Two Asus VG27AQ1A monitors with the factory 170hz OC
I bought a 7900 XTX from AMD directly the week they were available- this card had coil whine AND the hotspot issue so I was able to get a refund.
I then bought an Asrock Taichi 7900 XTX from Newegg. This card also had coil whine which didn’t go away in the 3 weeks I had it. I was able to get an exchange for a new Taichi 7900 XTX which I just installed with coil whine again.
The games I tested are Doom Eternal and Hogwarts Legacy. Doom Eternal at 1440p ultra nightmare, RT on. I also tried it with super resolution running it at 4K and it was actually louder. The FPS in these cases were between 120 and 170fps with it locked at 170fps with v-sync on. Hogwarts Legacy was at 1440p, RT on, v-sync on also around 120fps.
I genuinely don’t know what to do at this point. The only thing I can think of is buying a new power supply and hoping for the best. No way I got unlucky with coil whine three times in a row.
Yes, I know coil whine is kind of unavoidable but it really shouldn’t be happening at 120fps on a card I spent nearly $1900 CAD on. This card really is awesome but I can’t handle the constant whine even with headphones on. It shouldn’t be acceptable.
I have a previous thread on the topic as well with the difference today being I returned that card and the replacement still has the issue.
Is it worth trying a new power supply or seeing if I can try the GPU in a different system? Or should I just return the Asrock Taichi to Newegg and either try a different 7900 XTX card from a different manufacturer (likely go Sapphire Nitro+ or Pulse) or suck it up and buy a 4080?
You might consider getting a mechanics stethoscope. They cost around $10, and will help you isolate the source of the whine. Ie power supply vs video card.
Reviews don’t really mention it. Newegg has plenty of reviews for this specific card and Wendell also has tested it. No one but me seems to have coil whine and I have had two of these cards + an AMD reference that had the issue.
I had a 2080 in this system with this new PSU for a week before upgrading and I didn’t notice anything but I also wasn’t looking for it then. Hindsight is 20-20.
Interesting! Seems like there is one in stock at a Canadian Tire near me for $16. May give this a go. It would be nice to determine if I got another dud GPU or if it was the PSU all along!
No, you are thinking of the cooler issues. High end cards will give off some kind of coil whine due to the power going through them nowadays, it’s up to the manufacturer to work out how to mitigate it.
No, I am thinking about coil whine as well. The Gamers Nexus review comes to mind (“holy coil whine Batman”). My Made by AMD card had both problems - hotspot and coil whine.
Yes, its up to the manufacturers but from all of my reading no one seems to have figured it out yet and the causes and solutions are all over the place.
Both Nvidia and AMD cards with each AIB partner of each along with the combination of different power supply brands and motherboards. There is no consistency. It really does seem like a lottery when you buy a card and I ‘won’ three times.
I’ve seen an analogy to think of it like buying a Lamborghini and the timing belt giving off a loud squeal that is permanent with Lamborghini just telling you that you’re unlucky and to buy another car.
My other analogy is buying an expensive computer monitor with a dead pixel. The manufacturers don’t consider it defective until there are 4-5 dead pixels but if I spent thousands on a monitor I expect it to be perfect.
So yeah, I’m not happy with the “every card has coil whine, suck it up” answer when clearly there are a lot of people that don’t have the problem. These are top end GPUs with price tags and ‘quiet operation’ marketing to match. We really should expect better whether that be better QA testing or R&D to eliminate the problem.
No, there are three dedicated 8-pin cables from the PSU.
Since I posted this I also tried a friends Corsair RM850i PSU and the coil whine persisted.
I’ve initiated the return with Newegg and will see about getting a 4080. I really really wanted to go AMD this time around because Nvidia’s arrogance was too irritating but after three AMD cards I’m done.
This isn’t something specific to vendors or brands. I’ve had more nvidia cards with coil wine than AMD, and any number of factors can influence it, such as motherboard, power supply, other pcie devices, etc.
If you hear it over headphones, it may even be jumping to your integrated analogue audio output and actually causing that frequency of RF interference right into your headphone line. An external DAC can mitigate this if that’s the case.
yeah for all I know my motherboard is causing it. I’m going to try my roommate’s Zotac 2080 and see what it does. It doesn’t have coil whine in his system.
I used a 2080 for a week with my HX1000i and didn’t notice the coil whine but I also wasn’t looking for it then either.
Put my 7900XTX in my roommates computer (R7 5800X based) and the card had coil whine. I also double checked his 2080 in his own computer and it had coil whine too - but its quiet enough that we never noticed until I looked for it. The 2080 was louder in my computer though.
If my computer was only as loud as my roommates I would just deal with it, but with a game running and muted with side panels closed I can hear the coil whine from 15ft away.
So now I’m more or less back to where I started. I still have the option to return the card and maybe go get something else but obviously there is no guarantee it will change anything.
Thing is I don’t want to spend the money on a new power supply unless I know exactly what the problem is and right now I have no idea. Coil whine has no consistency as to what causes it and what the solutions are. For some a different power supply works. For others it goes away after a few months.
Using v-sync won’t help because it makes noise even at 70fps (Cyberpunk 2077).
I would check and see if anyone has reported it but also look for a stethoscope as someone mentioned. I have a 7900XTX reference and I haven’t had any issues with coil whine.
