AMD's Reference RX 7600 Card Doesn't Fit Some 6+2

Jun 28, 2023

A design oversight prevents some power connectors from being fully inserted.

AMD's RX 7600 reference design card seems to have a design fault that may affect some users, specifically preventing them from fully inserting the required 8-pin auxiliary power delivery connector. We didn't encounter issues running the card with our test systems and PSUs, but as noted by TechPowerUp, some 6+2-pin connectors may not fit due to the surrounding shroud.If you're looking to buy a "Made By AMD" (MBA) Radeon RX 7600 reference card, you should first confirm that your PSU connectors will fit. Worst-case, you could purchase an 8-pin extension cable, but those could ruin the aesthetics of your build. Don't mess up the chi, man!The root cause is a lack of clearance around the 8-pin connector on the card, with a small cut-out that may not accommodate some 6+2 pin connectors that come standard with most power supplies. The specific issue is the locking bump for those extra two pins, which could get blocked by the backplate, preventing full power connector insertion.

Lack of full insertion of the connector hasn't caused any "meltdowns" as far as we can tell, unlike NVIDIA and its RTX 4090 connectors. That's likely because AMD's RX 7600 design flaw means the power connector will either fit or it won't. Users should always ensure any power connector is fully inserted, and at least it's easy to visually confirm whether your 6+2 connector is correctly installed. In any case, a 165W GPU won't put as much strain on the power delivery subsystem, unlike the RTX 4090 with its 450W TDP.TechPowerUp! says that only 20% of the PCIe power connectors they possess were incompatible with the RX 7600 design, but it's hard to gauge how significant that is. In covering the issue, Igor's Lab said that NVIDIA PCAT power delivery cables (a tool used to measure power) may not fit. (Ours fit... barely, or at least close enough for testing purposes.) Native cables from Seasonic power supplies may be impacted as well.AMD plans to sell its reference MBA RX 7600 cards, though currently it's listed as coming soon. For now, these models have only been sent for reviews as far as we're aware. AMD could potentially fix the backplate's design for future manufacturing runs, but an interim fix would be to include an 8-pin extender with every purchase. If you plan to get an RX 7600 card and the issue affects you, hit up AMD's support channel — or just get a non-MBA model. At present, the company has not officially commented on the problem.

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Francisco Pires is a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware with a soft side for quantum computing.

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