[SOLVED] Unstable factory overclock on my 6800 XT Red Dragon? Or what could it be?

[DexDacozed]

Hello everyone,

I recently got a 6800 XT Red Dragon, and on day one, it started hard crashing the PC in some applications, like TimeSpy and Metro Exodus. Some benchmarks it handled without crashing, like Heaven and Superposition. I hadn't overclocked the GPU.

I went to check in AMD Adrenaline what the GPU max clocks were set by default, and to my surprise, it was 2444 MHz. It always defaults to 2444 MHz, even after cleaning drivers with DDU and reinstalling or using AMD's factory settings.

Now, this is really weird, because when you go look at the specs for 6800 XT Red Dragon, the boost clock is supposed to be set at 2310 MHz by default. So I lowered the clocks manually to 2310 MHz and TimeSpy didn't crash anymore. (Metro Exodus still did, but that's only when forced to run on the extreme settings for ray tracing). I'm guessing the factory overclock they did at PowerColor is too much?

Do you guys think I should just return the card to the vendor? Or maybe there's a way to change the default setting of the GPU clock speeds? It's clearly not at all how it should be out of the box.

CPU: Intel i7-11700K
RAM: HyperX (4x8GB), DDR4 3200Mhz
MOBO: Asrock Z590 Pro4 ATX
PSU: Asus ROG-STRIX-750W, 80+ Gold

 

[Lutfij]

I recently got a 6800 XT Red Dragon
What GPU were you working with prior to the new one?

PSU: Asus ROG-STRIX-750W, 80+ Gold
How old is the PSU?

 

[DexDacozed]

I recently got a 6800 XT Red Dragon
What GPU were you working with prior to the new one?

PSU: Asus ROG-STRIX-750W, 80+ Gold
How old is the PSU?

The former GPU was ASUS 1080 Ti Rog Strix OC.
Unsure about the age of the PSU, but it was launched in 2020, so I'm guessing under 3 years. They sell it with a 10-year warranty.

 

[Chaos998]

Just recently bought that same card and noticed that as well, though my card did not crash, just ran rather warm at high loads.

So I just turned everything to manual and set the clock to 2300 min 2400 max, the voltage to 2050 and disabled 0 dB. No problem whatsoever.
Also always make sure to set max power usage to the maximum (+15% in this case).

 

[DexDacozed]

Just recently bought that same card and noticed that as well, though my card did not crash, just ran rather warm at high loads.

So I just turned everything to manual and set the clock to 2300 min 2400 max, the voltage to 2050 and disabled 0 dB. No problem whatsoever.
Also always make sure to set max power usage to the maximum (+15% in this case).

Voltage to 2050????

Anyway, I fixed it by using two different cables from the PSU. The card wasn't getting enough power for peaks.

 

[kerberos_20]

gpus overclock themselfs as long thermals/voltages/power draw is within specs
mine 6800 gaming x from msi (non XT) specs have this:
Boost: Up to 2155 MHz / Game: Up to 1925 MHz / Base: 1775 MHz
but like here in 3dmark it clearly shows higher clocks

Clock frequency 2,538 MHz (1,925 MHz)
Average clock frequency 2,476 MHz

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/35062583


gpu boosting above specification isnt issue, but if you get issues, you should RMA

 

[logainofhades]

The former GPU was ASUS 1080 Ti Rog Strix OC.
Unsure about the age of the PSU, but it was launched in 2020, so I'm guessing under 3 years. They sell it with a 10-year warranty.

Did you run DDU to delete old drivers, and then install the latest, from AMD? Are you using 2 separate PCI-E cables, or are you using a daisy chained connector, on a single cable?

 

[Avro Arrow]

I would definitely RMA the card because if it's causing problems now, they can only get worse over time. Cards with hardware issues should never be nursed, they should be replaced. That's what the warranty is for.

I actually kept my RX 5700 XT as a backup card specifically in case I ever have to RMA my RX 6800 XT. Now, I've had no problems in over a year and I don't think that I ever will but it's always nice to know that if anything goes wrong, my gaming PC will still work and will still be able to game, even if I do have to temporarily drop to 1080p from 2160p or 1440p until my RX 6800 XT gets back.

Being able to game at 1080p in any modern title is WAY better than having an essentially dead PC. It's why I always have a backup part for everything except SSDs (but I do have the data on the SSDs backed up on external HDDs).

I preach to everyone to not be so quick to sell off their older PC parts because they won't get much for them anyway and the day WILL come when they'll be glad that they kept it. It makes RMAs essentially painless.

 

[DexDacozed]

Thanks for the help guys, I forgot to mark this as solved. But as I mentioned before, the solution was:

"Anyway, I fixed it by using two different cables from the PSU. The card wasn't getting enough power for peaks." (or that's my best guess)