Scott Herkelman Addresses RX 7900 XTX Cooler & Performance
video description
Also Igor reported yesterday that RMAs are having a long waiting time because AMD has no stock, but this doesn't need to mean a huge incidence of the problem; it is known that the MBA XTX was a relatively small release-day batch, it was very hard to buy by MSRP since release day and still today. There's no stock for RMA in many regions because there's no stock period.
Some lessons learned here for AMD:
1. Have a better grip on your supply chain for reference card. Some factory's QC screwed up with this but AMD and the whole RDNA 3 product got a reputational hit that may take years to wear off.
2. Don't take cheap shots at your competitor because of potential manufacturing issues (12-pin). Glass houses and all that; it can happen to everyone.
3. If you're making something close to a paper launch of an SKU, to allow AIBs to sell pricier stuff, at least reserve some stock for replacements in case anything goes wrong.
4. Communicate early and openly. This acknowledgement is very welcome but it took too long. It was Christmas break? I don't care, it's a P0 issue so just call back anyone who could help. Or just don't make a critical release a week before everyone and their dog goes out on vacations.
Date: 2023-01-06
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Comments and reviews: 14
desild
I don't know how people can be so gullible as to be so happy with this reply.
1. The cooler problem is only well solved in rich countries. No word about customers from poorer countries where warranty is always mediated by local stores (no AMD/ASUS/MSI/etc. direct contact). These small businesses are usually very hostile to any non-dead-obvious warranty claims (i.e. dead cards or other major immediately undisputable faults). To convince such a store that they will not bear extra cost to help you, AMD & AIB partners needed to publish a faulty serial/lot number checking tool that would say in big red letters if a given card is faulty or not. They didn't do that so customers from poorer countries with weaker consumer protection laws are burned.
2. In this very same interview, we're being promised SO much future directness, we're being sold cheap we've learned empty words and yet at 05:58 we see a big slide where the 7900 XT is sold as across the board superior to the 4070 Ti when in fact the ray tracing comparison is even more cherry picked than before. 7900 XT is massively inferior to the 4070 Ti in both ray tracing and performance/W and only 1 out of 10 people will choose it instead of NVIDIA's card, pretty much in accordance with AMD's latest 10% market share. We've learned + that clownish slide + best card under 900 are statements that should be insulting to anyone that's reasonably informed.
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I don't know how people can be so gullible as to be so happy with this reply.
1. The cooler problem is only well solved in rich countries. No word about customers from poorer countries where warranty is always mediated by local stores (no AMD/ASUS/MSI/etc. direct contact). These small businesses are usually very hostile to any non-dead-obvious warranty claims (i.e. dead cards or other major immediately undisputable faults). To convince such a store that they will not bear extra cost to help you, AMD & AIB partners needed to publish a faulty serial/lot number checking tool that would say in big red letters if a given card is faulty or not. They didn't do that so customers from poorer countries with weaker consumer protection laws are burned.
2. In this very same interview, we're being promised SO much future directness, we're being sold cheap we've learned empty words and yet at 05:58 we see a big slide where the 7900 XT is sold as across the board superior to the 4070 Ti when in fact the ray tracing comparison is even more cherry picked than before. 7900 XT is massively inferior to the 4070 Ti in both ray tracing and performance/W and only 1 out of 10 people will choose it instead of NVIDIA's card, pretty much in accordance with AMD's latest 10% market share. We've learned + that clownish slide + best card under 900 are statements that should be insulting to anyone that's reasonably informed.
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Googlar
I think Herkelman could be a bit more direct, and a bit more apologetic. One thing which isn't clear is whether or not people will have to pay for return shipping. I assume they won't, but that might be partially outside of AMD's control, because many of these cards have been sold by their AIB partners. The way he's mixing in talking about how great all their new upcoming products are also doesn't come off that well, and I also feel that his bragging about the 7900 XT being the fastest graphics card under 900 is kind-of off-putting, when the XTX is clearly the better value product, despite being the higher end product, and the 4070 ti offers a similar value (if you can get it for 800).
I think that AMD often doesn't get a fair shake, but their marketing and PR really could use some work. This issue with their coolers does seem to be getting blown out of proportion, but it is a big issue, and they should be giving a more direct statement about it which isn't prefaced with half-baked promotional/ marketing claims about all their other upcoming products.
