what just happened AMD never misses an opportunity to attack Nvidia and has blasted its rival over the 16-pin power connector (12VHPWR) issues found (mainly) on the RTX 4090. However, Team Red admitted that they had considered using the same connector in the new Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT before deciding against it.
speaking in an interview with Club386Scott Herkelman, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s graphics business unit, spoke about the company’s Radeon RX 7000 desktop series with standard 8-pin power connectors.
While the Radeon RX 7900 series and RX 7600 have always planned to use the traditional connector, the new Navi 32-based Radeon RX 7800 XT and Radeon RX 7700 XT almost went Nvidia’s way with the use of the 16-pin 12VHPWR .
“Specifically for the 7900 series and even the 7600, we didn’t have plans for the new power cord, but the 7800 and 7700 models did have a plan for it,” Herkelman said. “We removed it, and that was a deliberate removal.”
The AMD manager then checked Nvidia on how the company dealt with the problems with the melting 16-pin 12VHPWR connector. “You shouldn’t blame the end users for the problems you’re having. Any issues should be identified and owned, as we did with the vapor chamber issue. I was all over social media because I felt like it was AMD’s problem and I wanted to join in owning it.
This vapor chamber issue is related to an overheating issue seen on a small number of Radeon RX 7900 XTX cards. Herkelman admitted earlier this year that some Radeon RX 7900 XTX cards manufactured by AMD were overheating due to insufficient liquid in their vapor chamber.
After the first wave of reports of melting power supplies for the GeForce RTX 4090, Nvidia issued a statement accusing users of improperly connecting the cables. Around this time, AMD confirmed that its RDNA-3 cards would not use 12VHPWR. However, it sounds like the company isn’t ruling out a switch at some point, likely when RDNA 4 comes out.
“Until this power supply issue is resolved and there is good confidence that it will work properly for end users, we will consider it in our planning,” Herkelman continued. “The possibility of someone being able to say it’s the end user’s fault is a little weird for AMD and definitely weird for me.”
In July we heard that the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) was working on the revised specification for 12V 2×6 power connectors. The update aims to fix the design issues that cause the melting and connection errors related to the RTX 4090. Nvidia updated the RTX 4090 Founders Edition with the new standard shortly after.
Stay safe this holiday season. @amdradeon pic.twitter.com/DOpg0f2qaP
– Sasa Marinkovic (@SasaMarinkovic) November 17, 2022
This isn’t the first time an AMD exec has mocked Nvidia for the melting connector. Sasa Marinkovic, senior director of gaming marketing at Team Red, cracked a joke with a post last year