domenicdistefano
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Since the overwhelming determinant factor & constraint in overclocking these cards is the BIOS power limit this determines which higher-end card amongst the various AIB custom cards is selected by most enthusiasts if most everything else is equal. This is my opinion - specifically I am talking about the Strix 3090 vs the FTW3 3090 @ the $1,800 USD price point.
I like EVGA better as a company and I like having the temperature sensors on the FTW3. But due to the power limit difference between the cards and the apparent +40 watt advantage going to the Strix () I am leaning now towards the Strix after first deciding to go with the FTW3. From what just I can determine by reading the quality of the power delivery and other PCB components on both cards seem to be of similar high quality.
So my question is with these flagship level cards with their high-end / quality power delivery characteristics what is the determining factor EVGA uses to set the final launch max voltage limit? Is it simply marketing trying to outguess the competitors? Is it possible or customary for EVGA to release an updated BIOS to at least match their close competitors as long as the power limit fits within the card's safe power envelope?
Thanks
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vapinghanso
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 19:20:10
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AnonymousGuy
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 19:22:24
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Nvidia probably dictates the max specs they can use and then it's up to the AIB's to decide how comfortable they are validating those specs and cooling it. We'll see if the higher tier cards are truly any difference in performance...I'm not hopeful because that's just not the direction things have been going. "yeah it's a massive overkill PCB but it's BIOS locked to X watts and Y volts so good luck with that....thanks for paying 3x reference design" With the 1000 and 2000 series if you are watercooling there's zero reason to buy anything but a reference card with the cheapest cooler, cause it's getting tossed anyways and the cooler was the only usable differentiation point.
post edited by AnonymousGuy - 2020/09/24 19:25:23
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bavor
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 19:28:13
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AnonymousGuy
With the 1000 and 2000 series if you are watercooling there's zero reason to buy anything but a reference card with the cheapest cooler, cause it's getting tossed anyways and the cooler was the only usable differentiation point.
That's assuming you are comfortable flashing your BIOS and voiding your warranty to get maximum performance out of the water cooled reference 1000 or 2000 series card. If you aren't, then you will still get higher FPS and lower render and encoding times with an aftermarket card that has a higher power limit.
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domenicdistefano
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 19:34:14
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AnonymousGuy
Nvidia probably dictates the max specs they can use and then it's up to the AIB's to decide how comfortable they are validating those specs and cooling it. We'll see if the higher tier cards are truly any difference in performance...I'm not hopeful because that's just not the direction things have been going. "yeah it's a massive overkill PCB but it's BIOS locked to X watts and Y volts so good luck with that....thanks for paying 3x reference design"
With the 1000 and 2000 series if you are watercooling there's zero reason to buy anything but a reference card with the cheapest cooler, cause it's getting tossed anyways and the cooler was the only usable differentiation point.
That's my point / question. At the price tier we are talking about for these near highest end cards only those trying to eek out the last drop of performance are interested in buying them (commonly with water cooling in mind) and it seems the circuitry quality is close enough on both to accommodate a + / - 40 watts for instance. Perhaps in this case EVGA simply showed their cards first and after seeing that Asus just dialed it up slight so that people like me would see the scales tipped ever so slightly. Just wondering if its common for post-launch BIOS updates that adjust or equalize the limit amongst similar competitors - again as long its considered safe. As Buildzoid pointed out in one of his recent videos the lower-end AIB reference cards would just burn up if the BIOS allowed more power.
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AnonymousGuy
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 19:37:07
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bavor
AnonymousGuy
With the 1000 and 2000 series if you are watercooling there's zero reason to buy anything but a reference card with the cheapest cooler, cause it's getting tossed anyways and the cooler was the only usable differentiation point.
That's assuming you are comfortable flashing your BIOS and voiding your warranty to get maximum performance out of the water cooled reference 1000 or 2000 series card. If you aren't, then you will still get higher FPS and lower render and encoding times with an aftermarket card that has a higher power limit.
