Graphics Cards

[APmech]

Coil whine has been driving me nuts ever since I switched from Nvidia to AMD.  At first I thought it was the 6800XT until I got a 6950XT and it did the same thing.  Both made my EVGA Supernova 1000 G+ psu squeal like a pig. The noise was definitely coming from the psu, so I finally bit the bullet and bought an Antec Signature SP1300W psu.  Life is good again, no more squealing and buzzing.  

[hrpuffnstuff]

Have you contacted EVGA about the coil whine? I have Supernova G3 1300 and it quietly handles my AIB 6900 XT at 300w draw and then some.

[APmech · Accepted solution]

No I haven't but I'm going to soon.  Mine is a different model than yours and doing some research it seems others have the same issues.  Probably a crap shoot with any brand...  If I can I'll get an exchanged unit from EVGA and then sell it.

[hrpuffnstuff]

I was running an Enermax Platimax 1350w ps and I started having issues with my 6900 xt.  Turns out that once I looked at the 12v rail diagram closely I noticed that they paired two pcie 12v output plugs to each rail which was the source of my power problem.

Once I separated them to different rails and offloaded my other peripherals to the non gpu rails my card stabilized so I will always seek a PS that has individual rails for each pcie power connector.  Now that the new pcie power standard exists that probably won't be a problem again.

[Axton]

I also got a 6950XT in May this year and I notice that certain games are much worse than others. Dying Light 2 for example, in DX12 mode with some raytracing on gives horrendous coil whine.  Turning off raytracing doesn't improve it that much.  But when I run Saints Row (from AMD Raise the Game) in DX12 mode it's quite, just like DL2 in DX11 mode.

So knowing that I never suspected my power supply, it's a 850w Seasonic but I force frame cap to 60 in the driver and vsync in all my games so when I check on screen metrics the power draw is very low.  I blame the gpu.

Is coil whine a valid reason to RMA a gpu?