talon951
But is it really EVGA's fault

talon951
I assume you flashed the 385w Zotac bios? That's higher than what EVGA intended for the XC3. So it would clock higher. Assuming that's what you flashed, you can't expect the evga bios to match that if they intended a lower power limit.

The real issue is that $1200 or more for a video card is insane in the first place. Have you considered this entire issue is actually driven ultimately by Covid? I know that sounds dumb on the surface but that's how we got to this point. The high demand and shortage of gpus is at least in part due to the pandemic.

In a way I agree with you in that paying $1500 (HC version) is INSANE for that card. Could it be that you are upset because it cost sooo much money and is at best average? I do understand that. But is it really EVGA's fault or are they just operating in this crazy environment we're in right now?

I've bought $3000 in video cards this generation. I would have laughed my ass off a year ago at anyone that suggested I would do that but here I am. A middling Zotac 3090 and a 3080Ti FTW3. The Zotac was VERY much like the 3080ti XC3 in that it underperformed relative to other 3090s. But that's all I could get last year. I made the most of it with a custom loop and KP XOC bios. I bought the 3080ti as a spare card in part to insure I'd have a 30 series card in case my 3090 died.

Anyway some perspective that will probably be lost but that's how I see this. Difficult times that we have to make the best of.

jboud47

talon951
But is it really EVGA's fault

Yes. 100%. Lesser products are not having the same power issues. A card that costs 2/3rds of this one is outperforming it.

None of the rest of what you said is justification to sell a product that doesn't operate as advertised. Especially one that's priced at an inflated MSRP. And then on top of that to not address the issue and provide inadequate customer support.

kongfra
stupid question because I don't pay attention to these technical enough, what is the GPU Clock and Memory Clock suppose to be for a regular TI XC3? If I understand GPU should be 1725 and memory 1975?
 
Here is a snapshot of HWINFO after about playing 45 of Red Dead Redemption 2 with all settings maxed , but this screenshot was taken 10-15 min after exiting game so average might be skewed but you can see I what I hit in the max, I really don't know if this is good or bad or what my clocks should be, I am not overclocking nor touched anything in precision other then ramping up the fan curve
 
Is hwinfo accurate?  

Dante_Tel
So Kram, I took a look at your Motherboard as mentioned in your specs from these sites. Are you aware that your mobo only goes up to PCIe 3.0? For max speed and performance these cards require no lower than the current PCIe 4.0 to run without hindrance. I mean, you can run a 4.0 card in a 3.0 slot but you're going to see varied levels of performance drop due to your slot not being up to spec. That's honestly my best guess after running all the other numbers and specs myself, the problem isn't the cards, it's your Motherboard not being up to spec.

-Tax-
Same issue with my 12G-P5-3953-KR, no where near the 350 watts stated, usually under 300. I have put the card in the Step Up Queue, I don't feel sending it in for a replacement will fix the issue. With so many of these cards not performing as expected.
 
LG27GN950 4k 144hz monitor
MSI Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
I9-9900k 
16 GB 3200 RAM
EVGA RTX 3080 Ti XC3 Gaming
EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2, 80+ GOLD 850W 
1TB M.2 Windows 10 Home 64 bit
500GB SSD
Lian Li  pc-011-dynamic case
 
Windows up to date
Drivers up to date
Bios up to date
 

Jstandaert
My daily attempt to sound smart-
 
Doesn't the FTW series have the opposite problem? J2C was doing a video on new world and set his power cap to 100% but the card was showing like 120%. could this be EVGA being overly cautious so the card isn't a time bomb like the 3090's?

kram36

kongfra
Have you actually tried to RMA and see what EVGA says?  Maybe you just have bad card?  mine hits 348W in most demanding games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Battlefield 5 without any overclocking or messing with any settings except the fan curve.  It also stays very cool 69-72 under full load and this is the XC3 base model

Post links to Time Spy, Port Royal and Fire Strike Extreme.

kram36
 
The 3080 Ti FE card is a 2X 8-Pin card and has no issue pulling 350w same with the Nvidia 3090 FE card, it's a 2X 8-Pin card.
 
With that game that started to kill 3090 cards. EVGA is really going to ignore this issue even more. What a bad timing.

kram36

KingEngineRevUp
Just a thought, we need to find someone with a MSI 3080 Ti Ventus or Gigabyte Eagle
 
I've noticed that the Ventus and Eagle models always have the same TDPs as XC3s. 
 
