ASUS 670 TOP Issues

[njdevilsfan87]

My card doesn't seem to stable out the box. It boosts to 1241, which is great, but I get driver disconnects when running Unigine and 3DMark11. It's very random in it may happen after 2 minutes, or it may not happen for 20 minutes. But it does happen. Browsing overclock.net, it seems like this is actually a somewhat common issue. Underclocking the card a little bit seem to solve the problem, but this is not what I paid for. So it seems like ASUS did not test their TOPs extensively enough. NE reviews are also off to a very poor start with 3 of the 7 reviews being 1/5.

ASUS can take back my card and properly rebrand it as a non-top and place it back on the market for $10 less.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Rma

 

[Trizzay]

Isn't the advertised boost only 1137? I mean it sucks that they did a terrible job of testing and it's not working out of the box, so that on it's own warrants an RMA if you want.

 

[Don Karnage]

My card doesn't seem to stable out the box. It boosts to 1241, which is great, but I get driver disconnects when running Unigine and 3DMark11. It's very random in it may happen after 2 minutes, or it may not happen for 20 minutes. But it does happen. Browsing overclock.net, it seems like this is actually a somewhat common issue. Underclocking the card a little bit seem to solve the problem, but this is not what I paid for. So it seems like ASUS did not test their TOPs extensively enough. NE reviews are also off to a very poor start with 3 of the 7 reviews being 1/5.

ASUS can take back my card and properly rebrand it as a non-top and place it back on the market for $10 less.

Flash to the vanilla asus bios and see if the driver crashes stop

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Isn't the advertised boost only 1137? I mean it sucks that they did a terrible job of testing and it's not working out of the box, so that on it's own warrants an RMA if you want.

I don't know exactly how this whole boost thing works, but I was under the impression it was 1137 (max advertised) + "Kepler Boost". I thought it was the reason why my MSI reference boosts up to 1137 or so even though it's max advertised it 1045, and the reason why my ASUS boosts up to 1241 with a max advertised of 1137. This what was what from what I understood, varied from card to card.

I really wish this boost thing could just be disabled. It's not "free performance" when I could have just done that myself manually. It just complicates things.

 

[Axon]

Nah, boosts up to 1137 - the 1137 clock speed is the Kepler boost. Anything above those clocks is considered overclocking. I don't know why people are wigging out about it; the TPU review made it clear that they could only hit an 1100mhz base overclock (5% overclock) with stability. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_II/31.html

 

[toyota]

base clock is the clock that the card will run at in worst case scenario such as it being hot. advertised boost clock is the typical clock you will see under normal conditions. under favorable conditions the boost clock will actually go higher as long as it stays under its heat threshold and/or TDP rating. my card is advertise with 1084 boost but will hit 1189 if below 70 C and 1176 if over 70 C up to 79 C. thats right out of the box without adjusting anything.

 

[Trizzay]

So basically it sounds like the cards perform as expected, but the problem is Asus overclocked them too far which is resulting in the instability?

I'm asking because mine is set to arrive today. What is the easiest way to test the out of box clock speeds....with Heaven and Afterburner?

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Flash to the vanilla asus bios and see if the driver crashes stop

I will try this, but because I've noticed that my card is completely unresponsive to the power control target setting. It runs between 87-97% stock (mostly between 90-95%), and that is at stock 100%. If I try to pushing that up, it does nothing to increase the power control target. Maybe that extra 5-10% is what I need to be stable at "stock". Others have reported power controls of above 100%.

Anyone have a TOP or Vanilla bios for me?

Edit : Trizzay - yes, Heaven and AB. You can use the OCD (on screen display) or Logitech LCD (if you have one) to watch the clocks live. And then just let Heaven loop.

 

[Termie]

This doesn't suprise me one bit. Everyone who thought getting a TOP card would automatically mean huge boost is in for a surprise - cooling and board power really doesn't have much to do with stability at boost, although it could enable higher overall boost by keeping the GPU under 70C.

The truth of the matter is that the 670 chips are all over the place, and a 1241 boost is already above the max boost that probably half of chips are capable of. So unless Asus did some binning, that's a recipe for some RMAs.

I think manufacturers are still struggling to figure out how to handle Kepler. It is very complicated from an OC standpoint, and even a marketing standpoint. The advertised boost is the minimum boost you could possibly get, and in essence you should never be that low. Worse yet, the core clock is completely meaningless - the card will never run at core clock unless it's playing a very old game with very little load. What really counts is max boost, and this will be what distinguishes the good chips from the bad ones, and no amount of messing with the PCB or fan is going to make a poor boosting chip more stable at high boost.

By the way, according to my testing, Toyota isn't quite right about the various clocks. Let me put it simply:

(1) Core clock - i.e. 915 for a stock card - the clock that a card will run at under a low 3D load, such as an old game (I tested Age of Empires III to illustrate this).
(2) Advertised boost clock - i.e. 980 for a stock card - the clock that a card will run at in a worst case scenario of high temps (>80C) and running in excess of TDP. I have never seen this clock in practice.
(3) Max boost clock - between 1058 and 1110 for a stock card, depending on the quality of the chip - the clock that the card will run at under heavy 3D load in a best case scenario (<70C, within power limits).

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I got one of the non-TOP cards and have not had any issues whatsoever. My card boosts up to ~1080. Granted, it's been running for just a day, but I've run a few tests and it sounds like most of the people with problematic cards experience issues right away.