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I think Herkelman could be a bit more direct, and a bit more apologetic. One thing which isn't clear is whether or not people will have to pay for return shipping. I assume they won't, but that might be partially outside of AMD's control, because many of these cards have been sold by their AIB partners. The way he's mixing in talking about how great all their new upcoming products are also doesn't come off that well, and I also feel that his bragging about the 7900 XT being the fastest graphics card under 900 is kind-of off-putting, when the XTX is clearly the better value product, despite being the higher end product, and the 4070 ti offers a similar value (if you can get it for 800).
I think that AMD often doesn't get a fair shake, but their marketing and PR really could use some work. This issue with their coolers does seem to be getting blown out of proportion, but it is a big issue, and they should be giving a more direct statement about it which isn't prefaced with half-baked promotional/ marketing claims about all their other upcoming products.
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jdfreality
Altogether a very disappointing launch series. Somehow AMD have managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory!
The 7900 XT and 7900 XTX should have been named the 7800 XT and 7800 XT X to accurately reflect performance and temper public performance expectations.
However, if they did that they couldn't command such unbelievably high prices.
The data, graphs and other information were carefully selected and presented by AMD to confuse casual viewers about the limitations of its product stack.
The drivers and the software stack in general are not right, the production was clearly rushed and products were released with flaws that one would imagine basic quality assurance testing should have picked up.
Over the past few days AMD spokespeople have been in full damage control mode and assure the public that lessons have been learned and everything will be fixed.
However, a person would be foolish to buy a promise, especially considering the high prices involved.
All in all, an extremely disappointing showing.
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Altogether a very disappointing launch series. Somehow AMD have managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory!
The 7900 XT and 7900 XTX should have been named the 7800 XT and 7800 XT X to accurately reflect performance and temper public performance expectations.
However, if they did that they couldn't command such unbelievably high prices.
The data, graphs and other information were carefully selected and presented by AMD to confuse casual viewers about the limitations of its product stack.
The drivers and the software stack in general are not right, the production was clearly rushed and products were released with flaws that one would imagine basic quality assurance testing should have picked up.
Over the past few days AMD spokespeople have been in full damage control mode and assure the public that lessons have been learned and everything will be fixed.
However, a person would be foolish to buy a promise, especially considering the high prices involved.
All in all, an extremely disappointing showing.
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Cero
Great interview, I'm one of those overheating xtx owners but I got my expectations low way before the launch so nothing surprising to me. I have a waterblock on the way so that's also probably the reason I'm all calm about this lol. In all honesty, while I did expect bad drivers, we really need amd stepping up their game. Nonetheless, happy owner of one of the first mcm consumer gpus.
One gripe about amds response is that theyd like the customer to contact them. Im aware it's way more economical that way, but the fact that QC and QA was this incompetent we deserve a much more official statement. While I'm not gonna do the RMA, I know ppl who live rurally will have a heck of a time without their paid cards for weeks or even months.
ps. Sell them just the pcb please I'm sure it'll sell for enthusiasts. (I know there'll be massive issues but man always wanted it)
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Great interview, I'm one of those overheating xtx owners but I got my expectations low way before the launch so nothing surprising to me. I have a waterblock on the way so that's also probably the reason I'm all calm about this lol. In all honesty, while I did expect bad drivers, we really need amd stepping up their game. Nonetheless, happy owner of one of the first mcm consumer gpus.
One gripe about amds response is that theyd like the customer to contact them. Im aware it's way more economical that way, but the fact that QC and QA was this incompetent we deserve a much more official statement. While I'm not gonna do the RMA, I know ppl who live rurally will have a heck of a time without their paid cards for weeks or even months.
ps. Sell them just the pcb please I'm sure it'll sell for enthusiasts. (I know there'll be massive issues but man always wanted it)
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ZeroB4NG
I don't know... i've heard thousands of cards being recalled from retail stores... this PR talk small number affected always feels like downplaying the issue a bit, but i guess a few thousand units is indeed a small number if you are used to selling millions.
