[Kitguru] Nvidia continue to come under fire for poor GTX590 design

[Madcatatlas]

Respin and respin and respin and respin. Ain't you guys tired? Try not to mangle several issues together and may be you won't get stuck in this respin.
a) Performance <> Stability.
b) Stability <> Price.
c) Price <> Performance.

First, 590 is stable on stock. Due to idiots who can't OC, but OC, now we all can't OC with ease on 590. Those 590s are selling without an issue. Check NCIX's review on 590.

Second, 590 is not slower than 6990. If you remove all graphs that 590 beats 6990, then of course you will see 6990 > 590. It is like all students are A students as long as they got 1 A and all non-A marks are not counted. Their performances are at the same level.

Third, 590 doesn't worth the money. 580 parts at 560 SLI performance level, enough said. That isn't the kill, but the fact that you can't OC this beast is the downer. With 580 chips, it really isn't ask for much to put some more VRMs into the card so those who will spend another 1k on cooling and 1k of PSU setup can unleash its power.

Yes, it seems 6990 is safe to OC, but it is not. AMD stated that they ain't responsible if user flip the switch. XFX stated that they will cover BIOS2 at stock, which is 880Mhz. Why some people believe they can OC/OV without voiding their warranties are beyond me. Come on, it is really common sense.

Havent seen an single "spin" post on this second page, untill you showed up!! Hello!

Its SAFE to OC a 6990. Its NOT SAFE to OC a 590 because: 1 it may explode, 2... wait do we need 2 when it CAN EXPLODE?.. no :thumbsdown:

And now is it really so that a 590 cant be tri-SLIed with a 580?
Talk about lack of options. I bet the reason is the outright ...... quality of a 590 compared to a 580.


No profanity in the tech forums please.

Idontcare
Super Mod

 

[3DVagabond]

Respin and respin and respin and respin. Ain't you guys tired? Try not to mangle several issues together and may be you won't get stuck in this respin.
a) Performance <> Stability.
b) Stability <> Price.
c) Price <> Performance.

First, 590 is stable on stock. Due to idiots who can't OC, but OC, now we all can't OC with ease on 590. Those 590s are selling without an issue. Check NCIX's review on 590.

Second, 590 is not slower than 6990. If you remove all graphs that 590 beats 6990, then of course you will see 6990 > 590. It is like all students are A students as long as they got 1 A and all non-A marks are not counted. Their performances are at the same level.

Third, 590 doesn't worth the money. 580 parts at 560 SLI performance level, enough said. That isn't the kill, but the fact that you can't OC this beast is the downer. With 580 chips, it really isn't ask for much to put some more VRMs into the card so those who will spend another 1k on cooling and 1k of PSU setup can unleash its power.

Yes, it seems 6990 is safe to OC, but it is not. AMD stated that they ain't responsible if user flip the switch. XFX stated that they will cover BIOS2 at stock, which is 880Mhz. Why some people believe they can OC/OV without voiding their warranties are beyond me. Come on, it is really common sense.

You just slipped off of the very slippery slope you were warning others about. You confused being able to O/C with voiding your warranty.

 

[notty22]

Leading up to the 6990 launch, all I read was, whats important is the stock performance. How they developed up to the then 300 watt limit. AMD fans were boldly predicting AMD's lower power usage as its ace in the whole, so o/c won't count.
Then we have the 6990 launch, and AMD blows through the 300 watt limit, ignoring / breaking the specification. No sooner does that happen, I'm reading about Nvidia has to work within this new 375 watt limit, LOL
Overnight, its the 375 watt limit.
I see it as Nvidia released a competing card in price and performance, and the goalposts now keep changing to the only thing it does not win at , o/c. It comes in quieter, which was one of the banes of past company battles. Which according to some, is now of no importance ?

 

[SirPauly]

Havent seen an single "spin" post on this second page, untill you showed up!! Hello!

Its SAFE to OC a 6990. Its NOT SAFE to OC a 590 because: 1 it may explode, 2... wait do we need 2 when it CAN EXPLODE?.. no :thumbsdown:

And now is it really so that a 590 cant be tri-SLIed with a 580?
Talk about lack of options. I bet the reason is the outright shitty quality of a 590 compared to a 580.

It's not new news, one couldn't tril-sli with the GTX-295 and one could with the 4870x2 as well.

