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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

Chat, what is your preferred AMD GPU vendor? I have had mixed results. My biggest gripe is acoustics - squealing, screeching, coil whine, etc. I've had mixed results with PowerColor, terrible results with Sapphire. I have an ASRock Taichi card (7900XTX) that is so large the pcb/frame began to bend and that introduced a noise into the fans. The support bracketry that came with the card was missing all hardware, so I ran without it for a while. Perhaps that is on me. I supported it with a snus can and it has slowly cooked itself back to being straight. I always prefer the aesthetic of the reference cards, but believe the aftermarket manufacturers do a better job with cooling.

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If you can then buy "founders edition" cards.

I have an RX 6700 XT from AMD themselves and it's great.

The reason I went down that route was that the AIB partners all beef the cards coolers up and thus the dimensions. I build in small SFF cases for travel reasons and usually end up undervolting and downclocking my cards so I really don't need the monster coolers the AIBs are so fond of.

Unfortunately they generally only seem to be available in limited quantities and for a limited time which is a real shame.

My 6900XT FE has _terrible_ coil whine. I can troubleshoot some types of issues with my models by ear.

It's so bad I thought my card was defective the first time I heard it. It's usually fine if I cap framerate to a reasonable number though.

Maybe look at undervolting, you can do it from the AMD software pretty easily and for me it solved a bit of a coil whine problem under boost scenarios but YMMW it depends on sample to sample I think.

I can tell how close stable diffusion is to finishing based on the current noise pattern it is almost useful

I've personally had a good experience with XFX cards. I haven't had that many (not a hardcore gamer), but they've all worked perfectly well over multiple years, and never developed any kind on noise. The youngest is a 5600XT I bought used in 2020.

They have never been top of the line models, but one or two steps down. I've always used "silent" cases, since I hate noise with a passion, but I'm not sure how much that actually changes things.

I’ve also had good luck with XFX cards - even used ones. But this is wildly anecdotal of course

I have had Sapphire cards for the last 10+ years and have always liked them enough to go back. Maybe I've been lucky, but my cards have been cool and quiet.

On my third Sapphire, just upgraded to a 7800xt. Excellent hardware QC, never had any issues beyond AMDs occasionally terrible drivers.

Every sapphire (3) I have had has failed. I luckily got one rmaed but that starting freezing my computer after a year.

Switched to XFX Merc 319 6950xt. I hope this serves me better.

On my last build I completely bypassed the issue. I minimized noise and improved thermals by deshrouding the GPU (Zotac Amp 3080) and using 120mm Noctua fans for cooling, as shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUaZVpN51Po

For anyone looking to do this, there are much better 120mm fans available nowadays, like Alphacool Stealth Metal.

Interesting. Apparently the Alphacool got a great review from Igor's Lab, but der8auer was not able to show substantial difference compared to Noctua: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J7jkRbxLYk

This is based off of me doing a 1 minute search for a comparison, so I could be missing something completely. I haven't really researched things in depth since my last build 3 years ago.

You might have a power supply issue if you get coil while this consistently. Very happy with my Sapphire Nitro 7900 XTX.

Likewise

In your case, it seems that investing in some case-specific support bracket for $10 would have prevented all issues, so I'm unsure why you propose vendor switching as the solution.

After experiencing coil whining with one game and loud fans after extended perios of full load on the system (CPU+GPU), I switched to an aftermarket all-in one liquid cooling system, like Alphacool Eiswolf. I just think that the standard 3 fans blowing air onto the GPU kill most useful airflow in every PC case and with every vendor that uses this style.

I've had issues on many cards, this was just one example.

Every GPU I have ever had, particularly AMD, have been noisy cards. I have hyperacusis and can hear a butterfly fart a block away, so silence is paramount to me.

I don't even allow deep sleep states on my Intel processors because I can hear it. Modern motherboards are beginning to include "acoustic adaptations" to try and fix, but they rarely work in my experience.

What helped me with the fan noise for extended periods of CPU + GPU load was moving the GPU one PCIE port over. Initially, the GPU was very close to the CPU's heatsink (millimeters away).

I know this isn't always possible with newer CPUs which tend to be stingy with PCIE lanes, but in my case, I have a boatload of them, so I could do it with no issue.

Sapphire is the safest bet. ASRock, MSI and Powercolor also tend to make good cards.

And yeah, with the monster-sized high-end GPUs, you'll need to take some precautions no matter the brand.

My past two AMD cards have been Sapphire. First, an RX 5700 XT Nitro+ and second an RX 6900 XT Nitro+ SE.

The first was used on a machine on my desk while the latter is in a living room gaming machine. It’s harder to judge the 6900 because of the increased distance from it while running but the 5700 had no coil whine.

The EVGA 3080 Ti FTW3 in the machine at my desk on the other hand can be quite audible at times, particularly during some menu screens in games. It’s a great card otherwise.

Sapphire for AMD.

EVGA used to be go-to vendor for Nvidia but since they're gone I'd settle for Gainward and its derivatives (Palit, Galax, KFA2)

I have a Sapphire RX 5700 and it's basically fine, although I don't ask much of it.

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