Take the 2080Ti example: the Kingpin had +100W power limit but it didn't matter when the thing was voltage limited by NV's requirement anyways you got (practically) the same performance as reference.
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arestavo
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 20:00:59
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bavor
That's assuming you are comfortable flashing your BIOS and voiding your warranty to get maximum performance out of the water cooled reference 1000 or 2000 series card. If you aren't, then you will still get higher FPS and lower render and encoding times with an aftermarket card that has a higher power limit.
Flashing your VBIOS on an EVGA card doesn't void the warranty, assuming you don't brick/break the card before you can flash it back for RMA. Even then, with a dual VBIOS card that's not really an issue.
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AHowes
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 20:07:16
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AnonymousGuy
bavor
AnonymousGuy
With the 1000 and 2000 series if you are watercooling there's zero reason to buy anything but a reference card with the cheapest cooler, cause it's getting tossed anyways and the cooler was the only usable differentiation point.
That's assuming you are comfortable flashing your BIOS and voiding your warranty to get maximum performance out of the water cooled reference 1000 or 2000 series card. If you aren't, then you will still get higher FPS and lower render and encoding times with an aftermarket card that has a higher power limit.
Take the 2080Ti example: the Kingpin had +100W power limit but it didn't matter when the thing was voltage limited by NV's requirement anyways you got (practically) the same performance as reference.
Not with the candy tools from TiN.. designer of the Kingpin cards. Sky was the limit.
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HeavyHemi
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 20:33:39
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I believe the original context of the thread is to keep the warranty intact. The answer is, ultimately Nvidia controls this with the AIBs. They are allowed a max power by Nvidia and cannot contractually violate it. Sure, if you don't care about the warranty and are handy with tools you can exceed that. I don't believe that is what is being asked. arestavo
bavor
That's assuming you are comfortable flashing your BIOS and voiding your warranty to get maximum performance out of the water cooled reference 1000 or 2000 series card. If you aren't, then you will still get higher FPS and lower render and encoding times with an aftermarket card that has a higher power limit.
Flashing your VBIOS on an EVGA card doesn't void the warranty, assuming you don't brick/break the card before you can flash it back for RMA. Even then, with a dual VBIOS card that's not really an issue.
While this is true, I've tried pretty much every whiz bang BIOS out there. I still get the best results with the stock BIOS using the voltage curve. I'm not sure volt modding the GPU I would get more out of it. I already peak at 130% of power target. I'd need to keep my temps lower. Right now I peak about 50C.
post edited by HeavyHemi - 2020/09/24 20:39:05
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bavor
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 20:50:59
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arestavo
Flashing your VBIOS on an EVGA card doesn't void the warranty, assuming you don't brick/break the card before you can flash it back for RMA. Even then, with a dual VBIOS card that's not really an issue.
I guess I should have been a little more clear, if you send an EVGA card back in for warranty repair/replacement and it doesn't have the stock BIOS on it, then they don't honor the warranty. I've had EVGA cards just die and not be recognized by any motherboard with no warning before. If they didn't have the stock BIOS, no warranty.
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bavor
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 20:57:23
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AnonymousGuy
Take the 2080Ti example: the Kingpin had +100W power limit but it didn't matter when the thing was voltage limited by NV's requirement anyways you got (practically) the same performance as reference.
I've had the opposite experience with the 1070, 1080, 1080 ti, 2080, 2080 super, and 2080 ti. When limited to the wattage limit of the founder's card, I had much much lower benchmark scores and lower FPS in games than I achieved with the wattage limit on custom PCB cards. I've also flashed reference cards with a higher wattage BIOS from a non reference PCB card and had my benchmark scores increase significantly on multiple cards. I currently have somewhere between 30 and 35 #1 GPU benchmark scores in the world according to hardwarebot and bumped multiple out of the #1 spot on 3DMark's hall of fame for several GPUs, so maybe I'm wrong.
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HeavyHemi
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 21:11:47
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bavor
AnonymousGuy
Take the 2080Ti example: the Kingpin had +100W power limit but it didn't matter when the thing was voltage limited by NV's requirement anyways you got (practically) the same performance as reference.
