NVidia "Green Light" and OC'ing

[jimbo32]

Link

If this has already been posted somewhere, my apologies.

Anyway, it seems like kind of a dumb move to me. As long as AMD doesn't do something similar, I would guess that at least some enthusiasts will stay away from NVidia. Part of the reason that something like a 670 has been worth buying is due to the fact that it could be OC'ed to perform like a reference 680. Take that functionality away, and while you still have an excellent card, it seems to lose some of its "bang for buck".

It's not just me, right?

 

[Josh Weston]

Regarding overvoltaging above our max spec, we offer AICs two choices:

· Ensure the GPU stays within our operating specs and have a full warranty from NVIDIA.

· Allow the GPU to be manually operated outside specs in which case NVIDIA provides no warranty.

- - - - - - - - -

Seems as though that when you'll buy boards in the future, that can overclock, they'll have no warranty from Nvidia. To be honest, I don't find this too bad, as you do overclock at your own risk. Even without big voltage increases, the cards can still overclock fairly well.

 

[jimbo32]

The "no warranty from NVidia" part has nothing to do with consumers though - it's all about coverage for the board manufacturers when a card is RMA'ed. So MSI, EVGA, etc provide the consumer warranty and NVidia covers them in the event of a bad gpu. I'm not entirely sure how this might work though - future credit in the form of free chips, maybe?

Regardless, the most likely outcome (assuming I'm reading it right) is that the OC'ing capability of NVidia cards - regardless of the manufacturer - will be severely curtailed across the board. I don't think it's likely that card manufacturers will expose themselves to the possibility of a large number of RMA's with zero compensation from NVidia.

The dirtiest bit in the story is the suggestion that NVidia initially allowed the cards with heavy voltage control (EVGA Classified, MSI Lightning, etc) to be released as a PR exercise in order to set benchmark records - only to yank the rug from under those companies now. If I was an NVidia gpu partner, I'd be royally pissed.

 

[Vicey]

This is what happens when the competition (AMD) aren't pushing boundaries. We see the same thing happening on the Intel side with locked down XEON's that can't be overclocked and 1155 chips that can't have their QPI bus speed raised. The necessity of K and X series CPU purchases.

NVIDIA doesn't want people buying a cheaper GPU and running it at high end GPU performance levels thats the real problem here. We all know that the GTX 680 should have been the GTX 660. It's not the big daddy die it was intended to be because the HD 7970 was not fast enough to warrant NVIDIA releasing the "real" GTX 680.

In my opinion we desperately need Intel to start making dedicated graphics cards because the way things are right now innovation is stagnating due to a lack of competition.

 

[NRG!]

to clarify this

overclocking is still 'allowed'.

overvolting is not.

new 680 lightnings ship with locked bioses and overvoltage support for them was removed in afterburner 2.2.4 (obviously we can skirt around these issues )

new 680 classifieds no longer have the EVBot connector.

 

[Lollipop]

Sigh... Why must companies always hold back because of money whoring? We see it in games as no modding support, we see it in hardware as locked BIOS's etc. I don't get it, did they see the success of Apple and want to follwo the same route?

 

[reeper250]

May this have been somewhat to do with MSI massively overvolting their cards for higher clocks?

 

[jimbo32]

Maybe. I'm wondering if they'd noticed a massive spike in RMA's and felt they needed to address it. If so, it would've been helpful for them to just say that, rather than appearing to be money-grubbing weasels who didn't want people OC'ing to achieve 680 results on cards costing much less.

When you toss in the rumours that the 680 was actually intended to be the 660, it's even worse. Not only are people paying ~$250 more than the card likely would have been selling for, but NVidia want to cripple the whole range for enthusiasts by disallowing overvolting.

(OT I suppose, but imagine if NVidia had released the line as the rumour states - a $130 [£84] 670 badged as a 650 would have been ridiculous.)

 

[reeper250]

I think people most likely noticed the voltages on the cards and started complaining. I am guessing it would have increased the overall heat and noise output of the card, as well as power usage.

There would most likely have been more coil whine RMA's due to such high voltages on the cards.

 

[NRG!]

I don't think msi intentionally (or by accident (lol)) applying more voltage to the voltage controller is why this has come to light.

If so, why was overvoltage always limited from 680 launch? nvidia have just smacked down evga and msi for any form of user voltage control and that's why green light is being talked about. It's been around since fermi.

msi's tinkering on the 670/660ti is a separate issue imo.