What do you think of nVidia locking down voltage?

[sontin]

nVidia's Boost is automatically overvolting the chip. The GTX680 is going from 1V to 1,175V at the highest Boost step for only a 10% increase in the clock rate.

Complaining that nVidia does not allow overvolting is wrong. They even guarantee a higher voltage over the base clock.

 

[JAG87]

I couldn't care less. I go as far as possible on stock voltage and that's it.

If I need more, I buy a faster card.

 

[Anubis]

dont care,
TBH i dont think i have ever OCed a video card

 

[Smartazz]

As was mentioned earlier, if it's just the GTX 600 series I don't really care, but I hope that this doesn't become a practice by other manufacturer.

 

[kalrith]

Vote with ones wallet if over-volting is that important to a gamer. If AMD continues to support a dual bios and allows over-volting, strong scaling and impressive over-clocks, there may be a competitive advantage and differentiation for AMD.

I think that's the most important thing to do. I just did that buy purchasing the HIS 7870 for $200 AR including Sleeping Dogs. Even if I don't have to overvolt it to achieve the overclocks I want, it's still nice to have the option there.

 

[guskline]

Earlier, I posted that it's not a problem for me. I can OC my EVGA cards via the software so yes it's not a problem. HOWEVER, if I had purchased an EVGA Classified GPU for Uber $$$ which apparently allows overvolting and now it isn't supported, I would be incensed!

 

[NickelPlate]

Well I'll take the objective standpoint and put myself on both ends. On the one hand, I've personally overclocked/overvolted things in the past. I consider myself an enthusiast and don't mind assuming some risk in doing so and am glad to have as many options as possible.

OTH, if I had ownership stake in Nvidia (which I don't), I would see giving end users the ability to overclock their cards for free performance, as potentially undermining the sales of the higher end product offerings. I would also be concerned about the potential warranty/RMA nightmare of doing so, particularly with regard to voltage. I would also be a PO'd investor in the case of the GTX670 being able to nearly match the performance of a 680. I would say at the board meeting that someone at Nvidia really isn't doing a very good job at differentiating the product range.

Now one can make the argument that the vast majority of people overclocking their cards are enthusiasts and small majority so it doesn't matter. That sounds plausible, but manufacturers have been taking that out of the hands of enthusiasts and providing factory overclocked cards to non enthusiasts for quite some time. Although anyone who drops the coin on the higher end graphics cards is probably an enthusiast anyway.

So while I acknowledge Nvidia has some legitimate business reasons, I'm also concerned if this is a trend that will eventually choke off options for the enthusiast community. The competition and what they do I think will play an important role in how this continues. Even though I'm not an AMD guy, I hope they do well and continue to keep the pressure both NV and Intel because in the end, competition benefits consumers.

 

[Avalon]

Don't care, I just overclock as high as the stock voltage allows. Never did much heavy overclocking on the GPU side, just CPUs.

 

[MrK6]

Pretty much the only reason I run watercooling is so I can overclock my GPU's to extremes. This is because I play games at 2560x1600 and like single GPU setups. Not having voltage control really gives their hardware a significant performance deficit in my specific case.

To expand, I think previously their Fermi-based GPU's consumed too much power and were too expensive for the performance given. It seems now they've gone in the complete opposite direction where they've done a great job curbing power consumption, but the performance is now lacking and there's no way to improve it with overclocking being gimped. I'd like to see cards that run the middle ground and most importantly give flexibility to the end user (i.e. do you want decent performance and low power consumption or extreme performance and have the appropriate cooling to manage it). I realize I'm an insignificant subset of the market, but soldering should no longer be necessary to get decent overclocks in this day and age.

 

[exar333]

Let's see what people think. I know personally I'm quite upset about it.

Why upset? Do you own one?

I am strongly against it, but the only people that should be rightly 'upset' are those who bought a SKU and lost functionality to OC/over-volt as promised.

Definitely a bad move on NV's part.

 

[railven]

Why upset? Do you own one?

I am strongly against it, but the only people that should be rightly 'upset' are those who bought a SKU and lost functionality to OC/over-volt as promised.

Definitely a bad move on NV's part.

Are you implying that only people who are directly affected are allowed to voice their opinion?

Well, if we uphold this to everything on this forum - this place would be DEAD! I think more people around here complain about a product they don't own or have experience with than those that do own it or experience it. Haha.

 

[railven]

@Sickbeast, could you have dilluted the options any more? Should have just been 1) Yes, explain why in a post or 2) No, explain why in a post. "I don't overclock" or "it doesn't bother me" are simply a No answer, and "a little," "a lot," and "I won't buy these cards anymore" are simply a Yes answer.

 

[RussianSensation]

Complaining that nVidia does not allow overvolting is wrong. They even guarantee a higher voltage over the base clock.

