According to Tom’s Hardware, Hartung purchased four reference Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards to get to the root of the problem. He discovered that a horizontal installation contributed to improving temperatures. The orientation yielded improvement up to 20 degrees Celsius. The graphics cards exhibited the same thermal throttling after a minute of the burn-in test. So while a horizontal position makes the Radeon RX 7900 XTX run cooler and quieter, the overheating problem was inevitable.

Hartung thinks the mounting position is just one reason the RX 7900 gets too hot. Some "blokes on the Internet" insist that the problem is caused by the weight of the cooler others think it is something to do with the card’s orientation. Hartung designed a custom stand to dispel both theories. He removed the support bracket from the graphics card and shaved off a few millimetres of the stand-offs to test mounting pressure. However, his efforts were unsuccessful.

His idea of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX having a faulty vapour chamber had legs. In his testing, Hartung rotated the graphics card and observed that the temperature had substantially increased, but turning it to its original position didn't help bring down the temperatures.

The tiggered vapour chamber might be a design problem or an issue with the choice of materials used in its fabrication. His theory is that the vapour chamber liquid is facing circulation problems after condensation. The root of the problem could be inadequate pressure or a liquid deficiency inside the vapour chamber.

AMD has admitted that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards have overheating problems but has not provided any solutions. It does not seem to affect all Radeon RX 7900 XTX samples but might be worse than Nvidia’s 16-pin power connector fiasco, for which AMD justifiably mocked the jolly green vengeance daemon.

If Hartung's conjecture proves valid. AMD may have to recall its reference Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics cards.