Live with Coil Whine or change cards? 7870 XT

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Potato13

Potato13

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May 30, 2012
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Hi guys,

I bought a 7870 XT on Friday and I'm loving the fact that I can play Crysis 3 and all of these other games very nicely but there is one problem. Whenever I load any game, there is a buzzing noise.

I can eliminate this noise by dropping my GPU clock to 500 mhz and it does not occur on games like Minecraft. Sometimes it even stops when I pause the game. As soon as I resume, it's back. Same thing with minimizing. My research tells me that this is coil whine which is harmless. The noise is very annoying for something that I spent so much money on. Should I go return my card? If so, should I try another 7870 XT or a new card? Also does anyone have a solution? I really like this card. :(

Here is my build:

Zalman Z9 Plus
Corsair CX 500
Samsung 840 Series 120 GB SSD
Seagate I TB HDD
Kingston HyperX 8 GB DDR3 1600 Ram (2x4)
i5 3470 w/ stock cooler
Gigabyte B75M-D3H
Sapphire 7870 XT

Thanks.
 
Solution
ingtar33
In the end, it's your cash. If I spent 240 on a gpu i would at least try an exchange to see if the new card kills the coil whine. But that's me. If 240 bucks isn't huge money to you, or the inconvenience of the drive is too much, then perhaps the noise isn't that big of a bother after all.
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ingtar33

ingtar33

Glorious
Dec 17, 2012
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yeah... coil whine is a known issue with the Tahiti core on the Xt... some 7950s and 7970s and even their brand new $1000 7990 suffer it as well (they all use the Tahiti gpu). Toms just got into the coil whine issue with the new 7990 (it was apparently significant on the card they got).

No video card company will take a refund for coil whine... but from what i've read on the issue turning on Vsync eliminates it completely.

coil whine is caused by certain ceramic parts harmonizing with the frequency of the electricity running through them... and is sorta random... as in there is no promise any one special hd 7870xt/7950/7970/7990 card not suffering it. Its a low reported problem largely due to the fact that typically the cooling devices on those cards are loud enough to drown it out, and on the cards which have quiet enough cooling to hear it, it's a seemingly random issue.

here is Tom's explanation of the issue via an AMD tech...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7990-review-benchmark,3486-2.html
"AMD explained it to me as an artifact of oscillation between heavy and light workloads, where current draw spikes and dips, causing ceramic capacitors and the PCB itself to vibrate...
...The volume and tone of this phenomenon vary according to the task you’re performing, but it was noticeable enough during our real-world game testing with Bakersfield-based volunteers that several asked me to explain what was happening.

The solution is to turn on v-sync, capping the frame rate and preventing those highly variable loads."
Click to expand...
 
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Potato13

Potato13

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May 30, 2012
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Is that really the solution? I play with V-Sync on Saints Row: The Third as well as on Crysis 3 and I use the frame cap option if it's there in other games but there is no difference. Maybe a slight reduction. I get this coil whine all the time while playing games. Except in the menus of some games. I'm going to try to return it. So you guys think that other 7870 XT's will have the same problem?
 
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Potato13

Potato13

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May 30, 2012
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bump. V-Synce and frame-caps don't fix it for me. Anyone have some alternative solutions? Will all 7870 XT's I buy have the same issue? Is it worth dropping to a 660 OC? (Ti is too expensive)
 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

Glorious
Dec 17, 2012
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not all will have it, it literally is a "chance event"... that said its an issue across all Tahiti core gpus regardless of manufacturer... i've got no numbers to back it up, but from my own experience with tahiti core gpus, it seems to be a low number of them that suffer this (think 10%-20%).

if you can get an exchange for the card the chances are fairly good that you will get a new one without the problem.

as to this being an unacceptible issue... i'd say its more like a very random and extremely unlikely issue that just happened to afflict this series of chips due to a mix of the right power and frequencies with just the right "make" of ceramic parts and silicone board... since coil whine effects all sorts of electronic parts from psus, to motherboards to nvidia gpus (yes, there have been and likely will be in the future nvidia gpus with this problem as well) its obviously not a predictable event, and clearly the tahiti core just happens to be crouching on a pure chance confluence of effects to make this problem more endemic in its series then usually is the case.

and a 660 will underperform even a "standard" HD 7870
 
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Potato13

Potato13

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May 30, 2012
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Well I still have not decided what to do. It's really not that bad and I have been living with it for a few days. I don't want to go through the hassle of driving there and getting an exchange. I think I should just live with it. What do you think?

 
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ingtar33

ingtar33

Glorious
Dec 17, 2012
9,024
213
46,040
In the end, it's your cash. If I spent 240 on a gpu i would at least try an exchange to see if the new card kills the coil whine. But that's me. If 240 bucks isn't huge money to you, or the inconvenience of the drive is too much, then perhaps the noise isn't that big of a bother after all.
 
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Solution
Potato13

Potato13

Honorable
May 30, 2012
139
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Ok. I will go and try once just because I'm going to have this card for a long time. Thanks for helping me decide.

 
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