I enjoyed my 470s at 760mhz because 1.087V control was at my fingertips and I didn't need to do any physical mods on the cards. If it wasn't for 470s great overclocking headroom and scaling with free voltage control that allowed them to OC to 480 speeds, I would have just gone with 5850s and saved my $.

Removing voltage control is the opposite of what enthusiasts want. If you don't use voltage control, no problem, but having the option for others to use it doesn't hurt you, does it? You telling us that it's actually wrong for us to complain about it is absurd since this is an enthusiast forum not BestBuy.com.

Again, this all works fine for people who don't overvolt but it also sends a lot of conflicting signals about NV. They are now basically 'forcing' you to pay extra $ for a faster GPU since the chances of you getting a GTX460 style card and overclocking it by 25-40% are going to be non-existent if this practice continues. This is a huge blow to people who want to buy a $280-300 GPU and overclock it to $500 level of performance.

Secondly, to me personally it says a lot about the quality of the underlying components of the reference card. If voltage control is prohibited for RMA and risk of failure reasons, it shows the reference card is very budget-built since it cannot handle much more additional stress beyond stock operation. $500 for a card with 4 VRMs that can't take basic 10% overvolting sounds like NV is selling us the bare minimum here in terms of quality. This again doesn't inspire confidence for people who overclock their GPUs and run distributed computing or other GPU intensive projects. If NV removed voltage control due to fear of many failed GPUs from blown up VRMs, that already gives me pause about how well-built the entire GPU is to handle 24/7 365 day operation even at stock speeds.

Finally, the entire industry of watercooling and after-market components largely relies on pushing components to the limits and voltage control is a part of it. Watercooling 680s this round was mostly for noise levels and not much else. Part of the fun of watercooling for some enthusiast was the idea that they'd get lower noise levels and much higher performance through overclocking via voltage control. With watercooling, the system was capable of dissipating the additional heat due to the added voltage.

NV locking out voltage control is no different than if Intel got rid of K series processors entirely and we would be stuck with BCLK overclocking only. At the very least NV could have charged extra for GPUs with voltage control if it was so afraid that people would buy cheaper GPUs and overclock them or to cover added RMA costs.

 

[3DVagabond]

[/I]

There, I had left out the bolded word. I meant to say that the review sample was either a cherry picked card or a pre-production card with a beefed up design.

So, are you trying to belittle SickBeast because he owns an AMD card and is carrying on in an nVidia thread? If not, sorry then, I'm still not getting you're meaning.

 

[Goresplattered]

the consumer never wins when freedoms of any sort are stripped away.


Posted from Anandtech.com App for Android

 

[sontin]

I enjoyed my 470s at 760mhz because 1.087V control was at my fingertips and I didn't need to do any physical mods on the cards. If it wasn't for 470s great overclocking headroom and scaling with free voltage control that allowed them to OC to 480 speeds, I would have just gone with 5850s and saved my $.

My GTX670 runs at 1300MHz with 1,168V - up from 980MHz and 1V.

Removing voltage control is the opposite of what enthusiasts want. If you don't use voltage control, no problem, but having the option for others to use it doesn't hurt you, does it? You telling us that it's actually wrong for us to complain about it is absurd since this is an enthusiast forum not BestBuy.com.

I have voltage control. I can force the highest vcore on every boost step.

Again, this all works fine for people who don't overvolt but it also sends a lot of conflicting signals about NV. They are now basically 'forcing' you to pay extra $ for a faster GPU since the chances of you getting a GTX460 style card and overclocking it by 25-40% are going to be non-existent if this practice continues. This is a huge blow to people who want to buy a $280-300 GPU and overclock it to $500 level of performance.

What are talking? Everybody can overclock their Kepler cards. The only thing is that they don't allow a vcore over 1,175V. They don't limiting overvolting.

Secondly, to me personally it says a lot about the quality of the underlying components of the reference card. If voltage control is prohibited for RMA and risk of failure reasons, it shows the reference card is very budget-built since it cannot handle much more additional stress beyond stock operation. $500 for a card with 4 VRMs that can't take basic 10% overvolting sounds like NV is selling us the bare minimum here in terms of quality. This again doesn't inspire confidence for people who overclock their GPUs and run distributed computing or other GPU intensive projects. If NV removed voltage control due to fear of many failed GPUs from blown up VRMs, that already gives me pause about how well-built the entire GPU is to handle 24/7 365 day operation even at stock speeds.

Makes sense. nVidia is building cards for a maximum vcore of 1,175V which is 17,5% higher than their "base clock vcore" and you complaining about "quality"...

Finally, the entire industry of watercooling and after-market components largely relies on pushing components to the limits and voltage control is a part of it. Watercooling 680s this round was mostly for noise levels and not much else. Part of the fun of watercooling for some enthusiast was the idea that they'd get lower noise levels and much higher performance through overclocking via voltage control. With watercooling, the system was capable of dissipating the additional heat due to the added voltage.

And thx to nVidia people will buy watercoolers because they need temps under 69°C for the highest boost step...

