crossbone
So, some pages ago I mentioned that I contacted EVGA and got a new BIOS for the FTW3 Ultra that should according to them fix the Wattage issue. Unfortunately they seemed to have sent the wrong one. I got another one to test, today. Unfortunately I no longer own the card, perhaps some of you guys want to check out whether this really is a new and fixed version. I uploaded it for you guys:
 
https://filehorst.de/d/dCJtlnGj

Lmao! =P

Well EVGA Support at its best again... lol 
 
One cant express with words how incompetent they are.
 
I linked to this thread and told them hundreds of people are having problems with the BIOSes, and they sent the same again? 

ZOMG LMFAO
 
UTTER INCOMPETENCE
 
 
Well, I know why I returned my card and I advise you all to do the same. Shady practices, unfriendly and incompetent customer suppport. Great EVGA - Great!

My custom fan curve in MSI afterburner does not work properly. It doesn't follow the line at all. Is there anyway for me to keep my OC in afterburner while using Precision for fan control? 

Yikes!!    Can someone from EVGA comment on the influx of people it seems that work there that either don't know what they are doing or lack the compassion of us gamers?   Some of these comments are scary.

Zgapzy

compuclinic
Yikes!!    Can someone from EVGA comment on the influx of people it seems that work there that either don't know what they are doing or lack the compassion of us gamers?   Some of these comments are scary.

The fact they are turning a blind eye is just insulting. If they came out and said yes there is a problem but we are working on a fix i would be happy to wait.

Well I mean they are getting their money so... They probably don't really care about this small segment of people. I had a china board and didn't get that high of power draw... Of course I had to rma due to the third fan not running and the rgb just was frozen so that is fun. So I've had no computer now for a week thanks to this slow process even more so with the holiday.

chase10784

Zgapzy

compuclinic
Yikes!!    Can someone from EVGA comment on the influx of people it seems that work there that either don't know what they are doing or lack the compassion of us gamers?   Some of these comments are scary.

The fact they are turning a blind eye is just insulting. If they came out and said yes there is a problem but we are working on a fix i would be happy to wait.

Well I mean they are getting their money so... They probably don't really care about this small segment of people. I had a china board and didn't get that high of power draw... Of course I had to rma due to the third fan not running and the rgb just was frozen so that is fun. So I've had no computer now for a week thanks to this slow process even more so with the holiday.

I had the choice between the Asus when i went to pick this up, 2020 for ya.

Den-ko
How do I check if my GPU was made in China or Taiwan or whatever?

Just check the UPC label on your box. It will say Made in Taiwan or Made in China and the first digits of the SN will be 2014 or 2012. 

matthewr87

Den-ko
How do I check if my GPU was made in China or Taiwan or whatever?

Just check the UPC label on your box. It will say Made in Taiwan or Made in China and the first digits of the SN will be 2014 or 2012. 

Mine is 2012 so that’s China? My chip is a beast, top 1% in Timespy Graphics for a single 3090 so I really hope nothing goes wrong with it.

kring
Can someone please boil down what the "theory" is between Taiwan or China boards?    Mine was Taiwan, but why does that matter? Are they different designs? Is there something I can help with to add data to this?

According to those replying on this thread, the ones that have a 2014 Taiwan board cannot reliably get higher than 450w on the 500w bios, but those with the 2012 China boards have no trouble getting the full (or very near) 500w with the 500w bios. To my knowledge, there was one report of a 2014 owner not having an issue with the 500 bios, but all other cases point to the fact that there is a difference between the two. What that difference is, nobody except EVGA knows (and I'm sure by now they do know, but aren't saying). 

whaleboy_2048 According to those replying on this thread, the ones that have a 2014 Taiwan board cannot reliably get higher than 450w on the 500w bios, but those with the 2012 China boards have no trouble getting the full (or very near) 500w with the 500w bios. To my knowledge, there was one report of a 2014 owner not having an issue with the 500 bios, but all other cases point to the fact that there is a difference between the two. What that difference is, nobody except EVGA knows (and I'm sure by now they do know, but aren't saying). 

 
Thanks for that!  If it helps others - here's my experience. I had one of the first boards to ship, it's Taiwan made.  I applied the XOC bios and in Timespy/Port Royal I get 420w-445w but in Doom Eternal I get 460w-490w.  The card runs all games fine for me, never crashes. I was a top-20 HoF on Port Royal for a long time, it' runs around 2000mhz consistently (floats between 1985 & 2100) so the GPU cores are good.  However I do have one (what I consider) massive issue... the card NEVER wakes from sleep, never has from day one. It fails in device manager every time I wake up, tried all sorts of troubleshooting and have never had it wake up once. 

Rbk_3

matthewr87

Rbk_3


Mine is 2012 so that’s China? My chip is a beast, top 1% in Timespy Graphics for a single 3090 so I really hope nothing goes wrong with it.

Mine is a 2014 Taiwan board. Stock Timespy GPU score is 19400. When I overclock it actually goes down by 1000 points....

Damn that sucks hard. I get over 22k graphics with an OC on air. Hope they sort that out with the full release of the bios

Yeah. Its going back to Amazon before Jan 31st lol
 
Port Royal maxes out at 13900. Can't even crack 14000.
 
I don't think it is a BIOS issue in my case. According to GPU-Z it pulls right around 450W at max load with stock OC bios so it does not have the power limit issues of other boards. 

Could actually indicate that the China board is lower quality and not actually doing what Evga intends
 
Also, i just want to throw this out there. Originally my scores jumped over 100points by using the cheap Thermaltake riser (the $30 one).
I tested over and over again. I compared it to the expensive Thermaltake riser ($60-$70) as well as pluging direct into mobo. 
The nice riser and direct method continuously scored lower than the cheap riser in benchmarks.
My theory, the cheap riser was actually pulling more watts from the slot. Even 1-5watts more can have a significant impact on these FTW3 cards based on how to multiplier/power balancing works
 
so these dudes with the china boards might be celebrating but im not sure it's a good thing.

is kingpin 3090 out?
Maybe someone could dump the bios and check for differences.
However, how many watts can a kingpin version absorb?

 
The card reaches 2580 mhz in these screens. Voltage is the same as our 3090 ftw3. The card has also 3x 8 pin, so the maximum absobtion should be the same (75 + 150 + 150 + 150).
So, what are we missing here?
 
Chip quality? Better board? Better vrms?

slovak_killer
 
List of what we are missing :
520W bios (working)
voltage control (classified tool, he might be only idling on 1069mv)
control of unknow voltage rail that helps with stability/scores
pcb quality, and xoc features (OCP dip switches etc)
 

Yeah, at least with a working 500w bios we could reach easily 2100-2200 stable clocks.