GeForce GTX 1070 needs urgent BIOS update

[Det0x]

Thought this was news worthy:

GeForce GTX 1070 users have been complaining that they are suffering from flickering and poor memory overclocking results on the memory sub-system.

The problems do not effect cards fitted with Samsung memory but manufacturers who switched towards Micron chips are probably regretting it.

Overclocking Micron graphics memory on the card makes the problems appear fast with things like checkerboard patterns appearing. However some users have spotted the occasional flickering or graphical artifacts when using the default setting.

According to Guru3D most manufactures are working on a BIOS firmware update for the graphics cards to increase voltage level of the GDDR5 memory.

EVGA, Gainward, and Palit have already issued updates. ASUS, Inno3D, KFA2/Galaxy, MSI, PNY and Zotac have not. Gigabyte did not use Micron memory.

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/41895-geforce-gtx-1070-needs-urgent-bios-update

...Multiple brands are and could be effected. Right now most of them are working on (or already issuing) a BIOS firmware update for the graphics cards, these BIOS updates likely increase the voltage level of the GDDR5 memory...

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/m...for-geforce-gtx-1070-due-to-memory-issue.html

The minor flaw list is getting longer:

Forth design flaw

https://forums.geforce.com/default/...ies/gtx-1080-high-dpc-latency-and-stuttering/

As I already had some experience with crackling sound on an old configuration of mine, I decided to check the DPC Latency with DPCLat (I am on Windows 7 x64 SP1). To my surprise, I found out that the DPC Latency is around 350-400us when the PC is idle and it is around 900us with spikes up to 1500us when in game or netflix. The stutter happens usually when the spikes occur. I checked the gpu usage and its temperature and all is well (99% usage, 85C peak temperature as per design), with no sign of throttling.

Third design flaw

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics...-work-htc-vive/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium

In another tale of hardware not quite working as expected, there are reports that the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 Display Port doesn't work with the HTC Vive virtual reality headset. Nvidia markets both the GTX 1080 and 1070 as offering "innovative new gaming technologies and breakthrough VR experiences," so to have this compatibility problem exist, with the best selling PC HMD, seems like a bit of a blunder.

Second design flaw

https://www.techpowerup.com/223669/geforce-gtx-pascal-faces-high-dvi-pixel-clock-booting-problems

The second design flaw to hit the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 after the fan revving bug, isn't confined to the reference "Founders Edition" cards, but affects all GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 cards. Users of monitors with dual-link DVI connectors are noticing problems in booting to Windows with pixel clocks set higher than 330 MHz. You can boot to windows at default pixel clocks, and when booted, set the refresh-rates (and conversely pixel clocks) higher than 330 MHz, and the display works fine, it's just that you can't boot with those settings, and will have to revert to default settings each time you shut down or restart your machine.

A user of a custom-design GTX 1070 notes that if the refresh rate of their 1440p monitor is set higher than 81 Hz (the highest refresh rate you can achieve with pixel clock staying under 330 MHz) and the resolution at 2560 x 1440, the machine doesn't correctly boot into Windows. The splash screen is replaced with flash color screens, and nothing beyond. The system BIOS screen appears correctly (because it runs at low resolutions). The problem is also said to be observed on a custom-design GTX 1080, and has been replicated by other users on the GeForce Forums.

First design flaw

https://www.techpowerup.com/222895/...edition-owners-complain-of-fan-revving-issues

VIDIA's decision to sell its reference-design GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card at a $100 premium over the SKU's MSRP of $599, is beginning develop cracks, with early adopters complaining of erratic default fan behavior. The GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphics card features NVIDIA's reference lateral-blower-type cooler, which didn't exactly blow us away, in our review of the card. Customers across the forumscape, including on NVIDIA's own GeForce Forums, are complaining of an issue where the fan of the cooler has a mind of its own, and revs up from 2,000 RPM to 3,000 RPM intermittently, and drops back to its idle speed. This, users complain, is particularly annoying if you're not gaming.

The users observe that these sudden and unpredictable spikes in fan-speed are not in response to rising GPU temperatures or clock speeds. Sudden variations in fan-speed are worse than gradual variations in response to legitimate triggers, as it also means sudden changes in noise, which is distracting. Users also observe that you can't even use third-party software (eg: EVGA Precision) to stabilize or override the fan-behavior, as the speed-spikes don't respect custom settings.

 

[LTC8K6]

Already have a thread:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/gtx-1070s-with-inferior-micron-vram.2489047/unread

 

[Det0x]

hmm okai, then this thread can be deleted

 

[Madpacket]

"Gigabyte did not use Micron memory."

Umm yes they do. At least my Gigabyte 1070 has Micron memory.

 

[Det0x]

"Gigabyte did not use Micron memory."

Umm yes they do. At least my Gigabyte 1070 has Micron memory.

