mjtillis2006
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Are the differences between the versions of the same series cards just factory overclocks?
Example being 2080ti XC Black, XC Gaming, XC Ultra, FTW3 Ultra. I ask because I don't want to pay for something that I am going to be doing already and I also don't plan on buying a new card for a while so I would rather start farther ahead and be better set in the future at the tail end. So I guess to better lay out my question that really should of been a few questions:
Are all the chips the same and your playing the luck game, no matter what version you chose, with how high you can take it and and the different versions are just each manufacturer putting an overclock on them?
or
Is a FTW3 Ultra just a pre sorted better all around chip? Is its top end on avg going to be higher than the top end avg of a XC Black
or
Something else entirely?
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Sajin
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/12 10:25:54
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No, the ftw3 has many upgrades over the black edition card. Those upgrades will help you achieve higher overclocks if your chip is good. Chip lottery will always be a factor. Those upgrades would include higher out of box clocks, thicker cooler, one additional fan, one additional vbios, more power phases, 9 additional thermal sensors, automatic asynchronous fan control, & a higher power target.
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mjtillis2006
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/12 11:40:20
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eawood
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/12 12:28:56
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Yes, the FTW's have a custom PCB as opposed to the nVidia reference PCB used on all the other cards including the FE's. This PCB is longer and has slightly better power delivery among other things. However, the biggest difference is probably the silicon binning. When board partners like EVGA who have many SKU's at various levels test and sort all the GPU's they get from nVidia, they bin them based on performance and overclocking potential. The chips that can clock the highest go into the FTW boards, and then the ones below that go into the higher factory overclock boards. The worst performing chips go into the "Black Edition" cards, which are clocked the lowest. There's nothing wrong with these and EVGA guarantees that they'll run at stock speed, but they won't overclock nearly as well as a higher binned chip in a GPU with a higher factory overclock. So to answer your question, yes the chips are absolutely sorted based on performance, and yes the cheapest cards will have the "worst" performing chips.
post edited by eawood - 2018/10/12 12:31:02
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mjtillis2006
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/12 12:36:39
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Awesome. I dont know why I have never thought of that before lol. Seems pretty logical. Just need EVGA to open up orders again :).
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AHowes
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/12 16:22:59
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19 freaking power phases for power delivery.. that one stat sticks out to me most! Besides the tripple fan and bigger cooler. ;) To let ya know the 1080ti ftw3 only has 12 and the 1080ti kingpin has 13.
post edited by AHowes - 2018/10/12 16:28:53
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toncij
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/13 05:16:51
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eawood
Yes, the FTW's have a custom PCB as opposed to the nVidia reference PCB used on all the other cards including the FE's. This PCB is longer and has slightly better power delivery among other things.
However, the biggest difference is probably the silicon binning. When board partners like EVGA who have many SKU's at various levels test and sort all the GPU's they get from nVidia, they bin them based on performance and overclocking potential. The chips that can clock the highest go into the FTW boards, and then the ones below that go into the higher factory overclock boards. The worst performing chips go into the "Black Edition" cards, which are clocked the lowest. There's nothing wrong with these and EVGA guarantees that they'll run at stock speed, but they won't overclock nearly as well as a higher binned chip in a GPU with a higher factory overclock.
So to answer your question, yes the chips are absolutely sorted based on performance, and yes the cheapest cards will have the "worst" performing chips.
I seriously doubt that. All FTW needs to achieve is to get marketed clocks, and that's 1755MHz on boost. ALL cards can reach that, from the Black to the future Kingpin. Better power delivery is nice, but cards are still limited by GPU voltage even with raised power limits. And it's not that they don't want to make it faster, but it simply doesn't work. Turing chips don't scale with voltage. WYSIWYG - pretty much silicon lottery to see if you go up to 2115 or 1900, and better cooling helps keeping it above 2000. Pascal was already bad overclocker, Turing is even worse considering FE (the worst card) is pretty great since ref. PCB is awesome.
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eawood
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/13 18:00:26
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Sorry, what do you doubt? That EVGA and others bin chips or that the custom PCB has more/better VRM's?
