I noticed my 3090 ftw3 ultra has a very pronounced power disparity between the 3rd plug and first and second. I.E. 120/132/60-70
 
Is this something people are RMA'ing their cards over? Are there correctly balanced 3090 ftw3 ultras that can hit their power? This is very frustrating to find after throwing the water block on. ugh
 
 

Disappointing, to say the least. I always heard EVGA was good with their customer service. Mostly why I went with them on this card. Not really a cheap purchase @ $2k.

donnie123
First test your card in real world and how it's boosting, because tbh I seen many cards which have less power consumption and better boost. I am not sure why people are so stuck on how much watts the card eats. It doesn't always translate in the performance. It could well be your card will work better then one which has 3x150w on rails..

Don't come in here talking that crazy talk. I want to eats ALL the power!!  Yeah, it just bothers me there is such a difference on that one rail. Hopefully its not a sign of impending doom or anything. In the meantime, I'll be putting it to good use. 
 
 

phroze

spiteful_monkey

donnie123
First test your card in real world and how it's boosting, because tbh I seen many cards which have less power consumption and better boost. I am not sure why people are so stuck on how much watts the card eats. It doesn't always translate in the performance. It could well be your card will work better then one which has 3x150w on rails..

Don't come in here talking that crazy talk. I want to eats ALL the power!!  Yeah, it just bothers me there is such a difference on that one rail. Hopefully its not a sign of impending doom or anything. In the meantime, I'll be putting it to good use. 
 
 

The theory is that they card was originally supposed to be 2x 8pin and 1x 6pin but that they changed it at the last minute. That would explain the power draw issue. Could all be a lie though so take it with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't be as bothered if all the cards showed this behavior, but some are evenly pulling power from the three and reach their max pull.

phroze

spiteful_monkey

phroze

spiteful_monkey

donnie123
First test your card in real world and how it's boosting, because tbh I seen many cards which have less power consumption and better boost. I am not sure why people are so stuck on how much watts the card eats. It doesn't always translate in the performance. It could well be your card will work better then one which has 3x150w on rails..

Don't come in here talking that crazy talk. I want to eats ALL the power!!  Yeah, it just bothers me there is such a difference on that one rail. Hopefully its not a sign of impending doom or anything. In the meantime, I'll be putting it to good use. 
 
 

The theory is that they card was originally supposed to be 2x 8pin and 1x 6pin but that they changed it at the last minute. That would explain the power draw issue. Could all be a lie though so take it with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't be as bothered if all the cards showed this behavior, but some are evenly pulling power from the three and reach their max pull.

I didn't know there were any cards that are pulling evenly. Lucky dogs.

Strix 3090 pulls from all 3 very close.
 
Look in very recent post in here "red light of death" I think,  that is the balancing issue result and I said that in December and that the once who bragging about their cards working, they will be back months later because this is serious issue that EVGA will address by crippling the card with limiting Bios and yet! That will not fix the bigger issue and here we go. Guy who had FTW3 since December reporting the exact issue today, months later, that is just one of many customers.  When you spending that much, the card better last 3 years and upwards, there is no way that will fly with 30 series FTW3 EVGA cards.
 
Hey EVGA will be recirculating RMAs for the next few years and who will pay the shipping! yes You

Here's what the 3080 ftw3 ultra does
 
Forget it, can't post pictures.
 
same deal, 3rd 8 pin pulling half as much as 1st and 2nd.

rjbarker
^^^ Same with my Card I got 4 weeks ago 3080FTW3 Ultra.....got my EK Block on it...started OC'ing and realized I cannot past 400W ....obviously my OC is "power limited"...**** really, where is my 450w?!!??
Running GPU-Z "sensors" and found that my PCI-E plug #3 is gimped...drawing 1/2 the power of the other 2 plugs...so yeah of course I'm power limited!!!
The Card seems to OC well and of course under a full cover block and custom loop temps are awesome, but my OC is power limited to 400w....so yeah...crippled Card on a 3 Rad Custom Loop with a 1600i PSU.....luck of the draw I guess!
 
Did more digging and from what I understand could be related to the "cheap" analogue power controllers used in the FTW3's (both 3080 n 3090) vs the "better" digital power controllers as found in the Strix Cards (none of those Cards have the same issue).
Really hoping a simple BIOS update would correct the problem but I think the bottom line is there is no way a BIOS or FW update can fix it (Hardware level), but why some Cards borked and many not?
 
