AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Failure Rates Reportedly At 11%, RMA’s Piling Up But Users Not Receiving Cards
Last Friday, Scott Herkelman, AMD senior VP and GM of Radeon Graphics at AMD, sat down with Gordon Mah Ung, executive editor at PCWorld, to discuss the current cooler malfunctions inside AMD RX 7900 XTX graphics cards during CES 2023 During the discussion, AMD Senior stated that the problems with the new graphics cards are in a small number of cases, but the number of reported RMA cases speaks otherwise.
AMD believes RX 7900 XTX graphics card steam port failure is minimal, but more users are struggling with quality control
In Herkleman’s interview with PC World, AMD Senior assured that AMD wants you to feel confident in your purchasing decisions and that AMD recognizes the issues:
It all comes down to the fact that a small group of steam rooms have a problem, there is not enough water and it is a very small percentage and we said that this is the main cause.
We have identified this, you have spent a lot of money if you bought this XTX made by AMD, we want to fix it for you, we have the fix, we are ready to fix it for you, just call tech support if you bought it from AMD .com or purchased it from an AMD AIB partner. They have units, we know how to identify that they are good in units and make sure we send them to you. We want you to have a great product and we want you to be confident in that product.
Scott Herkleman (AMD SVP of GPU Buisness) via PCWorld
While this sounds promising, Igorslab found nine to eleven percent of reported RMA cases between consumers, AMD and their partners. Wallossek is one of the 11% working to get the replacement. The first response, which was translated by Wallossek from AMD’s German support center, says:
We understand that you want a replacement for your RX 7900 XTX. It is important to know that at the moment we are unable to replace your card as we have no stock available in our warehouses. We can start the process as soon as the inventory is replenished, but we do not have an estimated date for restocking at this time.
If you prefer a refund instead, we can process that refund immediately and we’ll provide you with a return label so you can send the card back to our warehouse.
The problem lies within the acceptable quality level, or AQL, which passes through standards set by ISO or the International Organization for Standardization. The acceptable level of quality is considered “the level of quality that is the worst tolerable”. section ISO 2859-1:1999, published in November 1999 and updated in 2020, provides the quantitative measurement of the acceptable quality of a product. AQL faults are then divided into three sections – minor, major and critical faults. Minor defects have an AQL of four percent, major defects are at 2.5%, and critical defects have an AQL of zero percent.
AQL standards, however, vary by industry. Because of this, certain products may be shipped to the world with some defects due to the standards met at a production level to allow that product to be seen at retail. Hypothetically, out of 1,000 graphics cards sold, a total of ten are capable of being defective before a company has to step in and pull the line off the shelves, offering a 100% RMA and more because of what’s called “quality of rejectable”. level”, or RQL.
AMD stating that a small amount of graphics cards sold are defective may be based on the initial numbers that the company has reported as being produced. Prior to AMD’s launch of the RX 7900 XTX, the company was said to have produced 200,000 units. Using the AQL standard and the industry standard for defects being one percent, two thousand units would have to be shown as defective before the company would step in and initiate a recall. Igor Wallossek, who has been in the industry much longer than this writer, states that the quality assurance number of AVC (Asia Vital Components Co, Ltd.) is “10,000 units”, which is five times more than he estimated this writer. Again, I’m not an industry professional, but a reporter who writes about malfunctions and more for this news organization.
Igor Wallossek goes into more detail about this topic, and you should read his analysis of the matter on his website.
The underlying message being put across by some sources is that the quality of the products being shipped to consumers is a problem. We all want products to work as intended when they are sold off the shelf, and we don’t want to jump through a few hoops because the product never worked properly before shipping.
News sources: PC World on YouTube, Igor’s Lab, Investopedia, ISO
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