A) Highly unlikely to make the difference. A better binned chip doesn't make driver features start working. Unless there was a microcode update that only their GPU received (also unlikely), i don't think this is related.
I'm not even trying to argue possibilities. I'm trying to understand why 1 reviewer had such success when two other reviewers stated they couldn't even get Wattman to accept changes. So if it isn't a software issue, then it's a hardware issue. Again, I posted the Der8auer video because he clearly shows raising the power limit did nothing to power draw. I wish he showed his attempt at undervolting, but he reported essentially the same - it did nothing.
EDIT: Just want to point out that just about every reviewer I came across that got OC'ing to work successfully said it was through the Auto OC function, not manual tuning.
B) Not likely. Review samples are either sent with the driver to use in the box, or (more often now) the reviewers are given a press only link to download the driver. It's possible there was an update to the initial review driver that smoothed things out but only computerbase listed the actual driver revision (gamersnexus and techspot did not as far as I can tell). So if there was an update, then why did the others having issues not install it?
Jayz2Cents and GamerNexus but indicated they contacted AMD. AMD responded to both with similar responses (taking their story at face value). However, Jayz2cents stated he got a different driver to test. He didn't want to show the results since it wasn't the press driver but stated it had improved stability. I hope he goes into it with another video or someone else comments more if they got different drivers directly from AMD.
C) Noise is a pretty hard one to mess up like this, especially when power readings correlate your findings as well as performance numbers (for the oc, they did see performance improve).
We've seen lots of weird issues coming from the driver set in AMD. Instances where the clocks were wrong, the system timer was wrong, etc. To just instantly disregard a history of issues is kind of weird. We've seen timer issues result in higher clocks, higher scores, and NO changes to power or noise. And these issues were found in configurations that worked far better than what is being reported for these cards.
I would suggest
D) Software, especially on Windows, is difficult to get right across the vast hardware and software options of all possible users. Sometimes something as simple as having certain versions of Windows patches or having a sound card installed can break something you're trying to do with your device. It's quite possible that the driver is still in early stages of development with how it interacts with Windows and so there's a, "luck of the draw" type of scenario where sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't depending on the Windows environment.
Doesn't this sort of invalidate even your explanation? If software is capable of causing some of the issues being reported. Reading over the Computerbase review, they barely hint at ANY issues. I saw the same with Anandtech. Yet, just about every vblogger I watched today had a laundry list of issues. Issues that caused a lot of them to slap disclaimers on their videos along the lines of "We will test more games when better drivers are released" to "please check other sources to confirm our issues."
I try not to ever put pedigree on the table, but when a reviewer who's known for world records states they can't undervolt the card, it holds some weight to me.
No matter what the cause, hopefully it gets fixed soon for those who supported AMD with a day 1 purchase of their flagship gaming GPU. OG Vega changed how it handled API calls from Polaris and was pretty buggy at first too, but was by and large fixed after 1 - 2 months I'd say. We'll see how long it takes. I know at least a couple people on this forum purchased one so we'll have to see what their experiences are when they get the cards.
I'd love to see someone get a retail version for review. Interesting to see what end users will get, reviewers seem to be for most of the cases in the same place with some odd outliers. I won't write anything off, of course. I'll wait for more data. But as far as I'm concerned, under/over clock results should be taken with grains of salts. There is just too many inconsistencies.
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