They absolutely bin the chips up to certain thresholds, and everyone has done this since basically the beginning of time in the silicon industry. Of course they don't test each as far as it can possibly go. The chips that go in the FTW all passed whatever their most stringent test was, probably some percentage above the FTW's clock speed. The chips in the cards below the FTW may or may not have passed that threshold (depending on supply/demand and other things), so of course there's a chance that your XC or SC or whatever could OC as high as a FTW could. However, it's probably more likely that it won't quite get there. Why would EVGA sell a top-shelf OCing chip for less than FTW prices? The margins for GPU's are small, and they make the most of their profit on the marked up higher spec parts.
And power limits can be circumvented relatively easily by either a BIOS or a simple mod. I'm not endorsing this as a good idea for most people, but if you know what you're doing you can easily put as much power as you choose through your card.
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bcavnaugh
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/13 18:22:52
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Also you cannot SLI the FTW3 with a Non-FTW3 Graphics Card.
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ksuaviator
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/14 18:59:23
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Seems to be dissenting opinions and speculation. Can anyone provide a source or can a rep from EVGA provide some insight?
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AHowes
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/14 19:05:22
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I sli a classified 1080 with a 1080 hybrid.. no issues.
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the_Scarlet_one
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/14 19:34:43
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It seems to be constantly missed.. custom pcb does not guarantee any overclocks at all, only stock clocks from the factory. If your card doesn’t perform like others, it won’t matter as it is not grounds for a warranty. Only stock clocks will matter.
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ksuaviator
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/14 19:39:28
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So it seems according to techpowerup that NVIDIA pre-bins chips and separates them into 2 groups: Chips that are relegated to factory clock speeds and are meant to correspond to MSRP, and chips that are meant specifically for overclocking and delivered to custom design partners like EVGA. Apparently they are divided into a group based on overclocking potential, power efficiency, ect... What i believe the original poster is wondering though is if EVGA sorts the chips they get and assigns them to the different variants based on additional criteria. Anyone have any specific knowledge of that?
post edited by ksuaviator - 2018/10/14 20:41:10
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GTXJackBauer
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/14 21:52:58
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ksuaviator
What i believe the original poster is wondering though is if EVGA sorts the chips they get and assigns them to the different variants based on additional criteria. Anyone have any specific knowledge of that?
The FTWs, Classifieds and Kingpins of the past were binned iirc. I know for sure the Kingpin is a definite 1000%.
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toncij
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/15 04:02:05
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eawood
And power limits can be circumvented relatively easily by either a BIOS or a simple mod. I'm not endorsing this as a good idea for most people, but if you know what you're doing you can easily put as much power as you choose through your card.
Even for the last gen, only Kingpin was binned (up to 2025MHz). There was also a limited series of 12Gbps VRAM cards of the FTW3 Elite line. ALL cards can reach even FTW2 box clocks. There is no binning I'm afraid. There is no reason to do it. You can't increase power limit above what BIOS enables by default. You can do so only by bridging power delivery verification on the card itself and that includes soldering of very tiny wires. Voltage is limited by what chip can use itself. Boosting it helps nothing. Also, power limit increase is useful only for sub-zero. bcavnaugh
Also you cannot SLI the FTW3 with a Non-FTW3 Graphics Card.
You can.
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bcavnaugh
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/15 10:27:39
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toncij
bcavnaugh
Also you cannot SLI the FTW3 with a Non-FTW3 Graphics Card.
You can.
No you cannot, their are no NVLink SLI Ribbon Bridges on the Market as of this time. 
post edited by bcavnaugh - 2018/10/15 10:32:41
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toncij
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/15 10:30:26
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bcavnaugh
toncij
bcavnaugh
Also you cannot SLI the FTW3 with a Non-FTW3 Graphics Card.
You can.
No you cannot, their are no NVLink SLI Bridge Ribbon Cables on the Market as of this time.
Ohh! Totally missed that one. FTW3s are taller. Yes, my bad.
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bcavnaugh
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toncij
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/15 15:14:08
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That's actually terrible. :(
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GTXJackBauer
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/15 15:16:35
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toncij
That's actually terrible. :(
It's been like that for years plus you wouldn't a higher grade OCer with a slower GPU since it will match the slowest speed.
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toncij
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/16 01:32:52
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GTXJackBauer
toncij
That's actually terrible. :(
It's been like that for years plus you wouldn't a higher grade OCer with a slower GPU since it will match the slowest speed.
