Spetsy
So what's the general consensus on the bios, can we hit 500w with it or is it currently busted?

There is no consensus. Some can, some can't.

Spetsy
So what's the general consensus on the bios, can we hit 500w with it or is it currently busted?

Currently not performing to expectation, which would be 500 watts with any sort of consistency. Most can't even hit 500 watts. It is allowing cards to pretty consistently hit above 450 in certain scenarios, I have personally seen up to 466 watts in Timespy and 476 watts in the CODMW Multiplayer loading screen on my GPU and EVGA_JacobF has shown images of Doom Eternal running ~480w and Quake RTX at a similar power draw, but most other titles still sit well under 450 the majority of the time w/ PerfCap Power still being the reason. There seems like there may be some correlation between core/mem clock offsets (overclocks) and your ability to pull more than 450 in a given scenario, with overclocks for some reason reducing the max power drawn at load (confirmed and reproducible on my card), but that has not been confirmed by more than a couple people. Current theories are "it's just a beta BIOS, it will get fixed" to "the board is hardware limited via the PCI-E shunt resistor" to "power draw is tied to a fixed ratio based on the PCI-E draw which drops w/ the new BIOS preventing us from hitting 500w consistently". People that are shunt modding their cards are able to hit higher wattage on a more consistent basis which does lend legitimacy to the hardware limited theory, but no one (to my knowledge) has confirmed whether or not this is something that EVGA would be able to resolve w/ a BIOS revision. To that end, there isn't really a general consensus, vocal members on this board each champion their own theories (or the theories of others) and the rest of us are just trying to figure out what the hell is going on and what can we do to help EVGA figure this out, while EVGA has remained relatively silent. 

If there is a consensus related to this BIOS, it is that EVGA would have been better off never having released it all.  

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Wall of text crit me for all my health.

Use an image hosting site, please.

Guys.. I'd be feeling pretty upset if I was Jacob.. 
EVGA KICKS ASS. They always have. They are the best. That's why we buy them. I've always wanted a ftw3 and couldn't ever afford it. 
 
I got over 450 watts because I went to 8k resolution on port royal on a custom run. Never once ever had I seen that prior to doing that. I'm on 1080p and usually get 420-440.
 
Clearly the card can go over 450.  Its probably a very complex firmware/bios situation that they need to fix and giving 5 percent of the people who bought the 1800 dollar card an immediate fix isn't their priority... Its ****ing covid right now too... 
 
They will figure it out and they will inform us...    I would love to hit 15k consistently on air with open case and I think with 500w that is possible... but I'll take my 14300 and be happy atm.. 
 
Also yes - some games crash. Metro exodus bench mark is a good test.. I personally think that 135/120 is the highest to have an all game not crash situation. I get a lot of crashing ON UE4 games. 

Jacob can you PLEASE CONFIRM OR DENY if our cards are hardware limited by pcie load balancing, I have someone willing to buy my card right now and I need to know if this can be fixed in the future or not

kring

sirien
Jacob can you PLEASE CONFIRM OR DENY if our cards are hardware limited by pcie load balancing, I have someone willing to buy my card right now and I need to know if this can be fixed in the future or not

yes it most certainly might
 
or  not
 
please hold....
 
dude, what kind of question is this?

A very legitimate one

evgatorator

kring

sirien
Jacob can you PLEASE CONFIRM OR DENY if our cards are hardware limited by pcie load balancing, I have someone willing to buy my card right now and I need to know if this can be fixed in the future or not

yes it most certainly might
 
or  not
 
please hold....
 
dude, what kind of question is this?

A very legitimate one

I agree 100% very legitimate.  Holding off on my 3090 ftw3 ultra purchase, few friends too, until  an official statement.

ehabash1
I'll save you the time and heartache 
The card is hardware limited. This is by design, and intentional
 
If you shunt the pcie with even the most insignificant tiny shunt like a 50miliohm (adds like 7 watts) you get full access to the bios and full 500watts as it removes the hardware lock by altering the ratio between pcie and first 3pin. This is proven now and users are doing this actively over at overclock.net with phenomenal results 
 
It's ridiculous that people are even speculating if its working for them or not. If it was working you wouldn't even have to check you would KNOW that it's working
 
Your average clocks will jump across the board in all games and your port royal scores will go up 400-500 points as seen for those who have bi-passed the hardlock set by evga, and as seen in the other 3pin cards; to which users have been enjoying this 500w bios without issue since release
 
Save yourself the time and stop refreshing this page. It's working as intended and you will not get any miracle update that suddenly makes this work. Evga should delete thread and pretend the whole thing never happened

I'm going to have to raise the cowpies flag there.
 
Some people ARE getting the 500 watts (or near enough) on the beta VBIOS - WITHOUT shunt modding. And some people don't get much past 430 to 440W on either VBIOS (like me).
 
There's more to it than just "you have to shunt mod to get 500W at all."

evgatorator
I was getting very near 480w and beyond with my 2-connector 3090 ZOTAC almost consistently--not a few spikes barely to near 460 like I'm getting now with the beta OC BIOS... I'm far from being an expert in the matter so I'm just going off my own experience and observations. If the card is not technically capable, then I get it but some transparency is all we need. I think having spent $2k on their flagship product kinda/sorta entitles us to this information. Not too much to ask really...

That is actually interesting information to have thank you, appreciate it! I did not know 2-connector 3090s were getting 480W that does give me some hope that this can be solved some how and they're just working on it?

ehabash1
🙄
Holy facepalm of cringe 😬

Yeah im out good luck

I don't know why you felt the need to share that you are leaving a thread on a forum as if anyone cares

telehog
491.3 Watts, 117 %  in Superposition 1080 p Extreme.

Interesting. What are your PX1 settings? Which BIOS? Do tell please. Also any crashes in games?

Running port royal 8k i max at around 460e power draw on my frw3 3090

sirien
We have our confirmed answer, EVGA locked these down on purpose
 
the odd thing is, how was Jacob or the bios guys not aware of this?
 
https://www.youtube.com/w...k&feature=youtu.be

After watching that and the test I've done I say he right. I think  the only reason I was able to get 491.3 watts at 117 % is  the EZ Plug for extra power to Pcie lanes,1600 watt psu also, still can't touch 500 watts. 80.2 watts out of  pcie slot power and power limited on 3 -8 pin power connectors.

I'm getting really terrible results... I get 420W on stock OC bios during Firestrike Ultra, if I play with OC settings I go up to 479W at 139+/+900 and voltage set to max fans at max, am I missing something here?