I've had the opposite experience with the 1070, 1080, 1080 ti, 2080, 2080 super, and 2080 ti. When limited to the wattage limit of the founder's card, I had much much lower benchmark scores and lower FPS in games than I achieved with the wattage limit on custom PCB cards. I've also flashed reference cards with a higher wattage BIOS from a non reference PCB card and had my benchmark scores increase significantly on multiple cards. I currently have somewhere between 30 and 35 #1 GPU benchmark scores in the world according to hardwarebot and bumped multiple out of the #1 spot on 3DMark's hall of fame for several GPUs, so maybe I'm wrong.
Not right or wrong but not really relevant to the thread. BTW rankings with specific hardware don't really mean much. But hey, for a novice, you're doing all right. I held absolute World Records with SLI Titans and a 980x...for about 2 hours... Ha. J
post edited by HeavyHemi - 2020/09/24 21:16:57
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AnonymousGuy
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 21:14:16
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HeavyHemi
Not right or wrong but not really relevant to the thread. BTW rankings with specific hardware don't really mean much. Just saying as far as actual world record you know #1 rankings I do not believe you're anywhere on any list I saw.
Maybe if he was just one of the "first" owners of a card, but long term the leaderboards are always absurd hardware mods on LN2. Before that the "winners" are whoever managed to glitch their way through a benchmark run to win by a couple points. It's been a really, really long time since I've seen any particular variant within a model do significantly better than a reference card (like 101fps vs 99.5 fps...who cares)
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HeavyHemi
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 21:20:38
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AnonymousGuy
HeavyHemi
Not right or wrong but not really relevant to the thread. BTW rankings with specific hardware don't really mean much. Just saying as far as actual world record you know #1 rankings I do not believe you're anywhere on any list I saw.
Maybe if he was just one of the "first" owners of a card, but long term the leaderboards are always absurd hardware mods on LN2. Before that the "winners" are whoever managed to glitch their way through a benchmark run to win by a couple points. It's been a really, really long time since I've seen any particular variant within a model do significantly better than a reference card (like 101fps vs 99.5 fps...who cares)
Well you got me. I though that seemed a bit too harsh. So I edited it. But yeah, not really sure why a novice is bragging about his specific hardware combo. Not many folks run Nvidia SLI with AMD....lose a few FPS That way versus intel..but to each their own.
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bavor
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 22:18:57
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HeavyHemi
Well you got me. I though that seemed a bit too harsh. So I edited it. But yeah, not really sure why a novice is bragging about his specific hardware combo. Not many folks run Nvidia SLI with AMD....lose a few FPS That way versus intel..but to each their own.
I bumped the intel CPU entries out of 1st spot for some of the 2080 benchmarks. EDIT: when I checked 3DMarks site many of non sub ambient top scores are on AMD CPUs.
post edited by bavor - 2020/09/24 22:31:04
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bavor
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Re: How does EVGA determine BIOS voltage limit at & launch & afterwards?
2020/09/24 22:29:40
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AnonymousGuy
Maybe if he was just one of the "first" owners of a card, but long term the leaderboards are always absurd hardware mods on LN2. Before that the "winners" are whoever managed to glitch their way through a benchmark run to win by a couple points. It's been a really, really long time since I've seen any particular variant within a model do significantly better than a reference card (like 101fps vs 99.5 fps...who cares)
Most of the time when I got a #1 score with a card it was at least several months after it was released. Looking at the people who bumped me out of #1 spots in 3Dmarks site almost all of them were using a chiller or LN2. When I checked unigine's leaderboard, it was the same. I had either the highest or scores or was in the top 3 scores of people who didn't use sub ambient cooling with both the 2080 Super and 1080 ti. Going back to my original point, every single time the score was achieved it was with a card that had a significantly higher power limit than the reference card. I couldn't get anywhere close to a top 100 score with the reference board power limits. Flash the BIOS and all of a sudden I'm getting much higher scores and even beat some cards with sub ambient cooling that apparently used the reference PCB and stock power limits.
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