Maybe they are in full damage mitigation mode

 

[balane]

My Gigabyte GTX 1070 has Micron memory as well.

 

[MangoX]

How can you check which memory you have?

 

[Bacon1]

How can you check which memory you have?

Use https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 

[nerp]

Bought my EVGA 1070 in the summer. Has Samsung memory. No problems at all with plenty of use. I think we're looking at a bad batch of cards and not a permanent massive design failure.

 

[wilds]

Would be nice to start a thread about Samsung and Micron overclocking. My Samsung memory overclocking stops scaling at 9.8 GHz but artifacts appear at 9.7 GHz. If the majority of Micron memory can do 9.4 GHz without artifacts than I consider that a non issue.

Memory overclocking is the most important factor for the 1070 at higher resolutions.

 

[RussianSensation]

Would be nice to start a thread about Samsung and Micron overclocking. My Samsung memory overclocking stops scaling at 9.8 GHz but artifacts appear at 9.7 GHz. If the majority of Micron memory can do 9.4 GHz without artifacts than I consider that a non issue.

Memory overclocking is the most important factor for the 1070 at higher resolutions.

9.4Ghz on Micron 1070? I would say almost 0 chance that's happening with current bios. Even your own Samsung overclock is higher than every review of 1070 I've read. Error correction on G5 memory means that even when the memory shows a higher overclock, the performance can decline. Just making sure you did check that?

Almost every thread I read has most Micron 1070 cards hittting 8400-8800mhz, with some users reporting artifacts even at stock speeds or with a minor 100-200mhz memory overclock.

One of my Micron ASUS Strix gets the checkered white board already at just 8800mhz. Stable at 8596 MHz (will test 8700 tomorrow). The GPU core goes to 2114mhz with 250 offset on stock voltage of 1.062V, and 112% power tune in AB. Will provide results for 2 more Micron Asus Strix 1070s this week. At the end of the day it's not that big of a deal since I got 3x 1070s for barely more $ than a single Asus Strix 1080. So I am OK with 7-10% less performance against full priced Samsung cards. Still, this is another turd for NV as right now it's very hard to buy Samsung-powered 1070s. We'll see if BIOS improves the issues but it seems it may not actually help with top-end memory overclocking. The issue is the stock voltage below 0.8V.

"Tech Site Guru3d has looked into the issue and says that the problems stem from the Micron memory's "speed of the voltage adjustment from the low power idle P-States" under load. Apparently the Micron memory issues will never show up if you "keep the idle voltage above 0.800V before you apply the overclock". Knowing the problem goes a long way to fixing it and several manufacturers have indeed pulled their fingers out and have BIOS updates ready for users."
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ma...for-geforce-gtx-1070-due-to-memory-issue.html

Pretty ironic that after the 970-marketing gimp, the generation I decide to buy NV cards, I still end up with 3 gimped Pascal cards Good thing the core clocks to 2100 and this 1st card stays < 60C and 36% fan speed with 20.5C room temperature. Still a solid upgrade from my Hawaii cards. But ya, it would be awesome if NV replaced 1070 with a faster 2070 that also had G5X. AIB 1070s with only 1920 CCs and 8Gbps GDDR5 priced at $450-470 USD during that first 1-2 months of release were a rip-off imo. The card should have been $330 tops like the 970.

 

[Shmee]

My 1070 has Samsung ram, and will do +800 memory while mining, though I run it +500 while gaming. I should mention that GDDR5X may not be that great after all, I hear that because of it the 1080 still suffers poor eth hashrate, and on the cuda dev forums some posters were saying it may have other issues as well; a new technology rushed to the market. The Titan X does do very well in mining though, but it is super expensive and its advantage may be due to the extra memory bus width.

 

[wilds]

9.4Ghz on Micron 1070? I would say almost 0 chance that's happening with current bios. Even your own Samsung overclock is higher than every review of 1070 I've read. Error correction on G5 memory means that even when the memory shows a higher overclock, the performance can decline. Just making sure you did check that?

Almost every thread I read has most Micron 1070 cards hittting 8400-8800mhz, with some users reporting artifacts even at stock speeds or with a minor 100-200mhz memory overclock.

Oh wow, that is a lot worse than I hoped. But yes, I am 99% sure some error correction is kicking in at 9.6-9.7 GHz, and yet I still get higher fps in every benchmark/game than 9.4 GHz. Perhaps minimum fps may be a bit lower above 9.5 GHz on my card but I have yet to do extensive testing other than monitoring fps when comparing overclocks in static scenes and canned benchmarks.

I get lower fps at 9.8 Ghz every time compared to 9.4 GHz. But also I get a massive amount of artifacting at that point. I can also run the memory at 10 ghz just for fun which I am sure most Samsung 1070's can do (not stable, with artifacting of course).

