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Why ASUS Cannot Blame AMD For Overheating ROG Cards

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ASUS blamed AMD for the overheating problems affecting their ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700 / 5700 XT cards, and it’s really quite ridiculous.

Find out what’s going on, and why ASUS is WRONG to blame AMD for their overheating ROG cards!

 

Overheating ROG RX 5700 Cards : Why Is ASUS Blaming AMD?

The ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700 XT and Radeon RX 5700 are two of the more premium and expensive RX 5700 series graphics cards in the market.

Instead of using the reference AMD design, both ASUS ROG cards use premium alloy chokes, solid polymer capacitors, triple fans with axial fan blades, and a large 2.7-slot cooler.

They also feature the ASUS MaxContact Technology, which allows ASUS says will DOUBLE the contact surface with the GPU for maximum thermal transfer.

Despite such an impressive list of premium power and cooling capabilities, users noticed that their expensive ASUS ROG RX 5700 cards keep overheating.

 

ASUS finally admitted on Valentine’s Day 2020, that their cooler (with MaxContact Technology) was not secured tightly enough.

However, ASUS blamed AMD for that mistake, claiming that they recommended a mounting pressure that was much too low.

They actually penned an article, and created this pressure vs temperature chart to prove that they were not at fault, and users should blame AMD.

 

Why ASUS Cannot Blame AMD For Overheating ROG Cards

The more we analysed this issue, the more we realised how absurd ASUS claims were.

Reason #1 : AMD Recommendations Are For Their Reference Design

We do not have access to AMD’s engineering specifications, but logically, their recommended mounting pressure would be for their reference design only.

Both ASUS ROG Strix cards use a custom 2.7-slot cooler design, with triple fans, and the ASUS MaxContact Technology. They even come with a reinforced frame, presumably to support higher mounting pressures.

So it would not be logical for the brilliant engineers at ASUS to simply use whatever mounting pressure AMD recommended for the reference design.

Reason #2 : ASUS Reference Cards Did Not Overheat

ASUS also offers reference design models like many other brands, but that card does NOT have an overheating problem.

So it shows clearly that the recommended mounting pressure worked when applied to the AMD reference design.

Reason #3 : ASUS Only Discovered The Right Pressure After Extended Tests

This is a puzzling statement, because it suggests that they shipped their ROG Strix cards without performing enough tests to determine the optimal mounting pressure for their custom cooler.

One would also expect ASUS to perform stress tests on these premium card designs, to make sure they work properly… before they are qualified for production.

While it is possible for any product to have bugs, overheating due to loose screws seem hard to miss…

Reason #4 : Even ASUS TUF Cards Are Overheating!

We should remember that the TUF Gaming versions of both cards also have overheating issues, albeit for a different reason.

Their impressively large coolers were found to lack proper cooling for the memory chips (XT model), or had no cooling at all (non-XT model).

That led to impressive memory temperatures that were far in excess of their rated specifications, and more than enough to boil water while you game.

Fortunately for AMD, ASUS could not blame them for that terrible design decision. But that exposed the sobering fact that ASUS was not above cutting corners in their cards…

Recommended : ASUS TUF RX 5700 Cards Are Also Overheating, Remember?

Reason #5 : No Other Brands Are Affected

This overheating issue does not seem to be a problem with other brands with custom coolers.

And as far as we can tell, reference designs from ASUS and other brands do not have overheating issues.

So it would be interesting to see ASUS explain why only their ROG Strix RX 5700 and ROG Strix RX 5700 XT cards are overheating…

 

Should We STOP Buying AMD Radeon Cards From ASUS?

No, ASUS cards based on AMD reference designs are perfectly fine. And the current slew of ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700 / 5700 XT cards now come with properly tightened coolers.

ASUS Radeon RX 5700 XT (Reference)

ASUS Radeon RX 5700 (Reference)

ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700 XT

ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700

But you should definitely not buy the TUF models, which lack proper memory cooling. Get the new TUF EVO models instead.

 

 

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ASUS TUF RX 5700 Cards Are Also Overheating, Remember?

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While ASUS is blaming AMD for their overheating ROG Strix cards, we should remember that ASUS TUF Radeon RX 5700 cards are also overheating…

Let’s look at WHY these TUF Gaming cards are overheating, and HOW they reflect the shortcuts that ASUS are apparently taking with their cards…

 

ASUS ROG + TUF RX 5700 Cards Are Overheating!

Not only are ROG Strix Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT cards overheating, their TUF Gaming brethren are also overheating. But they are overheating due to different reasons.

The ASUS ROG Strix cards are overheating because their coolers were not screwed tightly enough, so their GPUs were not being cooled properly.

The ASUS TUF Gaming cards are overheating because their coolers either lacked proper cooling for their GDDR6 memory chips, or did NOT provide any cooling at all.

After months of complaints, ASUS finally admitted what users already knew months ago – that the ROG Strix cooler wasn’t properly mounted.

But instead of just admitting and correcting their mistake, ASUS blamed AMD for recommending reference mounting pressures that were way too low.

You can read about their blame AMD effort in our article, ASUS Blames AMD For Overheating ROG RX 5700 Cards!

The good news, for ROG Strix users, is that ASUS will (FINALLY) be providing replacement screws to fix the problem.

 

ASUS TUF Gaming RX 5700 Cards Are Also Overheating, Remember?

When ASUS refused to send a review sample to awesome guys at Hardware Unboxed, the Internet funded their purchase, and lo behold, they discovered why ASUS was so reticent about sending them a sample!

They discovered that the ASUS TUF Gaming RX 5700 XT card did not have proper cooling for their GDDR6 memory, while the non-XT version had NO COOLING for the memory chips at all!

See that thin piece of metal? That’s what ASUS uses as a heat-spreader for the XT version of their TUF Gaming card. The non-XT version doesn’t even have this!

Even with a heat-spreader, the memory chips on the TUF Gaming Radeon RX 5700 XT were hitting 104°C – far above their maximum operating temperature!

Frankly, we have no idea how these cards actually passed pre-production validation tests. After all, ASUS boasts that they put their TUF Gaming cards through a 144-hour validation program to ensure “rigorous performance and reliability standards“.

Surely, the ASUS engineering team would have noticed during that 144-hour validation program that the memory chips were hot enough to fry eggs?

 

Overheating ASUS TUF Gaming RX 5700 : New Models, But No Fix!

After this issue was exposed, ASUS came up with new TUF EVO versions, with improved memory cooling.

Unfortunately, they are NOT going to offer users of their TUF Gaming versions a fix or replacement.

Perhaps, with sufficient public pressure, ASUS can be convinced to do the right thing, and replace their badly-designed TUF cooler with the improved TUF EVO cooler.

So it is up to us to REMEMBER, and REMIND EVERYONE, that TUF Gaming Radeon RX 5700 and Radeon RX 5700 XT cards are also overheating, not just their more expensive ROG Strix brethren.

Of course, ASUS cannot blame AMD for overheating memory chips… LOL!

But if their GDDR6 memory supplier needs to take the blame, we hope they will bite the bullet and take the hit, so poor TUF Gaming users do not have to live with memory chips so hot they can boil water…

 

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