Question Annoying Coil Whine on RX 6800 XT (probably the PSU) ?

[Pessutic]

The other day i bought a used PowerColor Red Devil RX 6800 XT. When playing games, especially at high frame rates and in game menus i hear a coil wine coming from my GPU and it's really annoying. I tried lowering the voltage to 1060mV and capping the frame rate to 140fps (bellow my monitor native refresh rate) and the noise does get lower but i can still hear it to the point of it annoying me just enough. The only culprit for this problem can be my PSU which is Chieftec ECO 700W GPE-700S

https://www.chieftec.eu/products-detail/118/ECO_SERIES/122/GPE-700S

It's an European PSU that focuses on power efficiency and saving energy and it's a brand that hardly any Americans have even heard of.
I was thinking of buying a new more expensive PSU like the Corsair RM850e, which is not only Fully-Modular, but also has two different PCI-E cables unlike mine which only came with one. I've heard people saying that plugging two (6+2) pins from two different PCI-E cables does help with lowering coil whine noise.

Also on the PowerColor website it does say that the "Minimum Recommended PSU" for their RX 6800 XT is 850W. So it's maybe mine fault for not talking that seriously.

So, what are your thoughts? I don't want to end up buying a 100$ more expensive PSU just to have the same coil whine noise again. That's why i need yours reassurance!

The rest of my specs:
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600
MB: MSI B450 Gaming Plus Max
RAM: HyperX Predator 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200
PSU: Chieftec ECO 700W GPE-700S

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Is this your GPU:
https://www.powercolor.com/product?id=1606210302#spe
?
If so, scroll down to specifications of the GPU and you should see what the PSU's requirements are fop that discrete GPU.

That is not a unit I would call a PSU, let alone a reliably built unit. Might want to source a unit that's reliably built and has at least 850W at your entire system's disposal. I would source an unit off a friend or neighbor before investing in a good unit.

 

[Mahisse]

If you can test the GPU in another system with a better PSU to rule out it's not just the card. Could just be the card, and you got a bit unlucky

 

[Avro Arrow]

That's not a European PSU, it's a cheap Chinese PSU. I can tell by the scammy badge here in your PSU's webpage:

It's trying to appear like it's 80+Bronze-Certified when it isn't. Seeing stuff like this makes me question the validity of the entire product. I have no belief that there's anything "Eco" about that PSU either.

Turns out I was right about the PSU:
"With our manufacturing plants located in Asia (China and Taiwan), we cover the entire production scope beginning with the in-house R&D, including the final assembling and ending with product distribution, marketing and positioning in the respective markets, segments and channels worldwide."
For this statement to be considered legally factual, they only need to have one PSU made in Taiwan because they put China before Taiwan so China is the principal source. That doesn't automatically make it bad but PSUs that are actually good don't use misleading badges like the one I posted above because actually good PSUs don't need to.

If your PSU was of decent quality, it would have a real 80+Bronze badge instead of a fake one and it would look like this:

The fact that this Chieftec company uses that fake badge means that your PSU can't even meet the required specification of the most basic 80+Certification, let alone Bronze.

You should get a new PSU, preferably from a reputable brand that people recognise, one that actually has a real 80+ rating. I say this because many reputable brand-names make substandard PSUs like the EVGA N1 or the Thermaltake TR2. These PSUs do not have 80+ certifications and that is always a red flag for me.

So, if I were you, I would look for names like Antec, BeQuiet!, CoolerMaster, Corsair, EVGA, FSP, Gigabyte, SeaSonic, Silverstone, Super Flower or Thermaltake. Also, I would only consider models that are certified to be 80+Bronze or 80+Gold. There are 80+Platinum and 80+Titanium models that are actually a higher certification but those tend to be extremely pricey for what you get and aren't really worth the extra money over an 80+Bronze or 80+Gold.

If you ever see something like this again:

Don't walk away, run.

 

[--SID--]

Chieftec ECO 700W GPE-700S

Even for a group regulated unit this is a really bad PSU. It can't handle any dynamic load and powerspike at all. You have to replace it.

I was thinking of buying a new more expensive PSU like the Corsair RM850e

Good choice if you like an entry level Gold unit with an annoying fan noise.

 

[35below0]

Perhaphs the OP somehow mixed up Kolink and Chieftec.

Chieftec is a known brand in Europe, and that is the only nice thing to say about it.
Known for cheap products, or "value" if you like. They might offer something that looks nice, or even have a decent model somewhere. But 99% of Chieftec stuff is rubbish packed into prebuilts, or bought by clueless shoppers on a budget.

 

[busch_hawg]

Just got a 6800XT myself(Asus TUF edition) and had that exact same horrendous whine. Apparently they all do this. I have a Corsair CX750m PSU. The only thing PSU-wise that is important(in combination with a quality brand) is making sure you have your two 8-pin PCI-e cables on SEPARATE rails, NOT daisy chained. However, this didn't make any difference for my coil whine, but it is an important thing a lot of people don't know.

What did help my coil whine was I read in a thread that if you let the card run on a high fps benchmark for "a couple of hours", that it would help the spinning wires inside the coil "break in" and reduce the whine. Sounds a little like redneck engineering, but as a redneck, I know sometimes that's just what you need.

I let mine run Unigen Heaven benchmark for like 20-30 minutes while I was in the shower. It's an old benchmark and the card was pushing like 200fps no problem(with AMD fluid frames. Basically try and set things to whatever you use in games and whatever makes the coil whine the loudes), and I'll be a son of a gun, when I got out of the shower, the whine was SIGNIFICANTLY better. It still whines a little bit but I don't even notice it now compared to how it was when I first installed the card.

TLDR; Make sure you're running 2 separate PCI-E cables from your PSU to your gpu, not daisy chain
Let the card run on a high FPS benchmark, something 140fps+ in your case, that makes the coil whine the loudest, for an extended period of time. Took 30 minutes for me but the original thread I found the tip on said 2 hours.