But i want to know what the cause for the issue was... not enough liquid in the vapor chamber, ok i was at that same conclusion already, but how did this happen and how did QA not notice at all, how do you make sure this doesn't happen again? The coolers are manufactured by a 3rd party (Coolermaster was making their Ryzen stock coolers in the Gamers Nexus factory tour video) and not in house. ...don't just give us the sanctioned PR damage control talk, give us the details, what direct action is being taken?
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I don't know... i've heard thousands of cards being recalled from retail stores... this PR talk small number affected always feels like downplaying the issue a bit, but i guess a few thousand units is indeed a small number if you are used to selling millions.
But i want to know what the cause for the issue was... not enough liquid in the vapor chamber, ok i was at that same conclusion already, but how did this happen and how did QA not notice at all, how do you make sure this doesn't happen again? The coolers are manufactured by a 3rd party (Coolermaster was making their Ryzen stock coolers in the Gamers Nexus factory tour video) and not in house. ...don't just give us the sanctioned PR damage control talk, give us the details, what direct action is being taken?
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Davide
This is the same dude that bet people on Twitter last gen for 10 bucks that you'd see amd GPUs at MSRP lol. People in the comments have way too short of a memory span. This is just pr damage control. AMD up to 4 days ago was refusing people RMA. And only thanks to derbauer work that exposed the faulty cards and what was wrong with it that AMD magically started to look into the issue. So yeah, I'm not buying any of that shit. And this come from somebody that has built amd PCs since the FX athlon CPUs and when Radeon was still ATI from the 6000 serie and agp slots were still a thing essentially. So I'm not an Nvidia shill like some of you might think (the only Nvidia card i have ever owned was the 1070).
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This is the same dude that bet people on Twitter last gen for 10 bucks that you'd see amd GPUs at MSRP lol. People in the comments have way too short of a memory span. This is just pr damage control. AMD up to 4 days ago was refusing people RMA. And only thanks to derbauer work that exposed the faulty cards and what was wrong with it that AMD magically started to look into the issue. So yeah, I'm not buying any of that shit. And this come from somebody that has built amd PCs since the FX athlon CPUs and when Radeon was still ATI from the 6000 serie and agp slots were still a thing essentially. So I'm not an Nvidia shill like some of you might think (the only Nvidia card i have ever owned was the 1070).
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Quickshares
I like the response from Scott Herkelman and I hope that they will do better in the next launch. Unfortunately, this generation is simply not good enough and is priced extremely badly. It makes next to no sense to buy the XTX over a 4080 or XT over a 4070 ti. They are priced just way too close (especially in my country) for me to consider AMD. This was their chance to gain market share, but instead they blew it. They had to AT THE VERY LEAST, price the XT for 750-800 dollars, instead they went the NVIDIA way of doing things and will lose even more market share because of it.
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I like the response from Scott Herkelman and I hope that they will do better in the next launch. Unfortunately, this generation is simply not good enough and is priced extremely badly. It makes next to no sense to buy the XTX over a 4080 or XT over a 4070 ti. They are priced just way too close (especially in my country) for me to consider AMD. This was their chance to gain market share, but instead they blew it. They had to AT THE VERY LEAST, price the XT for 750-800 dollars, instead they went the NVIDIA way of doing things and will lose even more market share because of it.
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LarsKristian91
Sorry for the harsh comment. I want AMD to succeed in every way possible.
At 6:35 It sounds to me that AMD know the communication was misleading, and they gave a promise to do better for the NEXT product launch.
I would say there is no need to wait until then, AMD can do it now. The product page still uses Up to language. AMD can start fixing the problem there.
To AMD:
As a consumer it is hard to trust any business, because they use lies to make themself look good.
Instead, be a friend and tell the truth, that is much easier to stand behind.
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Sorry for the harsh comment. I want AMD to succeed in every way possible.
At 6:35 It sounds to me that AMD know the communication was misleading, and they gave a promise to do better for the NEXT product launch.
I would say there is no need to wait until then, AMD can do it now. The product page still uses Up to language. AMD can start fixing the problem there.
To AMD:
As a consumer it is hard to trust any business, because they use lies to make themself look good.
Instead, be a friend and tell the truth, that is much easier to stand behind.
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Ivaylo
AMD trying to do damage control - too little, too late...
They were denying the issues, and waited others to prove there is real hardware problem. Now they are saying - we know the small batches ... Well, take the responsibility and recall these GPUs? Of course not. Let the customers buy them, find out the issue and fight with the support...
