According to the video of gamers nexus, AMD’s reference RX 7900 XTX features a unique ambient temperature sensor that can measure the air inlet temperature where the GPU enters the cooler directly. I’m not sure why AMD added this sensor to their card, but it could be very useful.
Having an ambient temperature sensor inside the GPU cooler has several advantages. Gamers Nexus says one of the most important benefits is monitoring the ambient temperature when the fan is off (0db mode) to prevent his PCB components on the card from overheating .
Gamers Nexus went on to say that this exact issue was with EVGA’s GTX 10 series graphics cards before the introduction of ICX coolers. His 0db mode on the card caused some of the power delivery components to accidentally overheat and die prematurely. As a result, EVGA recalled these cards and eventually replaced them with his ICX coolers with additional thermal sensors.
However, it should be noted that this is a one-off ordeal and nearly all cards on the market today have a zero RPM fan mode and have coolers designed to take advantage of that feature. Worth it.
For the 7900 XTX, AMD probably added this sensor as an extra security measure. This is in case some of the PCB components get too hot while the GPU core is still cool enough to keep the fan off. You can start a fan curve of , keeping your PCB components cool while running the fan at a very low RPM.
I hope AMD will give end users access to this sensor within the Adrenaline Control Panel (and 3rd party applications) as it can be useful in some scenarios, not just for cooling the card. increase. For example, ambient sensors can be used to measure the actual ambient temperature of the entire system to monitor and troubleshoot high temperatures in other components and chassis fan failures.
Unfortunately, AMD neglected to share why they added this sensor to their reference card, so we can only guess. However, if we get an official comment from AMD, we will update the details here.