On both being over-clocked:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...-gtx-590-oc-vs-radeon-6990-oc-conclusion.html

 

[Dark Shroud]

Leading up to the 6990 launch, all I read was, whats important is the stock performance. How they developed up to the then 300 watt limit. AMD fans were boldly predicting AMD's lower power usage as its ace in the whole, so o/c won't count.
Then we have the 6990 launch, and AMD blows through the 300 watt limit, ignoring / breaking the specification. No sooner does that happen, I'm reading about Nvidia has to work within this new 375 watt limit, LOL
Overnight, its the 375 watt limit.
I see it as Nvidia released a competing card in price and performance, and the goalposts now keep changing to the only thing it does not win at , o/c. It comes in quieter, which was one of the banes of past company battles. Which according to some, is now of no importance ?

I don't know where you read but I will say this. The HD 5970 was desgined with over clocking in mind to go past the 300watt limit. AMD even had tools for the users to over volt it. On top of that it was suddenly not only acceptable but encouraged to over clock with the GTX 460. For some time around here several members would suggest those for everything.

Many of us expected the HD 6990 to be over clockable to a high level like the HD 5970 was. I never saw the switch coming and I think its brilliant. I personally never expected Nvidia to even released the GTX 590. Because I didn't think they could work within the 300watt limit. And now it appears the GTX 590 was only designed for 300watts.

 

[3DVagabond]

Leading up to the 6990 launch, all I read was, whats important is the stock performance. How they developed up to the then 300 watt limit. AMD fans were boldly predicting AMD's lower power usage as its ace in the whole, so o/c won't count.
Then we have the 6990 launch, and AMD blows through the 300 watt limit, ignoring / breaking the specification. No sooner does that happen, I'm reading about Nvidia has to work within this new 375 watt limit, LOL
Overnight, its the 375 watt limit.
I see it as Nvidia released a competing card in price and performance, and the goalposts now keep changing to the only thing it does not win at , o/c. It comes in quieter, which was one of the banes of past company battles. Which according to some, is now of no importance ?

Those of us who weren't happy with +300W still aren't happy with AMD breaking the 300W limit. nVidia has been using it as a "rough guideline" for a while. I berate both companies for ignoring it. I was repeatedly told it was an arbitrary limit that stifled progress. Look at what we have. We have hot and loud, or, hot and fragile. We have added cost and complexity to try and maintain reasonable power levels with elaborate OCP. In reality these cards really want to use about 20% more power than they measure at now. Bring on 28nm and hope that these companies return to their senses (somewhat, anyway).

 

[Idontcare]

Those of us who weren't happy with +300W still aren't happy with AMD breaking the 300W limit. nVidia has been using it as a "rough guideline" for a while. I berate both companies for ignoring it. I was repeatedly told it was an arbitrary limit that stifled progress. Look at what we have. We have hot and loud, or, hot and fragile. We have added cost and complexity to try and maintain reasonable power levels with elaborate OCP. In reality these cards really want to use about 20% more power than they measure at now. Bring on 28nm and hope that these companies return to their senses (somewhat, anyway).

Its not a mainstream product, its meant for the upper-tier of consumers who have money to deal with the power and heat if they felt it was something that needed to be dealt with.

When I had my $1500 QX6700 on $1000 vaporphase LS cooling the last thing I gave two craps about was whether or not my power-bill was going to go up by $50 or $100 or even $200 per month because of the rig. I had a 4GHz quad-core rig in 2006 and that was pretty darn nice and I happily paid for the privilege.

That experience taught me that there is no shortage of people who are willing to knock/critique/denigrate the products and the people who pay to use them; while themselves having never walked a mile in their shoes.

I don't begrudge you your right to express your opinion regarding these halo-products, but in the same respect I feel like I'd be doing you a disservice if I sat idly by and never mentioned the obvious.

You don't buy a Viper or a Hummer if the gas mileage is a concern to your wallet or your environmentally-minded conscience.

At the same time if you are insisting on judging the value of the experience that a Viper or a Hummer provides to the customers who actually do buy them and own them then you are missing the forest for the trees.

Both GPU makers have a whole host of lower-cost lower-power consuming products that are made to cater to the mainstream of consumers who either can't afford the more expensive hardware or don't care for their power-consumption profiles.

The creation of a 375W TDP halo card did not make the power-consumption of a 560 or a 6870 go up, it didn't make the 560 or 6870 become louder, it didn't make them become more expensive. If 375W TDP halo-cards aren't for you then you have options. The existence of the Viper and the Hummer did not make the gas consumption go up for the Honda Accord or Ford Focus.

 

[nanaki333]

You don't buy a Viper or a Hummer if the gas mileage is a concern to your wallet or your environmentally-minded conscience.

pfffft! my supercharged corvette gets 33.5MPG with 95% highway driving!

 

[Arkadrel]

You don't buy a Viper or a Hummer if the gas mileage is a concern to your wallet or your environmentally-minded conscience.

Suzuki Alto European market version ^-^

It does like an avg. of 22,7 km pr. liter with mixed driveing in the EU-norm.
Which is like 53.4 miles per gallon (mpg) (US). Its a pretty cheap car too

Gas prices in the EU are... higher than in the US.... the avg. car where I live is one of these smaller cars that have great mileage. In the US I get the impression that everyone drives 4wheel driven humpvee's.

 

[wahdangun]

Leading up to the 6990 launch, all I read was, whats important is the stock performance. How they developed up to the then 300 watt limit. AMD fans were boldly predicting AMD's lower power usage as its ace in the whole, so o/c won't count.
Then we have the 6990 launch, and AMD blows through the 300 watt limit, ignoring / breaking the specification. No sooner does that happen, I'm reading about Nvidia has to work within this new 375 watt limit, LOL
Overnight, its the 375 watt limit.
I see it as Nvidia released a competing card in price and performance, and the goalposts now keep changing to the only thing it does not win at , o/c. It comes in quieter, which was one of the banes of past company battles. Which according to some, is now of no importance ?

for enthusiast durability is the most important thing, and for noise we already have solution that was go water cooling or buy 3rd party cooler, but for durability nothing can do about it.

thats being said this GTX 590 is a failure for enthusiast market but for performance seeker or NV fanboy it quite work well.

just like IDC said, you don't expect ferrari or lambo to be quite, if I want quite car I will buy toyota instead.

 

[Topweasel]

Suzuki Alto European market version ^-^

It does like an avg. of 22,7 km pr. liter with mixed driveing in the EU-norm.
Which is like 53.4 miles per gallon (mpg) (US). Its a pretty cheap car too

Gas prices in the EU are... higher than in the US.... the avg. car where I live is one of these smaller cars that have great mileage. In the US I get the impression that everyone drives 4wheel driven humpvee's.

An exaggeration. Sure when gas was sub $2 and the economy was great most people were worried about how "family oriented" it was. Can it sit 5 comfortably, what safety features, and so on. SUV's were sold not as the truck conversions they were for storage and moving, built the pinnacle of family experiences. They made it sound like you were doing a disservice to your family by not keeping them safe in one.

As gas prices went up and things like the Explorer (the starter of the whole "family SUV") got recalled for the firey deaths that they caused, there has been a lot of movement back to the family sedans. Some people still like their SUV, and there are Compact and crossover options that bring back some of the economy. Still our smallest cars are probably 30% larger then most European cars, and probably near 50% heavier. We also have almost no general consumer level diesel options.

But people have to remember that the American population is roughly 80% that of Europe. Third largest population for a single country. There are a lot of varieties out there and the amount of people driving compact cars probably exceeds the population of almost any single EU country.

 

[formulav8]

So why were there no major reports of 6990's or 580's croaking? While there have been multiple ones for the 590. I guess tweakers only bought the 590?

There is obviously something screwy with the 590 for tweakers to have those kind of problems yet the 580's, even the 6990's haven't had those problems. I'm quite sure they punished the other cards quite harsh as well and not only the 590's... :\

 

[RobertR1]

If your intention is to buy a 590 and run it at stock go for it. If you're at tweaker/modder, stay away.

I do wonder how the 590 will hold up in the summer time. Not necessarily from a "blowing up" standpoint but whether it'll throttle itself down more often which would give the end user a very uneven experience.

 

[Idontcare]

So why were there no major reports of 6990's or 580's croaking? While there have been multiple ones for the 590. I guess tweakers only bought the 590?

There is obviously something screwy with the 590 for tweakers to have those kind of problems yet the 580's, even the 6990's haven't had those problems. I'm quite sure they punished the other cards quite harsh as well and not only the 590's... :\

I probably don't have the story correct but what I have distilled and digested from the debacle is that it was a combination of one (or two?) AIB's that made their own version of the BIOS which, when combined with a driver that was only expecting reference BIOSes, resulted in some power-consumption guardbands being violated when overclocking/overvolting in various combinations.

I view it as something similar to the CPU/Mobo world where you have a CPU maker (say AMD) and you have a mobo maker (say ASUS) and AMD owns the responsibility of crafting the chipset drivers (GPU drivers) while the mobo maker owns the responsibility of crafting the BIOS (or using the reference BIOS provided by AMD).

In this case the mobo's were dying (the vid-card PCB) because the chipset drivers were made and validated on reference BIOSes and not these AIB tweaked BIOSes.

Now that Nvidia realizes there are ways that the AIBs could muck up the BIOS so badly that it defeats the driver features that are tasked with keeping the card from dying they have implemented their 590 drivers to be even more fail-safe in order to guard against over-ambitious AIB BIOS teams.

And since Nvidia's customers are actually the AIB's, not us end-users, they aren't about to go "on the record" and lamblast the AIB's over the debacle, that's just common sense in good business.

Same reason you don't see AMD or Intel blaming the mobo makers for their OC'ing features in their BIOSes when it is AMD and Intel that have to deal with the RMA's from dead CPUs. (same goes for the memory makers)

 

[SirPauly]

That's how I look at it as well.

 

[notty22]

I mentioned this once, not sure if in this thread. A similar problem surrounding overclocking also effected the 1156 launch. Believe me, I heard plenty of enjoy your burnt cpu, your going to blow up etc in forums. http://www.anandtech.com/show/2859
I have the dreaded foxconn socket in my rig, I know it has its limits, and work with them.
IMO, tweakers are going to find ways to enable voltage control with the gtx 590, responsible overclocking is always important. The 590 might not be as extreme as the 6990, or some people like. Time will tell more of this story.

This paragraph looks very similar to some of the debating in this thread. My point is, 1156 survived this, and most get great results from the platform :

At first glance, one might be inclined to think LGA-1156 based processors are intolerant of high-end overclocking, almost as if by design. This is correct to some extent; a quick glance at Intel&#8217;s white papers for socket 1156 CPU&#8217;s reveals that there are around 175 pads for VCC compared to over 250 for socket 1366 CPU&#8217;s. This means socket 1156 has around 66&#37; of the current capacity of socket 1366, the caveat being that when overclocked, processors from both platforms draw similar levels of current.
When overclocked above 4GHz, processors from both platforms will draw around 15-16 amps via the EPS 12V rail to VCC, VTT and some of the other sub &#8211;system power rails under full 8 thread load from the Intel burn test (Linx). Assuming 85% PWM efficiency, we&#8217;re looking at power draw in the region of 130-140w to VCC on both platforms. The facts point toward tighter current handling tolerances for socket 1156 when compared to socket 1366, especially when it comes to non-connection of VCC/VSS power delivery pins.

 

[3DVagabond]

Its not a mainstream product, its meant for the upper-tier of consumers who have money to deal with the power and heat if they felt it was something that needed to be dealt with.

Apparently, you haven't understood a thing I've said. Money has nothing to do with my complaints. They aren't that expensive that anyone who could afford a 6970 or 580 couldn't also afford one of these. The only mention I made of cost was additional costs in complicated OCP circuitry and software. Might be because I've never been a fan of current limiting. I've always preferred stuff was built to handle the load it was put under.

When I had my $1500 QX6700 on $1000 vaporphase LS cooling the last thing I gave two craps about was whether or not my power-bill was going to go up by $50 or $100 or even $200 per month because of the rig. I had a 4GHz quad-core rig in 2006 and that was pretty darn nice and I happily paid for the privilege.

I never complained about the cost of powering these cards. I complained about heat, noise, and being fragile. You keep bringing up costs. Do you assume I have no money?

That experience taught me that there is no shortage of people who are willing to knock/critique/denigrate the products and the people who pay to use them; while themselves having never walked a mile in their shoes.

I wasn't trying to denigrate any people. I'm not sure why you seem to be taking offense here? This is in no way meant to judge anyone.

I don't begrudge you your right to express your opinion regarding these halo-products, but in the same respect I feel like I'd be doing you a disservice if I sat idly by and never mentioned the obvious.

You don't buy a Viper or a Hummer if the gas mileage is a concern to your wallet or your environmentally-minded conscience.

