AMD’s Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT will quickly arrive to battle for a spot on the checklist of finest graphics playing cards. The Navi 32-based graphics playing cards depend on commonplace 8-pin PCIe energy connectors for exterior energy, however that wasn’t the unique plan.
Scott Herkelman, senior vice chairman and normal supervisor of the Graphics Enterprise Unit at AMD, has just lately acknowledged in an interview with Club386 that AMD had contemplated utilizing the 16-pin (12VHPWR) energy connector on the Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT however in the end determined to desert the concept.
“We particularly, for 7900 Sequence, and even 7600, we didn’t plan on the brand new energy cable, however 7800 and 7700 did have a plan for it,” Herkelman mentioned. “We eliminated it, and that was a purposeful removing. You shouldn’t blame finish customers for points you’ve got. It’s best to catch and personal any issues, similar to we did with the vapour-chamber subject. I used to be throughout social media as a result of I felt prefer it was AMD’s downside and I used to be going to personal it.”
“Till this energy subject is cleaned up and there’s good confidence it’s working accurately for finish customers, that’s the place you’ll begin to see us incorporate it into our planning, he continued. “The power for somebody to say it’s an end-user’s fault is just a little unusual to AMD and undoubtedly unusual to me.”
In contrast to Nvidia, AMD is not in a rush to hop on the 16-pin energy connector prepare. The 16-pin energy connector has been a headache for Nvidia, significantly on the GeForce RTX 4090, which is most susceptible to connector meltdowns. Sasa Marinkovic, senior director of gaming advertising at AMD, even joked concerning the burning subject on X, then generally known as Twitter. It could seem that there are much less and fewer experiences of the 16-pin energy connector mishaps. The final recognized case was again in Might of this yr.
PCI-SIG just lately rolled out the revised 12V-2×6 energy connector to enhance the protection of the unique 16-pin energy connector. Regardless of the revision, it wasn’t sufficient to persuade AMD to make the most of the ability connector on the newest RDNA 3 Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT graphics playing cards. The Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT are 245W and 263W graphics playing cards, respectively, so a pair of 8-pin PCIe energy connectors present greater than sufficient energy.
Nonetheless, that does not imply that AMD won’t ever undertake the 16-pin energy connector on its Radeon gaming graphics playing cards. In line with Herkelman, the chipmaker would contemplate the 16-pin energy connector’s utilization when the “energy subject is cleaned up and there’s good confidence it’s working accurately for finish customers.”
Herkelman reiterated to Club386 that the Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT are the ultimate RDNA 3 ASICs. If AMD lastly bites the bullet on the 16-pin energy connector, we most likely would not see it till RDNA 4.