And guys, there was huge list of products on CES related to gaming... Literally one GPU - 7600M. 20% faster then 6600M... It's not much, but I guess they really tried not to lie this time.
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AMD trying to do damage control - too little, too late...
They were denying the issues, and waited others to prove there is real hardware problem. Now they are saying - we know the small batches ... Well, take the responsibility and recall these GPUs? Of course not. Let the customers buy them, find out the issue and fight with the support...
And guys, there was huge list of products on CES related to gaming... Literally one GPU - 7600M. 20% faster then 6600M... It's not much, but I guess they really tried not to lie this time.
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CPPC
Fluff an stuffed. Amd simpin ain t easy. That a a bunch of bs. The vapor chamber issue can and does and has had affects in all REFERENCE MODELS. Everyone I know who bought the powercolor reference model on launch day had the same issues! We all returned ours back to microcenter. Also I ll never buy another amd product on launch day. I ll let other people beta test it since amd is too cheap to spend more time sending out review samples to actual hardware enthusiasts who will beat it and use it till they find the weak spots.
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Fluff an stuffed. Amd simpin ain t easy. That a a bunch of bs. The vapor chamber issue can and does and has had affects in all REFERENCE MODELS. Everyone I know who bought the powercolor reference model on launch day had the same issues! We all returned ours back to microcenter. Also I ll never buy another amd product on launch day. I ll let other people beta test it since amd is too cheap to spend more time sending out review samples to actual hardware enthusiasts who will beat it and use it till they find the weak spots.
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Ryan
I'm glad they've moved to allowing customers to easily replace any affected GPUs and that it isn't something that affects every graphics card. If his obvious doin should be believed. I was disappointed with their original refusal to replace affected cards, especially since they refused to pay for the shipping for someone that wanted a replacement even after there was enough backlash to their anti consumer response to finally retirement and let their customer send back their faulty GPU.
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I'm glad they've moved to allowing customers to easily replace any affected GPUs and that it isn't something that affects every graphics card. If his obvious doin should be believed. I was disappointed with their original refusal to replace affected cards, especially since they refused to pay for the shipping for someone that wanted a replacement even after there was enough backlash to their anti consumer response to finally retirement and let their customer send back their faulty GPU.
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Hypebeast
I am actually in the RMA process with my Xtx and it sucks. They had me send back my Gpu which I did a week ago and now they will not answer me if they actually received it or not. USPS shows someone at the provided address signed for the package. On top of that I had to pay for my own return shipping and paid extra for the insurance. Horrible experience, I will never buy from the AMD website again. I just hope I eventually get my money back smh
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I am actually in the RMA process with my Xtx and it sucks. They had me send back my Gpu which I did a week ago and now they will not answer me if they actually received it or not. USPS shows someone at the provided address signed for the package. On top of that I had to pay for my own return shipping and paid extra for the insurance. Horrible experience, I will never buy from the AMD website again. I just hope I eventually get my money back smh
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Bill
So the cards are ones sold by them directly, shouldn't they know affected batches and be able to proactively contact people? This is going to miss all the kids who's cards are throttling and don't know how to diagnose the problems. It's also a little surprising that it is a simple fix instead of a recall/replacement. How do you add more water to a sealed vapor chamber? Or is the proposed fix simply plastering on a bunch of extra thermal pads?
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So the cards are ones sold by them directly, shouldn't they know affected batches and be able to proactively contact people? This is going to miss all the kids who's cards are throttling and don't know how to diagnose the problems. It's also a little surprising that it is a simple fix instead of a recall/replacement. How do you add more water to a sealed vapor chamber? Or is the proposed fix simply plastering on a bunch of extra thermal pads?
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LongTimeITWorker
Excellent interview. Thanks to Scott for his straightforward and direct answer about the cooling issue and the honest comment about the wording that will be used in pre-release performance claims for new products going forward. I commend Scott for not waffling and for just being real and for answering questions like a human who actually cares about your customers. That is too rare in this world.
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Excellent interview. Thanks to Scott for his straightforward and direct answer about the cooling issue and the honest comment about the wording that will be used in pre-release performance claims for new products going forward. I commend Scott for not waffling and for just being real and for answering questions like a human who actually cares about your customers. That is too rare in this world.
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