Asus blames AMD for overheating ROG Strix RX 5700 Series cards

Taking an unexpected step for an OEM, Asus assigned blame for its overheating ROG STRIX 5700 series cards to AMD. In a notice posted on the ROG website, Asus claims that. at 30-40 PSI, AMD's guideline screw mounting pressure was far too low, reducing contact between the GPU and the cooling substrate.

Asus claimed that it identified 50-60 PSI as the optimal screw mounting pressure and that all ROG STRIX 5700 series cards shipped after January 2020 will have screws delivering this pressure. They also offered to install new mounting screws for users of existing ROG STRIX 5700 series cards.

Despite benefiting from the power and thermal advantages of moving to the 7nm process, a major criticism leveled at AMD around the RX 5700 family has been that these cards run hot. In our review of AMD's reference design, we noted that, while the card offered excellent performance, the cooling solution was just not up to the mark: the fans spun up very loud and overclocking was just not on the table. 

While AMD has most certainly upped efficiency with the RDNA architecture, existing Navi cards, especially the 5700 XT, run close to their limit right out of the box. We don't expect the new ROG STRIX screw mounts to offer revelatory increases in overclocking overhead. However, we believe this will ensure that existing cards run at spec, with limited throttling.