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/msi-rtx-3080-ti-ventus-3x-oc.b8767
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/gigabyte-rtx-3080-ti-eagle.b8842
 
If the Ventus and Eagle have the same problem, then it's highly likely it might be a hardware level issue for cards designed with 2X 8-Pin with a 350W TDP in mind. 
 
This would be similar to 3080 Tis with TDPs around 450W that hover around just 400W only. 

The 3080 Ti FE card is a 2X 8-Pin card and has no issue pulling 350w same with the Nvidia 3090 FE card, it's a 2X 8-Pin card.
 
With that game that started to kill 3090 cards. EVGA is really going to ignore this issue even more. What a bad timing.

KingEngineRevUp
 
 
1. There is a low TDP reference design
2. There is a middle TDP reference design that always pushes TDP around the FE
3. There is a high TDP reference design, usually the 3-Pin cards
 
Nvidia approves these reference designs and they probably made and sent the reference designs out for 1 and 2 and other partners just copied and slightly modified the parts on the bill of materials. 
 
It's just a hunch for now.
 
Edit: The ideal case, the other 350W TDP cards can consistently go above 300W, so why can't the XC3? Then more pressure can be put on EVGA to match their competitors. 

gsrcrxsi

KingEngineRevUp
 
 
1. There is a low TDP reference design
2. There is a middle TDP reference design that always pushes TDP around the FE
3. There is a high TDP reference design, usually the 3-Pin cards
 
Nvidia approves these reference designs and they probably made and sent the reference designs out for 1 and 2 and other partners just copied and slightly modified the parts on the bill of materials. 
 
It's just a hunch for now.
 
Edit: The ideal case, the other 350W TDP cards can consistently go above 300W, so why can't the XC3? Then more pressure can be put on EVGA to match their competitors. 

I've said it over and over.
 
this is not a case where the GPU will never reach a certain power draw. it's entirely use-case dependent.
 
I can make my card hit 350W... in the DX12 Raytracing benchmark. and probably other loads that see very low memory controller utilization. the problem is that too many people are not standardizing their test plans, and you have one person comparing their performance and power draw under X conditions, while another person compares under Y conditions, and yet another compares under Z conditions.
 
so does that mean that our cards are "fine" if we can trick the card into running full power draw under one niche benchmark test? I don't think so. In my opinion the power limit should be enforced to the same value, regardless of use-case. but that's not what's happening. and clearly some cards are performing better than others. I showed this in my pre and post RMA testing, eliminating the excuse of "oh it's just system to system differences and CPU/ram differences". If that was the case, I wouldnt see different behavior between my original card and my RMA, yet I did. and I also eliminated the software based excuses of "OS or driver" problems by demonstrating this same behavior on both Linux and Windows.
 
the best correlation I've shown with my own card is that memory controller load and observed effective power limit exhibit an inverse relationship. high mem loads = low power limit, and low mem load = higher power limit.

KingEngineRevUp

gsrcrxsi

KingEngineRevUp
 
 
1. There is a low TDP reference design
2. There is a middle TDP reference design that always pushes TDP around the FE
3. There is a high TDP reference design, usually the 3-Pin cards
 
Nvidia approves these reference designs and they probably made and sent the reference designs out for 1 and 2 and other partners just copied and slightly modified the parts on the bill of materials. 
 
It's just a hunch for now.
 
Edit: The ideal case, the other 350W TDP cards can consistently go above 300W, so why can't the XC3? Then more pressure can be put on EVGA to match their competitors. 

I've said it over and over.
 
this is not a case where the GPU will never reach a certain power draw. it's entirely use-case dependent.
 
I can make my card hit 350W... in the DX12 Raytracing benchmark. and probably other loads that see very low memory controller utilization. the problem is that too many people are not standardizing their test plans, and you have one person comparing their performance and power draw under X conditions, while another person compares under Y conditions, and yet another compares under Z conditions.
 
so does that mean that our cards are "fine" if we can trick the card into running full power draw under one niche benchmark test? I don't think so. In my opinion the power limit should be enforced to the same value, regardless of use-case. but that's not what's happening. and clearly some cards are performing better than others. I showed this in my pre and post RMA testing, eliminating the excuse of "oh it's just system to system differences and CPU/ram differences". If that was the case, I wouldnt see different behavior between my original card and my RMA, yet I did. and I also eliminated the software based excuses of "OS or driver" problems by demonstrating this same behavior on both Linux and Windows.
 
the best correlation I've shown with my own card is that memory controller load and observed effective power limit exhibit an inverse relationship. high mem loads = low power limit, and low mem load = higher power limit.

There is a difference between "hitting" and there is a difference between "sustaining."

I want EVGA to explain the scenarios for both. Not you.