Here is the traduction of that site as google translator isn't working for some reason.
Two days had passed since the GTX 590 launch date and two cases of burnt video cards had been reported (Techpowerup and Sweclockers), suddenly those cards burnt during overclocking. After time passed, several other GTX 590's were reported as dead. nVidia said the following.
"Those burnt GTX 590 that reached the news was because of inadequate voltage manipulation (Overvolting) to dangerous levels way above the 0.91 to 0.96 stock values along with the combinations of old drivers that had low levels of overcurrent protection. Rest assure that the GTX 590 offers reliable service at stock voltages and with the latest 267.84 drivers, there's an additional level of protection for overclockers."
Does the new nVidia drivers solve the issues?
Not at all, and like every hotfix, some introduces unwelcome effects that we will not explain in detail. Even with those drivers, there's still people that are reporting cases of dead GTX 590. After GTX 590 launch, several driver revisions had been released, 267.52, 267.71 and 267.85 in which offers additional overcurrent protection for overclockers.
Geforce 267.52
Driver that came with GTX 590 samples to reviewers and available for download with the GTX 590 launch. It also comes in a CD with the retail boxes of the GTX 590. It comes with a very low level of overcurrent protection which exploits the full raw power of the GTX 590, plus offers maximum overclocking limits. It is the most used driver by GTX 590 reviewers, but nVidia doesn't recommend using them.
Geforce 267.71
Those drivers were launched few hours after the GTX 590 launch, and it was the nVidia's most recommended driver which limits the overclocking/overvolting levels showing a very small impact in performance compared to previous drivers which aren't recommended by nVidia. Even though these drivers were initially recommended by nVidia, it didn't stop the issues of burnt cards like Tweaktown (
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/19192...590_why_some_have_gone_up_in_smoke/index.html ) and Tbreak (
http://tbreak.com/tech/2011/03/zotac-gtx-590-review/ ), or other users in sites like XtremeSystems, Noticias3D among others.
Geforce 267.85
Those drivers were launched yesterday with a much higher level of control to avoid more GTX 590 failures. Lots of users had reported much worse overclocking results due to its strict overclocking control which slowdown the clocks between the overclocked level and 500MHz, which gives an erratic performance with lots of spikes and stuttering during gaming.
Conclusion:
It looks like the Geforce 267.85 solves the problem, but severely limits the GTX 590 performance to the point that it takes away the performance advanges of nVidia's most powerful graphic card. It is unknown if with this aggressive overcurrent control, will solve the issue in its entirity. At least several forums aren't reporting dead cards with this driver version, but some overclocker enthusiasts won't install the driver and are willing to keep using the old ones as they're not satisfied with the latest driver version overclocking performance, so the number of dead GTX 590 may rise in a few days.
Source:
http://www.chw.net/2011/03/nvidia-responde-al-tema-de-las-geforce-gtx-590-quemadas/