When benchmarking I run 2101 mhz core and 9.6 ghz memory. Everyday is 2050 mhz core and 9.4 ghz memory. I think 9.5-9.6 ghz is pretty average for samsung memory with most people settling at 9.4 GHz for an everyday overclock.

If 8.2-8.8 GHz is truly the max for Micron then I cannot recommend the overpriced 1070. The 1070 despite being gimped needs all the memory bandwidth it can get. What is the price premium you would pay for samsung memory over micron?

@Shmee did you increase voltage limit? I get artifacting at 8.8 ghz with stock voltage.

 

[RussianSensation]

What is the price premium you would pay for samsung memory over micron?

Don't know, maybe $15-20. I haven't seen extensive testing with 1070 memory scaling across many titles. 1080 gains just 1-3% from a 10% memory overclock. 7-9% of the gains came from power/GPU boost:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10325/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-and-1070-founders-edition-review/31

I don't think 1070 will gain 10% in pure performance on average going from 8600mhz to 9500mhz. Even if it does, in my case, the 1070 SLI scaling isn't 100%, which means a 10% gain per card will only translate to 60-80% SLI gain of that 10%, or 6-8% gain max. Since 1070 doesn't have a particularly strong underlying DX12 architecture, I don't think it's the card to keep long-term imho. I'd rather buy the cheapest cool and quiet 1070 and just save the $ towards a future next gen card that's 40-70% faster, has 12-16GB
VRAM, etc.

I think next year NV will replace the 1070 with a card for $349 that's faster or have another card for $479 that's 20-25% faster. For that reason I am not sure it's worth paying large premiums for Samsung memory.

In just 10 months the $699 780 was superceeded by a $330 970, and in 18 months the $650 980 dropped to $300, while today there are regular deals on $350-380 1070s. Knowing that makes it hard to start paying more than $15-20 premiums just to have faster GDDR5 memory.

Imo, 1070 was too spec neutered for the price. With launch specs, it should have cost $330-350. Micron cards look bad now in comparison to Samsung cards, but it wasn't easy to find 1070 Samsung cards for $330-350 2-3 months ago. Micron 1070 is worse than early 1070's but most Micron 1070s on sale today cost less $. I think that makes the Micron fiasco more forgivable, but still unfortunate since almost all reviews online show 1070 OC benchmarks with Samsung memory. That's almost misleading to the consumer like how after a certain period of time AMD's AIBs released custom PCB HD7950/7970/7970Ghz cards and voltage locked them, essentially neutering top overclocking on the latter versions of Tahiti cards.

At least AIBs are working quickly to try and fix the instability issues. Not everyone will want to risk bricking their card with a flash, and some will never know Micron 1070s are worse since they'll never overclock them. What pisses me off too is market milking/segmentation such as taking two identical EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte or Asian Strix 1070s and giving them different levels of power tube. My Strix have 112% BIOS limit but the oc versions have it at 120%. The PCB and the VRMs are identical. That's basically AIBs also milking us on top of already giving inferior Micron memory...

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's basically AIBs also milking us on top of already giving inferior Micron memory...

But you bought NVidia... you should expect that.

Edit: Some of that could be binning of entire cards after they are assembled, too, I suppose.

 

[amenx]

When benchmarking I run 2101 mhz core and 9.6 ghz memory. Everyday is 2050 mhz core and 9.4 ghz memory. I think 9.5-9.6 ghz is pretty average for samsung memory with most people settling at 9.4 GHz for an everyday overclock..

GPUz screenie pls. I want to see a 9.6ghz card.

 

[Dufus]

But yes, I am 99% sure some error correction is kicking in at 9.6-9.7 GHz

AFAIK unless you have ECC there is no error correction only error detection which just requests a resend unless disabled. What you are seeing may be retraining rather than resending.

 

[wilds]

[/QUOTE]

GPUz screenie pls. I want to see a 9.6ghz card.

Sure. I will edit this post when I get home tonight. I will try to get screenshots of a game at 8.8, 9.4, 9.6, and 10 ghz

Edit: Ok, sorry for the low quality post. I have to go back out tonight and will be very busy the next couple days.

Every time I took a screenshot with print screen or with shadowplay I got problems reading fps. So I did it the old fashioned way

I tested 2 games. Elite Dangerous and R6 Siege both at max settings (no AA) to get below 60 fps easily.

I simply chose a static demanding scene and sat there letting the fps normalize. I then took a photo of the overlay. It looks like crap but it works. I kept the GPU at 2050 mhz and adjusted memory speed accordingly. I was surprised at the fact that no more artifacting appears even at 9.9-10 ghz due to the newer drivers used since I originally tested extreme memory overclocking. Temps are low because I live on a mountain and I have the window open.

