[Bit-Tech] Nvidia accused of crippling board partners' designs - Page 17

I've always liked NV might I might have to go AMD next time if they're going to go neonazi like this.

kinda sucks..since i hate amd(horrible horrible driver support)..and nvidia is doing this so now i have nowhere to go..

Have you actually been reading what I have been saying? You can get over 1400MHz on an EVGA 680 classified, and if that could be done by flashing the BIOS, it would be helpful, as the current cards only allow a small change when you unlock the BIOS.

I've seen people with their 570s voltage at 1.2 volts, whom I don't think had done hard mods.
Well, there's your problem. Considering that I was pretty much entirely talking about BIOS flashing, that doesn't at all relate to what I was saying.
Wow, that totally doesn't miss my point about that being a totally disproportionate response to the problem. If they do that, cards that are DOA will have to be payed for by the AIBs, despite never being overvolted, and that will obviously never happen.

My point summarized in a sentence: If they want to limit overvolting, they could just limit the stock BIOS and not honor the warranty on BIOS flashed cards, or even keep track of the BIOS, as just about every computer is connected to the internet, these days; the stance they have taken seems completely disproportionate to the actual severity of the issue, and will cause nothing good to happen to the end user.

With the GTX 500 series, there were a lot of complaints about "display driver stopped responding" (TDR in windows).
There were numerous threads about which nvidia drivers cause and do not cause TDR's.
I have used most of these allegedly bugged drivers with my GTX 580 and none of them caused a TDR.
Only TDR's I ever got were from unstable overclocks.

I tried to argue with people on OCN and other forums that the problem is a hardware problem, but too many people refuse to believe.
The Nvidia driver team was being slandered for hardware problems which they did not cause.

GTX 400 and 500 series cards gave manufacturers and end-users the freedom to easily control under/overvolting and under/overclocking.
Unfortunately, there was too much ignorance, carelessness, and abuse by overclockers and by card manufacturers.
Either with or without a warranty, nvidia's reputation does suffer when there are numerous complaints about nvidia cards, even if it is not Nvidia's fault.
Edited by Partol - 10/6/12 at 10:18pm

well, you keep repeating to me about "flashing bios voids warranty" while I was talking about overclocking a stock 600 series bios, hence my angry post, total misunderstanding on this one. and yeah I do not read carefully, because I am spending this day on playing Fallout:NV and just jumping out of game (or other tasks I do) to check for replies

I am not sure who is really missing the point here, either you or me. running 570 with 1.2V voltage requires either a modded software app or a BIOS unlock ad re-flash and in my understanding it DOES void the warranty if you tell that to vendor during RMA ... e.g. EVGA Precision X software allows max 1.13v on evga 570 while overclocking with their tools. I doubt they honor warranty on cards that were pumped with 1.20V vgpu unless someone lies about it and claims it went bad with max allowable 1.13v ...

600 series allows for overclocking within stock BIOS and as much I agree with you that 680 allows only for minor OC, it's totally not the case with 670 (they are much better clockers at same volts), to the point were a 670 can achieve higher performance than 680. I've seen 670 running above 1400MHz on unlocked voltage, same as I've seen 570 running nearly 1GHz, neither of those covered by warranty anymore.
to get the 600 more voltage than 1.17v one needs to void the warranty by flashing BIOS (1.21-1.24v is max I've seen), above that hardware mods are required.

My point is that I pretty much enjoy running my 670 with stock BIOS where it's rock solid stable even when running 150MHz faster (with max PT% and manual offsets) than it does on stock automatic settings (offsets zeroed out, PT 100%), and I don't care much about that potential +50MHz more with vmodded BIOS and higher (potentially harmful voltage in a long run) since it's a moot gain over stock abilities at a price of no warranty to end user...

600 series (know only about 670 & 680, not sure about other models) idle at 324MHz @ 0.9v and run normal non-intensive clocks at 915MHz with still 0.9v, while they can boost the speeds (depends on the unit) and voltage up to 1.17v (max allowable by stock BIOS) when needed - and that I consider a stock overvoltage (between 0.9v up to 1.17v) which is considered safe by nvidia engineers. people who really want to overvolt it higher will still do that for their ground-breaking records ...

to me if nvidia says that voltage over 1.17v is unsafe means that probably one can try a 1.21v for fun for a while (not daily running), but anything above that most likely quickly degrades a Kepler chip. I do not know what maximum overvoltage was allowed on 680 Classy, but there is not enough time passed to say how safe that was either, perhaps it became a problem already for Nvidia to cover something like that.

I really hate to bring this car industry example, but if a vendor customizes something to run like 50% (?) faster than a stock model then the vendor should be responsible for repairing potential issues rising from such modifications - and this is exactly like that with e.g. stock Mercedes AMG (Mercedes dealer will fix all engine issues under warranty) and Brabus tuner for Mercedes making those cars run even faster (Mercedes will void warranty and sent such driver back to Brabus if any engine issues show up). I see nothing wrong with such approach, really ...

that being said, I do not believe that someone buying an expensive card designed for overvolting and extreme overclocking would not try that ... why getting such an expensive product in first place? and why would nvidia want to pay for such failures while it's the vendor problem (they modified it allowing for such)? vendors will probably release new/revised unlocked models with overvolting abilities once they set a new price that is if they decide to go this route with no nvidia warranty to vendor.

Edited by feniks - 10/7/12 at 6:14pm

A GPU will always clock better with higher voltage, that's part of the nature of CPU design. I had to flash my 470s BIOS to get more than 1.087v (Maxes out at 1.212v now, which has been fine so far) so I can't RMA it now, why can't nVidia allow that? There's no good reason for it, especially since you'd want to have overhead in the VRM design anyway to account for aging.

yeah, I was thinking about it too and my only conclusion is that those Kepler chips start dying like flies with voltage high enough ... perhaps even 1.24v is not safe for them, idk ... would be nice if nvidia released some lab testing research on what the technical problem really is. I think it's not the temperature that kills Keplers, it's high voltage alone perhaps... or they cheap out on VRMs, not sure, but there is definitely something about it. Keplers are way different from old cards to compare with similar approach as in past, even overclocking of them is different (purely by offsets, no fixed clocks). time will tell what up with that.

Intel?

Current keplers are cheap mid range chips with cheap mid range PCBs sold at high-end prices.

I honestly think that the problem here is that GK104 cards were clocked way too high just so they could compete with AMDs cards. Smaller chips are much easier to keep cool with the extra volts so it's possible that upping the voltages really high might cause the chips to quickly degrade even though the temps wouldn't be so high. Just like it's easy to put way too much voltage into a 2500K without actually raising the temps that much if you have good cooling. With fermi you hit the temp walls first most of the time.

That said this just seems like normal Nvidia. Sure they make great chips but they've always been pretty uptight towards their AIBs. All in all, a lose - lose situation for consumers. I still want my GK110 and I've said that if needed I will hw vmod the thing to get high clocks but stuff like this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.