Would be nice if Evga would acknowledge this to there customers (instead of leaving us all to resort to internet searches)...but I've given up!!
Worth an RMA over......likely not....especially risking getting the same or a shvvtier Card, or some other crappy used Card.
 
It does disappoint me that no acknowledgement from EVGA about this problem (I have reached out to Jacob but "crickets") and the fact that they ship "re-furb / used Cards" as part of there RMA process. I paid for new I want new in the case of RMA period!
After 17 yrs of nothing but Evga Cards next one will be Asus Strix....I used to be a loyal Evga Classified Mobo fan...until X79...then got tired of the QC and have been Asus Mobo's since (never any issues).....
 

You nailed it with the analog power controller causing balance issues. The program cards use a different analog/digital controller. Still doesn't fix the plug 3 issues though. A shunt mod would I reckon.

My 3090 FTW3 pulls fairly evenly across the 3 with a deviation of maybe 1 to 1.5 watts. For example 118 120 119. So would this be due to difference in the components or assembly of the cards? I really would have expected a statement from EVGA by now concerning this or at least concerning the failures.

^^^ We already know there are many Cards that behave "properly" with power balancing and able to reach 450w on XOC Bios, we're looking at the Cards that dont.(max 400w and 1/2 power draw from PCI-E 3 cable)...and there are many.
 
Evga just seems to throw a blinds eye at this as we can still reach product boost speeds....pretty under whelming if you're into OC'ing and benchmarking!
 

Hey, how long did the rma process take? I'm wondering because I just opened a ticket but am second geussing because it's my only card.

How long did the RMA process take

I have the same cpu/gpu 5950x & 3090 ftw3u, I went with ek's block and used 10 W/mK thermal putty from digikey's website paired with thermalright odyssey pads 12.8 W/mK and thermal grizzly kryonaut paste for the gpu. I wrnt from evga's stock air cooler for the 3090 to the 3080/3090 quantum vector block

Following Jufes tutorial fron the youtube channel "Frame Chasers" I only applied the thermal putty to the memory chips for my initial install and pads on top for the purpose of filling in the spaces between the chips and the putty forms around the edge of the chiplets and gives superior transfer of heat compared to just thermal pads. The thermalright pads are close to the same firmness as the blue ek pads(~3.5 W/mK) so I had zero issues during installation.

While I wait for the active backplate to come (sept) I am using ek's backplate for now with the stock evga thermal pads which I compressed before the install along with the blue ek pads that came with the backplate. I will use the same process for memory chips on the backside as I did for the front(die) side.

The results I've achieved are surprisingly good, really good actually. I'll post some pics below, the quick miner screen from nicehash corresponds with HWInfo, just an fyi.

Gaming @ 4k my temps are between 45°C - 52°C for the gpu while my VRM's and memory run cooler than mining. I couldn't be happier with my results and I'm excited to install my active backplate.

I hope all this information helps someone out and answers some of the unknowns that are out there in regards to ekwb block install. If you want a parts list of my build let me know.

Ambient temperature in my pc room is around 24°C - 26°C

My build, products used and a quick view of results:

Edit** my links to pictures were taken out of my post? I'm new to posting so I'm not sure why, any help is appreciated so I can share yhe pictures.

Now that I have adequate cooling I'm going to test how my card behaves once again. If it's still completely unbalanced than I will follow through with my one time RMA to actually get what I paid 2400$ CAD for.

The 3090 either has inferior components for the power delivery, a design flaw, or EVGA were cheaping out on their flagship card.

The 3090 FTW3U has a better bin but they simply **** the bed in the design process.

HeinzNeu
My first RMA failed. They sent me a faulty 3090 FTW3 Ultra Gaming again. 
The second RMA has been a complete success.
They gave me a brand new Rev. 3, EVGA 227, which reaches easily 450 W. Even reaching at last 501 Watts isn't a big deal for the card.
EVGA did a great job exchanging the power buggy card. Just look at it by yourself: TimeSpy 10,954 Points without hitting the oc limit of the card

Revision 3? I have a Revision 1.0 from the stepup program I got last week, crappy results and tops out at 450w, with very bad pin 3 use.