Monday, March 17th 2025
Non-OC XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT Mercury Lacks Vapor Chamber, Just Two 8-pin Inputs
XFX found itself in hot water over false marketing of its Radeon RX 9070 XT Mercury non-OC edition (part number: RX-97TMERCB9). This particular SKU is a slightly toned down version of the RX 9070 XT Mercury OC Gaming Edition (RX-97TRGBBB9), with a few obvious differences such as the lack of a factory overclock, and a fixed white LED lighting strip replacing RGB; but it turns out that XFX didn't highlight a few crucial differences in the product page and marketing materials of the non-OC card. Apparently, this card lacks the vapor chamber baseplate that the Mercury OC Gaming Edition card has. That's not all, while the OC version comes with a triple 8-pin PCIe power input configuration, the non-OC card has just two 8-pin PCIe power inputs. These two specs were part of the marketing and packaging materials of the card. The RX 9070 XT on its own is within the power spec of dual 8-pin + slot power (375 W), but the third 8-pin connector is found on many overclocked custom design cards by AMD board partners, increasing overclocking headroom of these cards.
XFX responded to angry owners of the non-OC cards on Reddit. In its first response, it admitted its mistake of advertising the card as coming with three 8-pin power inputs when it only came with two. In its next response, it admitted that the card comes with a vapor chamber-based cooling solution, and mentioned that the card instead has a solid nickel-plated copper baseplate for its cooler, paired with Honeywell PTM7950 thermal interface material—something that's very popular with AMD board partners. Besides the apology, XFX presented customers with a recourse—that they could reach out to the company's distributor NRInfo for help.
Source:
VideoCardz
XFX responded to angry owners of the non-OC cards on Reddit. In its first response, it admitted its mistake of advertising the card as coming with three 8-pin power inputs when it only came with two. In its next response, it admitted that the card comes with a vapor chamber-based cooling solution, and mentioned that the card instead has a solid nickel-plated copper baseplate for its cooler, paired with Honeywell PTM7950 thermal interface material—something that's very popular with AMD board partners. Besides the apology, XFX presented customers with a recourse—that they could reach out to the company's distributor NRInfo for help.
14 Comments on Non-OC XFX Radeon RX 9070 XT Mercury Lacks Vapor Chamber, Just Two 8-pin Inputs
Im assuming this issue is global as I can find NRinfo on AmazonUK as well. What a major slip up that was.
Anyway, this is a pretty serious screw-up. At least as Freedom said they're offering recourse to fix it.
It does sound shady but Im willing to give XFX the benefit of the doubt because they are XFX. It would be real dumb of them to attempt something stupid like this and try to get away with it. They didnt run away from Nvidia just so they can do something stupid like this with AMD. They have their reputation on the line.
Previous Merc 319 design was elegant, cool & quiet.
Now the two letters "OC" have a very important meaning.Elegant maybe, definitely don't like the design of the current gen, but the actual performance wasn't that great.
The Steel Legend, a card that typically went for less, outperformed it in the cooler comparison.
www.techpowerup.com/review/asrock-radeon-rx-7800-xt-steel-legend/37.html
XFX has been very "meh" the last generations. Sapphire too, but I get shot if I say that.
Not the worst by a long shot, but you can typically get better from other vendors.I'm not sure if "trying to make things right" exactly fits with "fight it out with your seller".
If they really try to make things right they offer to replace the card by themselves and clarify in the naming scheme.
Anything less is not the best intentions and this just sounds like an XFX rep who just has his heart in the right place.
... although the datasheet for XFX Quicksilver Radeon RX 9070 XT and XFX Swift Radeon RX 9070 XT claims to have a vabour chamber .... only the OC modell should have the vabour chamber. I think they refer to only the XFX Mercury Radeon RX 9070 XT OC.
They really wrote it too complicated in a german "schachtelsatz" this time for unknown reasons.
what I remember from reading that article yesterday, the cheap XFX crap with the wrong cooler only has two Power supply units connectors. the good ones with the vabour chamber have three power supply connectors. Their homepages are still wrong according to pcgh.
the initial posts also claims thatSummary: most likely xfx + oc in name + 8-pin PCIe power input configuration = should be a proper card with vabour chamber
Seems like they still do the same shady stuff.
All that explanation to say I'm giving XFX the benefit of the doubt on this one. /Lol
But same, even back when they made Nvidia GPUs. Always a clean track record. XFX's biggest issue for me is their propensity for marketing overload. They really fly off the handle there, gives a shady vibe even though they are legit.Yeeep, this right here. Sellers will be like "ok and". I would expect them to accept return and replacements directly.