Although AMD's new RX 480 graphics cards are doing rather well in reviews, comment threads and in the sales rankings, they're not perfect. One problem stems from the fact that seemingly at random times, some of the cards spike to 75w draw on both the 6pin power connector and the PCIExpress slot.
With some evidence from the likes of Anandtech showing this to be true, AMD has released a statement explaining its side of things:
"As you know, we continuously tune our GPUs in order to maximize their performance within their given power envelopes and the speed of the memory interface, which in this case is an unprecedented 8Gbps for GDDR5. Recently, we identified select scenarios where the tuning of some RX 480 boards was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust the GPU's tuning via software in order to resolve this issue. We are already testing a driver that implements a fix, and we will provide an update to the community on our progress on Tuesday, July 5."
So AMD has admitted that there is an issue with the graphics cards in some cases, so will be releasing a fix in short order. It sounds like the cards are running in the wrong power state at times, for some strange reason.
If not corrected, this could cause overheating issues or at the very least lower the life span of the hardware, which is not something gamers who just spent a couple of hundred dollars on a new GPU want to hear.