Elite Dangerous - Tested on planet surface looking at ship. You are looking at the underside of an Imperial Cutter

8 GHz:

8.8 GHz:

9.4 GHz:

9.6 GHz:

I couldn't get 10 GHz to load for Elite

Rainbow Six Siege - You are looking at the corner of a fire truck on Plane. Max settings without AA.

8 GHz:

8.8 GHz:

9.4 GHz:

9.6 GHz - Note - I moved camera an inch after noticing I did not see any performance improvement. 9.6 GHz gives lower performance than 9.4 GHz on this game now! Very cool:

10 GHz - It ran for about 15 seconds before the game crashed. But it ran. Again, this one is just for fun:

So a 7-10% fps gain from stock to 9.4 GHz is pretty solid imo. I am very surprised at the lack of artifacting now. I think I'm gonna move my everyday overclock to 9.5 GHz just for fun. Back to lowering my settings. I need a smooth 16.6 ms! Sorry if this post is crude, but it's all I have time for!

 

[RussianSensation]

But you bought NVidia... you should expect that.

Ya, more bad news for GTX1070 owners from EVGA camp.

"After users' reports (and Tom's Hardware.de testing) of EVGA FTW 1080 and 1070 cards displaying black screen issues, and sometimes even sparking and dying altogether, even at stock voltage, the company is now moving towards fixing the issue.

Apparently, the issue stems from the absence of any thermal pads over the VRM area of the FTW line of cards, which prompts higher operating temperatures. Some users were reporting heat transfer in such quantities that even the GDDR5X memory chips on the cards were being heated at 107 ºC, significantly over their rated operating temperatures of (0°C ≤ TC ≤ +95°C)."

https://www.techpowerup.com/227133/...g-issues-company-says-thermal-pads-a-solution

Whether it's PCB gimp, VRM gimp, VRAM gimp, GPU core voltage overclocking gimp, memory overclocking gimp, power tune gimp, NV and its partners seems to have covered all the bases in the last decade. Consumer squeeze and market segmentation FTW!

Edit: Some of that could be binning of entire cards after they are assembled, too, I suppose.

I am not sure about that because the regular Asus Strix overclock to 2114mhz+ but the OC versions don't seem to overclock any better on the core. I don't have the OC version on hand to test memory overclocking, but if it has Micron memory too (most likely), it is doubtful it would somehow overclock better. Once Asus releases the Asus Strix 1070 and 1070 OC bioses, I'll try to flash my cards with the OC bioses and see if there is improved overclocking headroom. At least the Asus Strix cards have a whisper quiet cooler, gorgeous RGB LEDs, temperatures that almost tie the 3-slot Gigabyte Xtreme 1070 and a PCB and VRMs built like a tank where VRM temperatures don't even exceed 70C. EVGA can't even get the VRMs right.

Asus Strix 1070 VRM.

 

[DamZe]

Damn I need to stop reading these kinds of threads about defective hardware, makes me nervous (Samsung card here)....

 

[railven]

EVGA was quick to respond to the FTW cards having some known issue. I guess it was that? I got my replacement in under a week (and by replacement, I mean they sent me out a new card still sealed, no refurb), with advance RMA - so I'm not complaining

Replacement card his a champ, OC's higher and stays cooler. So Kudos to EVGA for being quick with the fix.

EDIT: Reading the TechPowerUP Article, woof perhaps because I have the Hybrid, I got more special treatment? I'd be cheesed if EVGA expected me to install the pads myself.

 

[Madpacket]

Pulled my ITX Gigabyte 1070 out of the case and tested on the bench last night.

It's Dead Jim...

It was Micron based and from what I remember I got a decent memory overclock out of it. Enough to mine at 30Mh anyway. Only lasted around 6 - 7 weeks and I never let it run over 80C. I wonder if the heat killed it or if just bad luck? I don't see any obvious signs of thermal damage,I just get no monitor signal from any of the ports. The computer will even fire up and I assume get to the desktop (looking at power consumption figures) with the card in it but I get no display.

Started the Gigabyte RMA process. Sigh...

Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll send me back a card with Samsung memory

 

[Linflas]

So if GPU-Z shows I have Samsung memory I don't need to bother with this or are there other benefits to updating to the current BIOS?

 

[nurturedhate]

I'll second Samsung at 9.6+. GB WF OC 1070 here and it'll do 9.8 before most things crash. Have it also set at 9.4 for daily use as WoW didn't seem to like 9.6, was getting stuttering. Friend with the same card also at the same speed, I think. Was a pretty solid card for $350 from Jet.com a month or so ago.

Have another friend who recently did a new build with the same card as well. Glad I went with the GB over the EVGA FTW as those were the two models I was looking at for his build.

 

[Thinker_145]

I have Samsung memory and I can only do 9Ghz overclock. I artifact at 9.2Ghz and I haven't tried anything in between.