- Sep 28, 2001
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There is an AWFUL lot of reports on various forums about how many GTX 970, in particular OC, "super clocked" etc. versions are affected by this dreaded black screen, reboot issue. On newegg alone, at a certain card's vendor page you can read tons about the exact same thing.
The issue is that a large number of GTX 970 black screen under high stress, at STOCK speeds, usually at their max. boost clock. (I can definitely say I am not the only one who had this issue.)
Now, for many this issue might not be too apparent because they may not test/stress their cards that much like I do, say with Heaven Benchmark. They may ALSO not immediately be aware of this issue since a lot of the "cheaper" OC cards are basically always power limiting so they're not even reaching their max clocks and voltages since the card is always "boosting" (note the the irony here...) down a few notches.
What I see on newegg and some forums is a rather large numbers of people who RMA their cards and I can see this incurring quite some financial losses for whatever card manufacturer when it turns out that a good number of their cards have this problem.
Manufacturers of course want(ed) to save money:
* Use "cheap" components on your cards, like 4 phases power instead of 6
* And most importantly: Voltage regulators that cannot be programmed and are LOCKED at a maximum of 1.212V.
It is my opinion that any of those black screen issues could've easily been solved by BIOS updates where the manufacturer provided a BIOS fix with voltages one or two notch higher. (I am assuming that such a voltage increase would still be within a card's safe TDP zone, of course)
Problem: When your card black screens at 1380 (stock max boost) and 1.212V and the VRM doesn't allow higher you can't do anything...BUT either
* reduce clocks to get the card stable
* RMA
Had they used better components, a simple BIOS update could've saved card makers tons of RMAs and financial losses. And of course, one also wonders how it looks in the QA department of some manufacturers...
The issue is that a large number of GTX 970 black screen under high stress, at STOCK speeds, usually at their max. boost clock. (I can definitely say I am not the only one who had this issue.)
Now, for many this issue might not be too apparent because they may not test/stress their cards that much like I do, say with Heaven Benchmark. They may ALSO not immediately be aware of this issue since a lot of the "cheaper" OC cards are basically always power limiting so they're not even reaching their max clocks and voltages since the card is always "boosting" (note the the irony here...) down a few notches.
What I see on newegg and some forums is a rather large numbers of people who RMA their cards and I can see this incurring quite some financial losses for whatever card manufacturer when it turns out that a good number of their cards have this problem.
Manufacturers of course want(ed) to save money:
* Use "cheap" components on your cards, like 4 phases power instead of 6
* And most importantly: Voltage regulators that cannot be programmed and are LOCKED at a maximum of 1.212V.
It is my opinion that any of those black screen issues could've easily been solved by BIOS updates where the manufacturer provided a BIOS fix with voltages one or two notch higher. (I am assuming that such a voltage increase would still be within a card's safe TDP zone, of course)
Problem: When your card black screens at 1380 (stock max boost) and 1.212V and the VRM doesn't allow higher you can't do anything...BUT either
* reduce clocks to get the card stable
* RMA
Had they used better components, a simple BIOS update could've saved card makers tons of RMAs and financial losses. And of course, one also wonders how it looks in the QA department of some manufacturers...
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