5 ms·

AMD originally stated that 110°C junction temps were normal, but seemed to back off that statement as more evidence Letting the marketing assholes control how

AMD originally stated that 110°C junction temps were normal, but seemed to back off that statement as more evidence Letting the marketing assholes control how you respond to a crisis is a great way to destroy your credibility forever.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
crote 4y ago
I think part of the issue is that silicon is intentionally being run increasingly hotter over the last few years. The temperature sensors have gotten good enough that the hardware can auto-boost right up to the physical limits. The card will essentially "overclock" itself until it either 1) hits a temperature limit, or 2) hits a power draw limit. A high temperature is indeed normal, and customer support / marketing is aware of this. You have to look at the power drawn to reach that temperature to determine if there is a cooling issue, but such technical details are probably lost on most low-level CS folks.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paulmd 4y ago
  yes, at 7nm and below you pretty much have to have runtime monitoring of the voltage/temperature microclimate across each core (CU or SMX) because it simply is not possible to validate that a given core will always be stable under a given operating regime. it is not possible to guarantee that the worst-case scenario of a very hot transistor (needs more power) that is in an area where voltage is drooping low and all the nearby transistors fire at once in a worst-case neighbor load will not result in switching times that are too slow and an incorrect output. the operating margin at 7nm and below is extremely slim and you just cannot get competitive clocks while guaranteeing that transistors will never be pushed out of their stability regime. And in computing, one in a million chance happens 1000 times a second. instead you actually design the chips to detect this and slow themselves down... that was the whole thing with "clock stretching" showing up on zen2. everyone has had to implement something similar, the chip watches itself and will either delay instructions or slow down clocks or something similar if the voltage/temperature is not going to allow the timing hotpath to converge inside the clock window. side effect is that now everyone is looking at "hotspots", but hotspots generally are significantly higher than the average, that's why you have to watch them. there is a much stronger "microclimate" where voltage can droop and temperatures can increase significantly between different regions of the chip. https://semiengineering.com/power-delivery-affecting-performance-at-7nm/ https://semiengineering.com/power-delivery-affecting-perform... also just very simply the density has been increasing faster than the power consumption has been decreasing (no more Dennard scaling) so overall the power (and thermal) density has been getting higher every time you shrink.
dhruvdh 4y ago
110-degree junction temperatures are indeed nothing to worry about, it's just the card shouldn't be throttling and reach these temperatures at these frequencies and power draw. When a new product is released, it is common for there to be a learning curve for support in terms of what is normal and what is not. They are not engineers. This is just an unfortunate coincidence - batches were tested in vertical orientation, which is normal for test benches, but most users use the card in horizontal orientation. Orientation affecting temperatures is unexpected and unintuitive, so this was missed. Cause is rumoured to be insufficient coolant in vapor chamber for affected batches. Please don't read too much into this low-effort rant. I don't blame the author, it's okay to be frustrated when a big purchase doesn't go their way, but if you have a large following you should be more mindful of your words.
- Sweepi 4y ago
  The cause is no longer a Rumor, there has been an official statement by AMD: “It all comes down to a small batch of our vapor chamber acually have an issue - not enough water.”
- jjulius 4y ago
  >This is just an unfortunate coincidence - batches were tested in vertical orientation, which is normal for test benches, but most users use the card in horizontal orientation. Why would you choose to test your product in a manner that is completely opposite from how most people would use it? Granted, I'm asking from a place of ignorance, but that just seems... dumb. I'd be curious to learn why my perspective might be wrong.
  - geerlingguy 4y ago
    Practically all the reviewers test these cards on test benches too, which masks the problem with the horizontal card orientation (thus nobody uncovered the issue in the initial reviews). Test benches are way more convenient than minitowers when you need to regularly swap components.
  - dhruvdh 4y ago
    Test benches are used for convenience. A proper case is too much effort to work with. Vapor chambers also rarely show up on GPUs, until recently.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

crote 4y ago

I think part of the issue is that silicon is intentionally being run increasingly hotter over the last few years. The temperature sensors have gotten good enough that the hardware can auto-boost right up to the physical limits. The card will essentially "overclock" itself until it either 1) hits a temperature limit, or 2) hits a power draw limit. A high temperature is indeed normal, and customer support / marketing is aware of this. You have to look at the power drawn to reach that temperature to determine if there is a cooling issue, but such technical details are probably lost on most low-level CS folks.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
paulmd 4y ago
yes, at 7nm and below you pretty much have to have runtime monitoring of the voltage/temperature microclimate across each core (CU or SMX) because it simply is not possible to validate that a given core will always be stable under a given operating regime. it is not possible to guarantee that the worst-case scenario of a very hot transistor (needs more power) that is in an area where voltage is drooping low and all the nearby transistors fire at once in a worst-case neighbor load will not result in switching times that are too slow and an incorrect output. the operating margin at 7nm and below is extremely slim and you just cannot get competitive clocks while guaranteeing that transistors will never be pushed out of their stability regime. And in computing, one in a million chance happens 1000 times a second. instead you actually design the chips to detect this and slow themselves down... that was the whole thing with "clock stretching" showing up on zen2. everyone has had to implement something similar, the chip watches itself and will either delay instructions or slow down clocks or something similar if the voltage/temperature is not going to allow the timing hotpath to converge inside the clock window. side effect is that now everyone is looking at "hotspots", but hotspots generally are significantly higher than the average, that's why you have to watch them. there is a much stronger "microclimate" where voltage can droop and temperatures can increase significantly between different regions of the chip. https://semiengineering.com/power-delivery-affecting-performance-at-7nm/ https://semiengineering.com/power-delivery-affecting-perform... also just very simply the density has been increasing faster than the power consumption has been decreasing (no more Dennard scaling) so overall the power (and thermal) density has been getting higher every time you shrink.

dhruvdh 4y ago

110-degree junction temperatures are indeed nothing to worry about, it's just the card shouldn't be throttling and reach these temperatures at these frequencies and power draw. When a new product is released, it is common for there to be a learning curve for support in terms of what is normal and what is not. They are not engineers. This is just an unfortunate coincidence - batches were tested in vertical orientation, which is normal for test benches, but most users use the card in horizontal orientation. Orientation affecting temperatures is unexpected and unintuitive, so this was missed. Cause is rumoured to be insufficient coolant in vapor chamber for affected batches. Please don't read too much into this low-effort rant. I don't blame the author, it's okay to be frustrated when a big purchase doesn't go their way, but if you have a large following you should be more mindful of your words.

Sweepi 4y ago
The cause is no longer a Rumor, there has been an official statement by AMD: “It all comes down to a small batch of our vapor chamber acually have an issue - not enough water.”
jjulius 4y ago
>This is just an unfortunate coincidence - batches were tested in vertical orientation, which is normal for test benches, but most users use the card in horizontal orientation. Why would you choose to test your product in a manner that is completely opposite from how most people would use it? Granted, I'm asking from a place of ignorance, but that just seems... dumb. I'd be curious to learn why my perspective might be wrong.
- geerlingguy 4y ago
  Practically all the reviewers test these cards on test benches too, which masks the problem with the horizontal card orientation (thus nobody uncovered the issue in the initial reviews). Test benches are way more convenient than minitowers when you need to regularly swap components.
- dhruvdh 4y ago
  Test benches are used for convenience. A proper case is too much effort to work with. Vapor chambers also rarely show up on GPUs, until recently.