NV locking out voltage control is no different than if Intel got rid of K series processors entirely and we would be stuck with BCLK overclocking only. At the very least NV could have charged extra for GPUs with voltage control if it was so afraid that people would buy cheaper GPUs and overclock them or to cover added RMA costs.

And yet people made nVidia responsible for the GTX590 fiasco. Now they are complaining that nVidia is limiting overvolting.

 

[blackened23]

nVidia's Boost is automatically overvolting the chip. The GTX680 is going from 1V to 1,175V at the highest Boost step for only a 10% increase in the clock rate.

Complaining that nVidia does not allow overvolting is wrong. They even guarantee a higher voltage over the base clock.

What are you talking about? 1.175V is stock load voltage. This is no different than every gpu on the market which dynamically changes voltage depending on graphics load. Idle voltage for cards is .9 - 1V, even for Fermi. If you're suggesting that 1V is stock voltage, you would be incorrect -the Kepler will never go that low unless you're sub 100% graphics load. If you're at 100% GPU usage you will be at 1.175V, the stock voltage.

Again, the stock load voltage is 1.175V. It is in no way over volting.

Personally, i'm not blaming nvidia. This is completely 100% within their rights, but we don't have to like it. All I would like is a proper explanation instead of "nvidia said so" - that doesn't seem unreasonable. I mean, if they don't want over voltage on reference cards, great! But why apply that same standard to aftermarket cards such as the lightning?

 

[sontin]

What are you talking about? 1.175V is stock load voltage. This is no different than every gpu on the market which dynamically changes voltage depending on graphics load. Idle voltage for cards is .9 - 1V, even for Fermi. If you're suggesting that 1V is stock voltage, you would be incorrect -the Kepler will never go that low unless you're sub 100% graphics load. If you're at 100% GPU usage you will be at 1.175V, the stock voltage.

Again, the stock load voltage is 1.175V. It is in no way over volting.

Stock is around 1V for GTX670 and GTX680 cards. 1,175V is the vcore for the highest boost step.
GTX680 base clock is 1000MHz with ~1V. Highest boost is 1124MHz with 1,175V. That's 17,5% higher for 11% more clock.

 

[cmdrdredd]

If the GTX 700 series is locked down then I won't buy it. I want control of my hardware even if I don't necessarily use it.

Stock is around 1V for GTX670 and GTX680 cards. 1,175V is the vcore for the highest boost step.
GTX680 base clock is 1000MHz with ~1V. Highest boost is 1124MHz with 1,175V. That's 17,5% higher for 11% more clock.

So a i5 3570k running stock speeds and under load going from .9v to 1.26v is overclocking?

Intel would laugh at you and say a resounding NO!

 

[cmdrdredd]

double

 

[zaydq]

Your answers above, love you too sweetie. Now I am done with this dance so I am bailing on the thread, but enjoy your poll that pretends if you don't manually adjust voltage then you don't overclock GPUs.

lol. You're just a kiddie that turns up one slider and says "Yaeyy i ovrekloked gpu"

You're also not much of an enthusiast. This poll is for people who do do this. Not for people who buy shelby gt500s and roll around laughing because money got them speed, not because their ingenuity got it.

 

[MrK6]

Stock is around 1V for GTX670 and GTX680 cards. 1,175V is the vcore for the highest boost step.
GTX680 base clock is 1000MHz with ~1V. Highest boost is 1124MHz with 1,175V. That's 17,5% higher for 11% more clock.

Arguing semantics and being an apologist doesn't fix the problem.

lol. You're just a kiddie that turns up one slider and says "Yaeyy i ovrekloked gpu"

You're also not much of an enthusiast. This poll is for people who do do this. Not for people who buy shelby gt500s and roll around laughing because money got them speed, not because their ingenuity got it.

Unfortunately this is a sentiment I see on a lot of boards now. Kids (or people who act like kids) read about Afterburner, change a few sliders, and now consider themselves "enthusiasts." Unfortunately they're the same people who probably fry GPU's and try to RMA. They're also the people that don't have a worthwhile opinion in threads like these. It would be odd if we went full 360 and had to go back to soldering to overvolt GPUs, but hey, exclusivity has its perks too.

And I like the analogy. It's the same as "car buffs" that buy a brand new "sports car" and now consider themselves enthusiasts but couldn't change an intake manifold to save their lives.

 

[ShintaiDK]

^^ This.

 

[Majcric]

I voted for "it bothers me a liittle" as i don't overvolt my GPU's because I just don't see the small gains in performance worth the extra pwer consumption, heat, noise, degrading of the GPU and so on worth it..

Of course, on the other hand I don't like to see large corporations with a monopoly(thank god we still have AMD) backing consumers in the corner with an attitude of take it or leave it.

 

[Phynaz]

Don't care. At default voltage you are getting what you paid for. Unless the ability to apply additional voltage was ever touted as a feature of current generation cards.