Tech Report: Nvidia, Asus put the clamps on GTX 590 voltage

[Vesku]

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20711

Tech Report finally comes to the conclusion of many VC&G forum folks, this card was released with very little OC headroom. Nvidia themselves have apparently completely locked down voltage adjustment for GTX590 in their latest driver release (267.91).

 

[notty22]

Well they seem to deal with every rumour. Thats good.
Most interest to me, The Swedes may have been purposeful drama queens, and the 590 does not throttle at all in gaming.
Its strange how the Evga cards are not effected at all. There was no mention of weak VRM's, more a emphasis on the massive power pull the card may use when o/c .

 

[Phynaz]

We've confirmed that the latest 270.51 betas will not allow us to raise our GTX 590's voltage at all using MSI's Afterburner utility.

GTX 590 owners will have to settle for whatever minor frequency increases they can achieve at stock voltages.

No overclocking for you!

Full disclosure - wouldn't matter to me because I don't overclock.

 

[formulav8]

Knew this was coming. nVidia did the overclocking for you already! :sneaky:

 

[badb0y]

Performance crown denied.

That pretty much seals the deal right there if you can't overvolt the GTX 590 to get max overclocks the HD 6990 will simply hold the top spot because of the AUSUM switch.

 

[AtenRa]

Well, as i have said before, wait for a custom design. The NV reference design is not for the big boys.

 

[OCGuy]

Probably a good idea. Probably something they should have thought of during testing.

 

[Tempered81]

techreports benches they linked to in this article show the 'wicked' OC'ed 590 pulling 68 watts more than the HD6990 in 'AUSUM' switch mode. Thats 450watt TDP + 68 watts =

....

400 watt gfx card that if was rated by amd would have a 525watt TDP

6990 rated at 8 x 80 = 640 total amps | TDP 375 / 450oc | actual 301 / 352oc

590 rated at 10 x 35 = 350 total amps | TDP 365 | actual 353 / 421oc


Insane power on a single graphics card!!!

 

[PingviN]

Most interest to me, The Swedes may have been purposeful drama queens, and the 590 does not throttle at all in gaming.

Drama queens? How did you come to that conclusion?

 

[Dark Shroud]

Drama queens? How did you come to that conclusion?

Probably because they said some card burned out.

 

[SlowSpyder]

For $700 I would like my enthusiast graphics card to be a bit more flexible and a bit more robust in it's design. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would buy a GTX590 over a 6990 (at least until the non-reference cards come out).

 

[Arkadrel]

Nvidia has capped the voltage at the default 938 mV on GTX 590 cards starting in release 267.91. We've confirmed that the latest 270.51 betas will not allow us to raise our GTX 590's voltage at all using MSI's Afterburner utility.

So little to no overclocking with the 590.


Asus has a new bios for their 590:

Meanwhile, Asus has released a new video BIOS for its GTX 590 cards that apparently limits its VoltageTweak overvolting feature to more manageable levels.

Fud did say some of their sources where makeing a new bios.

 

[OCGuy]

For $700 I would like my enthusiast graphics card to be a bit more flexible and a bit more robust in it's design. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would buy a GTX590 over a 6990 (at least until the non-reference cards come out).

Not everybody over-volts.

One of my buddies just picked up 2 6990s, and wouldn't dream of hitting the bios switch.

 

[notty22]

Drama queens? How did you come to that conclusion?

The article alluded to what many were thinking, the Swedes may have blown a gtx 590, then decided to setup a video camera and blow another one.
When do things get video recorded for analysis/effect ? What comes to mind is car crash testing. So I have a lol nick name, the crash test reviewers.

 

[Aristotelian]

Ever heard of video reviews? (To notty22)

 

[SirPauly]

That's pretty lame if the site did indeed do that!

 

[Arkadrel]

@Notty

hehe So how are the breaks working? airbags?

That's pretty lame if the site did indeed do that!

Overvolt to 1.025v to get it running 700+ mhz on the core (with a overclock)!
How lame! how dare they I mean no sane user would do that right?

Isnt a reviewer supposed to finde, issues a card might have?

Point is just... the 590 cant handle being overclocked to default 580 speeds pr gpu.
Which is probably what many reviewers were trying to do, and their cards died on them.

Why would they do something like that? well because the 6990 can run at speeds above a stock 6970's. They probably thought the 590 could do the same.

 

[OCGuy]

The article alluded to what many were thinking, the Swedes may have blown a gtx 590, then decided to setup a video camera and blow another one.
When do things get video recorded for analysis/effect ? What comes to mind is car crash testing.

