250w reliably. Do you really think people with those types of power supplies should be using a card that consumes 170w?
Do you really think AMD wanted people with those types of units to use the card? I don't. I think the real reason behind the single 6-pin was marketing. They wanted to hype the card, to say "look at how power efficient it is, it only uses a single 6-pin!" But it backfired on them.
-P.S. I won't hide my feelings for AMD. I clearly remember the period before FuryX's release. They have been brainwashing us for months about the tremendeous capabilities of the HBM memory, making us believe that they will release somekind of rocket instead of a GPU that will destroy every competition!! And when they finally released this "rocket" it would struggle to surpass a 980Ti reference model !! EDIT: This was the LAST time i took them seriously!!
The real issue here is that the card seems to draw excessive amounts of power from the PCI-E slot, which is at most fed by two +12V wires on the 24-pin ATX connector, and those are meant for all +12V needs of the motherboard and all connected devices, sans the CPU. Add to that the fact that power traces leading to the PCI-E slot aren't normally very beefy; and the fact that there are only 5 flimsy less-than-paper-thin pins on the card accepting the delivered power and you have a situation where you really want to limit PCI-E slot power delivery as much as possible.
It would actually be fine if the card drew 120W from the 6-pin and up to 50W from the slot, the unnecessary drama would be far less pronounced.
The 6-pin may only be declared as 75W-capable; in reality it can handle the full 150W quoted for the 8-pin in the majority of cases... The only time it can't is if it's on a shitty PSU with wires thinner than 18AWG and cheaply made pins (like on a $15 Diablotek).
Which brings us to...Even the aforementioned Diablotek could handle powering one of these, paired with a latest-gen Skylake CPU, a couple sticks of RAM and some storage. It would all easily fit into a 250W envelope (absolute peak power draw, realistically less than that), which even the worst of the worst PSUs can manage, at least for a while.
That being said, everyone should have the common sense not to skimp on the PSU. No need to go crazy, a nice $30-or-so PSU from a reputable manufacturer should do fine, as @newtekie1 pointed out.
And they might limit OC capabilities in Overdrive drastically as the card still could violate the specs when OCed...
If both the 6 pins and motherboard provide a 75W for a total of 150 watts, and the card exceeds at 166 watts, this means that 16 watts split by two (8 watts) is being pulled more then it should.
I think any motherboard is capable of doing more then 25 watts on top, otherwise that system or motherboard would already be at it's limits.
:toast: