Yeah and SKYMTL bought them all so he could spread FUD about quiet mode. :biggrin:
First of all, this performance variance debacle will surely skew the RMA/failure numbers you're seeing, and not in a good way. I'm under the impression that any RMA for any reason is considered a "failure", the AIB has to inspect the card to see what happened i'm assuming. So it's counted as a failure. When people get these cards that are underperforming, i'm sure quite a few customers will RMA them and that will skew the "failure" numbers further.
SKYMTL has always had kind words for AMD cards in his reviews, and if you don't believe this you should read his 290 and 290X reviews which earned high praise from him. OBVIOUSLY, at that time, he was not aware of the performance variance issues which the 290 presented. Heck, I wasn't aware of them either and I thought that the 290X looked fairly promising.
That said, 15% performance variance between 4 retail cards is utter nonsense, and I can't believe it when some say it's okay. It isn't okay - people are buying cards that are underperforming based on reviews they've seen, and those reviews don't properly represent what they're buying at retail. SKYMTL has always been objective in his reviews, which is what a reviewer is SUPPOSED to do. A reviewer is also supposed to deliver news that is important to prospective purchasers as well - if cards at retail are underperforming and have up to a 15% performance delta, customers do not win. Only AMD stockholders would win in that case, with the consumer losing. If customers are buying defective/underperforming cards -this news needs to get out so AMD can fix their crap. You're a consumer, right? Why would you possibly want this situation to perpetuate? Why would you want a customer to buy a card, run it in quiet mode, and NOT KNOW what performance they're getting? The reviews would tell them it's pretty fast, but then they would go home to a card that barely performs on par with a 7970. That is BS. That is a huge disservice to a consumer. You are...a consumer, right? And no, not everyone wants to run uber mode fans.
I still think that any RMA returned constitutes a failure by most statistics, I spoke to newegg CS once and they more or less told me that most RMAs are returned to the manufacturer for inspection. So any RMA, which I imagine the 290 is going to be RMA'ed a LOT because of performance variance, will constitute a failure. It also constitutes AMD failing the consumer with unpredictable performance for the factory default quiet setting (on the 290X). so it's easy to assume that the 290 will have high RMA rates as well to skew these numbers even further. If SKYMTL can verify his findings, it is a good thing. It will result in customers getting the proper product they paid for regardless of which BIOS setting they choose, it will result in lower "failure" rates.
Again, this news being brought to the public is nothing but a good thing from a consumer perspective. And from AMD's perspective, once they fix the issue they will have lower 290 failure/RMA rates.