I'm not concerned with operating costs. My wallet is fine. I have money. Being green is also not my concern. Although, I don't just blindly waste resources or rape the environment. This has absolutely nothing with my position on these cards though.

At the same time if you are insisting on judging the value of the experience that a Viper or a Hummer provides to the customers who actually do buy them and own them then you are missing the forest for the trees.

I'm not trying to judge anyone. I'm judging the cards. Inanimate objects.

Both GPU makers have a whole host of lower-cost lower-power consuming products that are made to cater to the mainstream of consumers who either can't afford the more expensive hardware or don't care for their power-consumption profiles.

Not complaining about the cost of these cards. Honest to God, I could afford to buy them if I were so inclined.

The creation of a 375W TDP halo card did not make the power-consumption of a 560 or a 6870 go up, it didn't make the 560 or 6870 become louder, it didn't make them become more expensive. If 375W TDP halo-cards aren't for you then you have options. The existence of the Viper and the Hummer did not make the gas consumption go up for the Honda Accord or Ford Focus.

I'm missing the point you are making here. I realize their are alternate choices. The fact that there are other cards that use less power, or cars that use less petrol than Vipers and Hummers doesn't seem relevant to my position about screaming blowers and blown up mosfets being a bad thing.

My complaint is that these cards are obvious admissions that the state of the art couldn't be improved so they just dumped more wattage into what they already had to make them go faster. I'd rather they give me this performance without all of the warts.

 

[Grooveriding]

If your intention is to buy a 590 and run it at stock go for it. If you're at tweaker/modder, stay away.

I do wonder how the 590 will hold up in the summer time. Not necessarily from a "blowing up" standpoint but whether it'll throttle itself down more often which would give the end user a very uneven experience.

It seems the throttling comes into play with voltage per the recent [H] review testing ocing. Because the cards burn up with the overclocking/overvolting the new drivers force-throttle them.

This is the most botched launch I think nv has done since the FX5800 leaf-blower.

 

[notty22]

Hocp should label that picture their effort to trigger Nvidia's power draw limiter. In a gesture to say they test in true gaming.
They load a level and look at the sky, apply a 25&#37; overclock and and overvolt.
You cold invoke the same behavior in the 6990, with similar manipulation.

 

[Grooveriding]

Hocp should label that picture their effort to trigger Nvidia's power draw limiter. In a gesture to say they test in true gaming.
They load a level and look at the sky, apply a 25% overclock and and overvolt.
You cold invoke the same behavior in the 6990, with similar manipulation.

So that is all just opinion and nothing in the way of experience or fact ?

 

[notty22]

So that is all just opinion and nothing in the way of experience or fact ?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/amds-radeon-hd-6990-the-new-single-card-king/3

AMD can increase GPU clocks without having to base their final clocks around the power consumption of outliers like FurMark. The hardest part of course is finding balance – set your clocks too high for a specific wattage and everything throttles which is counterproductive and leads to inconsistent performance, but if clocks are too low you’re losing out on potential performance.

This is without overclocking. AMD gamers will also have to constantly manipulate the power-tune slider and monitor whether their supposed overclocking is even taking effect.
Similar to what Hocp forced in that particular test.

 

[Grooveriding]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/amds-radeon-hd-6990-the-new-single-card-king/3
This is without overclocking. AMD gamers will also have to constantly manipulate the power-tune slider and monitor whether their supposed overclocking is even taking effect.
Similar to what Hocp forced in that particular test.

? This in no way corroborates your comment of

Hocp should label that picture their effort to trigger Nvidia's power draw limiter. In a gesture to say they test in true gaming.
They load a level and look at the sky, apply a 25% overclock and and overvolt.
You cold invoke the same behavior in the 6990, with similar manipulation.

With AMD you simply open up powertune when overclocking and the throttling is gone. This is why you see 6990s at 1000mhz on the core using in excess of 1.2 volts.

With nvidia you can't do that, the drivers force the card to throttle and reduce performance because the 590 simply can't handle the load, otherwise it blows.

 

[JSt0rm]

how long will this card last operating at these temps?

Its my understanding that high heat lowers the lifespan of cards.

 

[Silverforce11]

notty22: You did not know how AMD powertune works?

 

[alcoholbob]

pfffft! my supercharged corvette gets 33.5MPG with 95% highway driving!

Don't you have to be in 6th gear to get that kind of gas mileage? And you'd be well over the speed limit too, LOL.