AMD Outs Official Statement On R9 Fury X Pump Noise
AMD's Radeon Fury X lived up to its name by infuriating some buyers with a whistling and buzzing noise, but AMD is working on fixing the problem.
When the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X was released, there were a number of complaints from customers about a strange whistling noise topped off with a buzz. The result is that despite the fan on the radiator being quite silent, the card still wasn't entirely pleasant on the ears.
Our man Igor Wallosek did an in-depth analysis of the power consumption and noise of the Radeon R9 Fury X and came to the same conclusions. AMD gave him a statement, but it wasn't complete. We've since heard more from AMD, and here is the company's final statement on the subject matter:
We have received feedback that during open bench testing a small number of Fury X cards emit a sound from the high speed liquid cooling pump that, while not loud, is bothersome to some users. While the vast majority of initial Fury X owners report remarkably quiet operation, we take this feedback seriously, as AMD's mission is to always deliver the best possible experience to our Radeon customers. AMD Radeon R9 Fury X customers demand and deserve the best, so adjustments in the sound baffling adhesive compound were applied in the assembly of the high speed cooling pump to address the specific sound a few end users experienced as problematic. This improved the acoustic profile of the pump, and repeat testing shows the specific pitch/sound in question was largely reduced through adjustments to the sound-baffling adhesive compound in the pump. AMD will work with its graphic card partners to ensure the satisfaction of the small number of initial customers who observed this specific sound and experienced it as bothersome. AMD is confident that on-going production of Radeon R9 Fury X product reduces the specific sound in question, but this is also a highly subjective matter with wide differences in PC case builds and room acoustics. The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X radiator fan is near silent, and this makes any sound from the high-speed pump more noticeable to some end users, especially during open bench testing. Thus although the overall sound levels are remarkably low for an enthusiast product, AMD has worked to reduce the specific sound that some customers report as bothersome.
If you're an owner of a card with this noise, you're eligible to return it for a warranty claim. Of course, and as AMD mentioned above, it is possible that you have a card that makes the noise, but that it doesn't bother you because of the way your PC is set up. Perhaps you have an especially sound-dampening case, or you're running a number of loud case fans that drown the noise out.
Either way, AMD is working on the issue for future R9 Radeon Fury X cards, and if you're one of the affected buyers, it should just be a couple of simple steps to get the problem sorted out.
You can also read our full Fury X review here.
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
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Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
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Innocent_Bystander This statement reads like it was written by a first year Corporate Communications co-op.Reply -
BulkZerker Amd just can't win. Make a card run cool. "Urmagerd so noisey, muh nvidurs was so much more quiet!"Reply
Make the card quiet. "Urmahgerd so hawt, muh nvidurs ran so much cooler." Goes with water cooling using a cooler master....
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Yea I see where they goofed. GG AMD. -
Revan1 This statement reads like it was written by a first year Corporate Communications co-op.
Yah reading that whole statement made me sick to my stomach, AMD is complete garbage.
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Au_equus AMD is not willing to take 100% blame of a faulty product. This is reminiscent of Jobs telling iPhone users "you're holding it wrong," but Apple is sitting on 9 digits of cash and AMD is in debt to their eyeballs. IMHO, lack of maturity at AMD corporate and the complete lack of enthusiasm to better their products is what is putting them behind Intel and Nvidia. Huang and Cook can be arrogant, only because they can back it up technologically and financially. AMD corporate's arrogance is just an attempt to cover their complete inadequacies to compete. For the sake of Radeon products, I really hope someone buys them out and cleans house, otherwise we might see a slowdown in technological advancement of GPUs.Reply -
TechyInAZ Amd just can't win. Make a card run cool. "Urmagerd so noisey, muh nvidurs was so much more quiet!"
Make the card quiet. "Urmahgerd so hawt, muh nvidurs ran so much cooler." Goes with water cooling using a cooler master....
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Yea I see where they goofed. GG AMD.
Agreed, you can't have the best of both worlds. -
TallestJon96 Too bad that it can whine, because cooling and silence are the two greatest selling points over the 980tiReply -
Reaver192 It seems to me that amd is letting the same thing that happened to them with cpus happen with gpus. They are pushing that architecture to hard instead of refining it the way nvidia does. I like AMD and want them to catch up but that seems highly improbable on the cpu side and starting to become a problem on the gpus as well. They can probably stay competitive with nvidia but they necessary to step it up. HBM is cool and all but it seems that instead of improving the architecture being the focus, they are relying on others innovations to make up for their own inadequacies. I know they do not have the cash flow but they need a clear win somewhereReply -
Johnpombrio It's a water cooling pump stuffed inside a beautiful little resonating chamber. It is going to make noise no matter what AMD does to the pump. Then there is coil whine that many people are complaining about that so far has not gotten any response from AMD. I gave up on my closed water cooling CPU cooler. It was just too noisy. Not an ideal solution for AMD and an expensive one to boot.Reply