When I posted about whether to get the TOP or not, someone chimed in that he'd witnessed the Asus binning ("TOP quality control") process and wasn't too impressed. It seems he was right!

So far I really like my card. It's the most I've ever spent on a GPU, but the build quality/fit and finish are really a cut above. And it's comparable in noise level to the Arctic TTII I had running on my previous card--impressive.

 

[Don Karnage]

I got one of the non-TOP cards and have not had any issues whatsoever. My card boosts up to ~1080. Granted, it's been running for just a day, but I've run a few tests and it sounds like most of the people with problematic cards experience issues right away.

When I posted about whether to get the TOP or not, someone chimed in that he'd witnessed the Asus binning ("TOP quality control") process and wasn't too impressed. It seems he was right!

So far I really like my card. It's the most I've ever spent on a GPU, but the build quality/fit and finish are really a cut above. And it's comparable in noise level to the Arctic TTII I had running on my previous card--impressive.

Could you save your bios via gpuz and send it to me?

 

[xp0c]

I've read over on the Nvidia forum, that Asus will be issuing a bios update to lower boost speed. After hitting 1200Mhz+ they become unstable.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Could you save your bios via gpuz and send it to me?

Sure, just PM me your e-mail address and I'll send it this evening.

 

[JAG87]

Sorry dude

I warned about this:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33500718&postcount=9

 

[Zebo]

When I read TPUs review this seemed like the 670 card to get. May have to start recommending the Gigabyte which is on GTX 680 board from now on. It's ugly but ppl seem very happy @ NE.

RMA it dude.

Maybe it true TANSTAAFL. Super quiet and highest 670 clocker? I think not.

 

[njdevilsfan87]

Sorry dude

I warned about this:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33500718&postcount=9

You warned about it on the 29th, except I placed my order for one on the 24th.

It's annoying because my card is "almost stable" at stock. And I canceled my $400 Gigabyte at Amazon to get this too. I'm not going to be double checking before I game, or monitor my clocks while I am playing to make sure it's down-clocked into a stable range - my main reason that this will go back unless a bios flash can miraculously fix this.

 

[JAG87]

You warned about it on the 29th, except I placed my order for one on the 24th.

It's annoying because my card is "almost stable" at stock. And I canceled my $400 Gigabyte at Amazon to get this too. I'm not going to be double checking before I game, or monitor my clocks while I am playing to make sure it's down-clocked into a stable range - my main reason that this will go back unless a bios flash can miraculously fix this.

Sorry to hear, I also ordered on the 24th. I posted on the 29th because that's when I got my cards too.

Don't flash it, I wouldn't deal with that bother. Definitely return or exchange the card.

 

[exar333]

I've read over on the Nvidia forum, that Asus will be issuing a bios update to lower boost speed. After hitting 1200Mhz+ they become unstable.

That sux....my card boosts over 1200 and works fine.

Edit: I do hit a wall though with tesselation running at high levels of about 1230 boost. I had to back down 15mhz and it was rock-solid. 1230 will crash every time...

 

[Khato]

I think manufacturers are still struggling to figure out how to handle Kepler.

Exactly. I bet that what's happening here is that Asus' QA process for the TOP versions isn't hitting the max boost clock. Namely if they are using an actual torture test to validate then the card won't be running at the max boost clock, and at that frequency it may well be perfectly stable. The problem being that operation at the max boost clock would then be completely missed, and I can easily see that being the case here.

 

[blackened23]

Nah, boosts up to 1137 - the 1137 clock speed is the Kepler boost. Anything above those clocks is considered overclocking. I don't know why people are wigging out about it; the TPU review made it clear that they could only hit an 1100mhz base overclock (5% overclock) with stability. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_II/31.html

Understand that every card has a different boost speed out of the box. Even though specs may list "X" mhz as the boost speed, the asic quality of the chip determines the boost speed out of the box.

He is not overclocking. Again, every card has a different boost out of the box - the 1137 is guaranteed but they all vary. Apparently asus isn't adequately QA testing these.

 

[chimaxi83]

Could you save your bios via gpuz and send it to me?

I don't think you can do it with GPU-Z right now. Both my 680's have given me "BIOS reading not supported on this device" errors. Had to do it manually in DOS with NVFLASH.

 

[BD231]

The only issue is power, there simply isn't enough to get the higher clocks you guys want and sadly there are likely chips out there that could use a lot more juice. The higher quality chips will run higher clocks at lower voltages but if you get a lower quality chip the lack of voltage control will absolutely kill your chance's at a high OC. No more forcing juice into a crap chip for big gains, nVidia put the hammer down on overclocking for both you and vendors alike. If you're getting artifacts but your card works fine at lower clocks it's likely just voltage starved any higher, just the way nVidia intended.

Asus has no special deal with nVidia, they're dealing with the same supply/voltage constraints we are so factory OC'd cards can't hold much of a premium this round. Short of the cooler you're getting the same thing, or in this case you're witnessing vendors being locked out of selling highly OC'd chips. It makes sense though as 28nm scales RIDICULOUSLY well, nVidia will be milking this process for all it's worth.

 

[SickBeast]

This is now the *third* factory overclocked card that I've heard issues about over the past few days. It makes me very wary and just reinforces the fact to me that people should just manually overclock themselves. They're obviously not properly testing the cards at these speeds and just assuming that all the chips will run at that speed, which is not true.

 

[tviceman]

Glad I am waiting to buy one of these. I want to see the (eventual) msi twin frozr gtx 670 compared to the asus dc2 670.