Nvidia partners XFX, eVGA, and BFG respond to 7900 OC issues

[Corporate Thug]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA2OSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

 

[skooma]

Thanks Thug. I was always weary of the "stock overclocks" myself. I could see bad things happening with it. Hopefully they can straighten it out and make things right for all the people struggling with 7900's.

 

[Nelsieus]

So it seems this is an overclock issue, after all. Don't know if I'm too concerned yet as I consider either getting Geforce 7900GT or x1800XT.

HardOCP

The Bottom Line


There are some ?bad? 7900 video cards out there right now if you are going to shop for the overclocked variety. Again, it seems to me BFGTech is catching less flack than EVGA and XFX, but that is not a scientific observation. Keep in mind that BFGTech does not overclock their cards as high as EVGA or XFX. If I were buying an overclocked 7900 card right now, I would be leaning towards BFGTech or EVGA simply because they have a much better reputation when it comes to warranty, support, and service.


If you have a card to RMA, return it to the card builder, not the retailer. Given the awareness level of this problem at this time I would suggest that you have a much better chance of getting a solid 7900 directly from the card builder.


Lastly, I would not let this scare me away from buying an overclocked GeForce 7900 series video card as all the players are very aware something is going on with the cards and trying their best to make sure the problem is solved. Then again, there does seem to be certain level of risk with buying an overclocked card so a non-overclocked 7900 from a reputable builder might be a smart option. Just remember that when you are buying a video card that you are paying for service, support, and warranty as well as the hardware.

 

[Cooler]

If ATI new PR team is smart they will use Stability as a key selling point for x1900/x1800.

 

[DeathReborn]

Originally posted by: Cooler
If ATI new PR team is smart they will use Stability as a key selling point for x1900/x1800.

And they should never mention Linux unless they release reliable drivers for it.

This issue is why i'll stick to buying default clocked Graphics cards from either side.

 

[BFG10K]

I've never liked OEM overclocks but I must say my Asus 7800GT has been superb in that department.

Even so I prefer cards to run at reference clocks and be up to the user if they want to overclock.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
I've never liked OEM overclocks but I must say my Asus 7800GT has been superb in that department.

Even so I prefer cards to run at reference clocks and be up to the user if they want to overclock.

I don't see how it could possibly be a bad thing for the consumer, if they guarantee them for those specs and have properly tested them and found that most chips could easily reach those speeds, and also keep a good level of quality control so that they can get a good idea if perhaps a batch of them just coudln't handle it.

If they're going to do some hefty overclocks, then they should consider making changes, such as upping voltage a little bit or whatever is necessary, but not harmful to obtain those speeds. It sounds like a small boost in voltage would easily allow them to hit around 550 or so, but not be detrimental to the cards health.

I'm sure that with the 7900s, they were getting a little overzealous thinking that with the cooler running chips they could handle it fine. At the very least they should have been using better HSFs on them, as the stock one just doesn't cut it for those kinds of overclocks.

 

[CP5670]

There do seem to be a lot of complaints about the stability of the 7 series cards, although I'm not entirely convinced that it's caused by the factory overclocks; there seem to be a lot of complaints about the reference clocked cards too. I think the card manufacturers may just increase the stock voltage slightly on future shipments to deal with this. The 7900s evidently have quite a bit of headroom there.

For the record, I never had any artifacting or other problems with my EVGA 7800 GT CO cards, which are signficantly overclocked over the Nvidia specifications and which I pushed somewhat further. (aside from the BSODs I was getting when alt-tabbing in two older games, but those seem to be related to the Nvidia drivers)

Also, I'm not sure if anyone noticed this:

Interestingly enough, as of writing this, no matter who you got your 7900 series card from, they were still all built by Flextronics in China with the exception of a few VIVO models from XFX, so most of the cards in question are being built to NVIDIA?s demanding specification. Companies like BFGTech, EVGA, and XFX are simply putting their own stickers and maybe cooling on the card then tweaking the BIOS with their own overclock settings.

This is interesting, so the cards are all made by the same company? I guess that throws the whole idea of some manufacturers having higher quality cards than others out the window.

 

[Gstanfor]

nVIDIA statement on 7900 freezing issues

Originally posted by: nvnews.net

On Freezing Issues - 5/25/06 @ 1:04 pm - By: MikeC - Source: Email
NVIDIA wanted to pass along the following information in regards to "random freezing" issues on overclocked versions of the GeForce 7900 GTX:

In working with our board partners, we discovered the cause of the random slowdown and temporary lockup problems experienced by various users of certain over-clocked 7900 GTX graphics boards.

Essentially, it was a case where the core and/or memory clocks were driven a bit too high above NVIDIA specifications, and the over-clocking margins weren't available on those specific boards.

Users who experience problems should contact the graphics card vendor to fix the problem.

We have learned from our board partners that the situation should now be under control.

Also, in regards to 7900 GTX "Corruption upon exiting a 3D app (3DMark06)":

This is a new issue that has just been reported, and our software team is looking at this.

--Brian Burke, NVIDIA Corporation

 

[MaxisOne]

Let me make this loud and clear.

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OVERCLOCKING. OTHERWISE MY UNOVERCLOCKED 7900GTX running at FACTORY STOCK SETTINGS wouldnt be having a problem.. But surprise surprise Im filling out RMA stuff as we speak... I find the article EXTREMELY MISLEADING by focusing on Factory overclocks. THE STOCK 7900's HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS TOO !!!!

Rant mode off

 

[videopho]

In fact it has had something to do with Samsung GDR memory parts, at least according to some source from eVGA itself.
BTW, I just received my step-up 7900gtx yesterday and right off the bat mine crashed 05 & 06 benchmarkers. Just got off the phone this morning with eVGA Tech Support who told me to try a newer driver and use power splitter (dual molex -> pci-e) to get more juice to the card to see whether it will help.

 

[Gstanfor]

Interesting. I had my own suspicions it could be related to the memory chips, but nothing to back the suspicions up with.