The best part is that if nV suspects the 2nd card was intentional, they will probably not be getting any more review cards.

Then they can merge with Charlie and create a Super-nV hate site!

 

[badb0y]

I doubt they had any mal-intent when they made the video showing the card go up in sparks. They were probably making sure that the first card wasn't a dud and used video to document it. If anything I think that was quite smart of them to do.

 

[Jionix]

So, this pretty much confirms that the shipping clock speed of the 590 was indeed a last minute change as a response to the 6990, and that Nvidia maxed out the clock speed to what the components on the boards would allow (which wasn't enough, or, that the 580 chips are just too power hungry).

 

[notty22]

If you look at their youtube channel their normal video views is about 4-5 thousand. Surprise, this short got 350,000. Did they ever release any kind of video review where they talk and describe the card or show testing ? I looked quick just now and don't see it. I usually have no care to go beyond the English speaking review sites I have grown to browse. Its already a ton of information.

 

[formulav8]

Stop downplaying the nvidia failures. The 590 is a big fat failure. It doesn't capture the video card crown as intended. And now you see why. Its not possible without taking a chance of killing the card.

 

[PingviN]

The article alluded to what many were thinking, the Swedes may have blown a gtx 590, then decided to setup a video camera and blow another one.
When do things get video recorded for analysis/effect ? What comes to mind is car crash testing. So I have a lol nick name, the crash test reviewers.

Bold for someone not speaking the language to draw conclusions from a lame article written by someone trying oh-so hard to be a journalist.

Allow me to break it down for you:

* Sweclockers got cards early. They asked for drivers to start testing. Nvidia said no. They went for the drivers on the CD.

* The card burned up during standard Sweclockers OCing. This was not videotaped (who was expecting that?).

* Sweclockers contacted Asus and Nvidia, they got new drivers. Running those drivers, the card did not blow up but throttled.

* Asus asked them to repeat the test with the old drivers to see if that was the problem.

* The card burned, this was videotaped.


So Techreports "well-placed source" stated something Sweclockers had already stated. Several times. Good job - techreport, way to go digging that up! There is nothing to discredit; two cards burned up at sweclockers. The first due to... well, a crappy driver and the second to help Nvidia and Asus (the unmentioned partner) to localize where the fault lied.

Try harder next time, and please do use more cute pictures to emphasize your already broken argument.

 

[Aristotelian]

What you have a care to do is neither here nor there. The point is that your attempt to imply that it's strange to video a review setup (check out overclock3d - TimeToLiveCustoms on Youtube) is unfounded. Further, your implication that the reviewers are drama queens is again unfounded. In fact, even your linked images have no place here, and I begin to wonder if you have any other purpose in this thread other than to try to discredit certain review sites, using rhetoric.

On the topic of overclocking: does it really matter? I wonder what the VC&G community would say if X card was released and was mind-bogglingly quick, but could not be overclocked at all. I guess it matters with respect to 'fastest card' crown, and it looks like that's going to go AMD's way again.

 

[notty22]

Bold for someone not speaking the language to draw conclusions from a lame article written by someone trying oh-so hard to be a journalist.

Allow me to break it down for you:

* Sweclockers got cards early. They asked for drivers to start testing. Nvidia said no. They went for the drivers on the CD.

* The card burned up during standard Sweclockers OCing. This was not videotaped (who was expecting that?).

* Sweclockers contacted Asus and Nvidia, they got new drivers. Running those drivers, the card did not blow up but throttled.

* Asus asked them to repeat the test with the old drivers to see if that was the problem.

* The card burned, this was videotaped.


So Techreports "well-placed source" stated something Sweclockers had already stated. Several times. Good job - techreport, way to go digging that up! There is nothing to discredit; two cards burned up at sweclockers. The first due to... well, a crappy driver and the second to help Nvidia and Asus (the unmentioned partner) to localize where the fault lied.

Try harder next time, and please do use more cute pictures to emphasize your already broken argument.

Sorry to upset you, but you understand the author of the article this thread is about, brought up the Sweden video tape.

Let me quote it for you, so you can read it again. :

Incidentally, one of the juicier rumors we've heard in this whole affair is about that Sweclockers video of a GTX 590 going poof. Some of you have wondered how the site happened to be filming that GTX 590 exactly at the point of its death. We wondered the same, until a well-placed source hinted that the card in the video was not the first to die at the hands of that particular reviewer. We hear Sweclockers may have sacrificed its second review unit, a replacement card, in order to obtain that dramatic video footage, recreating the conditions of the first card's failure with the camera rolling.


If true, wow.