True, but card height does not mandate oc level itself. You could pretty much oc other card of the lower height to the same.
post edited by toncij - 2018/10/16 01:42:32
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GTXJackBauer
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/16 09:51:53
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toncij
True, but card height does not mandate oc level itself. You could pretty much oc other card of the lower height to the same.
That's assuming it's capable of but not always the case. Custom GPUs usually clock higher than reference. It's matched to the lowest maxed clocked GPU between the two in general which would usually be the reference GPU.
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eawood
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/17 21:47:28
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With RTX it depends far more on the BIOS than the card itself. The VRM's on the reference 2080ti are capable of powering overclocks well beyond where the power limits in the BIOS will allow you to go. When you get a fancy custom PCB 2080ti like a FTW card the extra speed is coming from higher power limits in the BIOS and not anything on the card. Even on those cards, the power limits are so low that there's not really any point to water cooling them other than noise reduction. You won't get substantially higher clocks on water versus air other than it boosting more of the time, and the main benefit is probably noise reduction.
That is of course, unless you shunt mod the cards to bypass/extend the power limits. Then the custom cards with beefier VRM's will start to matter since you can actually put them on water and crank the voltage and frequency until you approach thermal/silicon limits which you'd never get close to otherwise.
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toncij
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/17 23:35:20
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eawood
With RTX it depends far more on the BIOS than the card itself. The VRM's on the reference 2080ti are capable of powering overclocks well beyond where the power limits in the BIOS will allow you to go. When you get a fancy custom PCB 2080ti like a FTW card the extra speed is coming from higher power limits in the BIOS and not anything on the card. Even on those cards, the power limits are so low that there's not really any point to water cooling them other than noise reduction. You won't get substantially higher clocks on water versus air other than it boosting more of the time, and the main benefit is probably noise reduction.
That is of course, unless you shunt mod the cards to bypass/extend the power limits. Then the custom cards with beefier VRM's will start to matter since you can actually put them on water and crank the voltage and frequency until you approach thermal/silicon limits which you'd never get close to otherwise.
It's not that simple. Power and voltage are separate things although related. Also, power limits won't do you all that much good unless you're on sub-zero. Keep in mind Turing chips are even "worse" than Pascal regarding voltage scaling. They simply don't scale. Also, nVidia explicitly warned that it degrades fast if you up the voltage. To go higher than 21xx you need to significantly change silicon properties by going sub-zero and that can give you 2400-2500 at best. Reference PCBs are fantastic already. We can hope for better cooling and higher memory overclock and that is why power headroom is great to have.
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eawood
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/18 07:55:47
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toncij
It's not that simple. Power and voltage are separate things although related. Also, power limits won't do you all that much good unless you're on sub-zero.
Keep in mind Turing chips are even "worse" than Pascal regarding voltage scaling. They simply don't scale. Also, nVidia explicitly warned that it degrades fast if you up the voltage.
To go higher than 21xx you need to significantly change silicon properties by going sub-zero and that can give you 2400-2500 at best.
Reference PCBs are fantastic already. We can hope for better cooling and higher memory overclock and that is why power headroom is great to have.
Well that was mostly my point, that the reference PCB's are already overbuilt as far as power delivery goes. Custom boards with even more power phases are sort of pointless. The value of those custom PCB's like the FTW is in the cooler and the power limit/BIOS, and not really in any changes they've made to the already great reference boards. In past generations this was different, but now Nvidia puts out very high quality reference PCB's which can handle well above stock clock rates and power.
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Emew42
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/18 08:10:26
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Chiming in here with my curiosity; what's the XC line offer? These 2 cards exist at a $30 price difference and the only different is the 'XC' tag.. RTX 2070 Black Gaming / RTX 2070 XC Black Gaming? Also did anyone above reach a conclusion on Nvidia pre-binning cards so that EVGA has to do low bin for Black and high bin for FTW series or is EVGA doing that (basically i'm curious if silicon lottery is even a thing anymore or am I guaranteed a poor bin card because it's the 'black edition'?)
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EVGATech_AdamB
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/18 10:13:17
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For the RTX 2070's those differ a bit from the 2080 or 2080Ti. The 2070 XC PCB's will be a more custom PCB with a 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connector and have a slightly high clock speed versus the non-XC Black Edition. In terms of binning, that is a question we commonly get asked and unfortunately cannot provide a definitive answer for any particular card. The cards are warrantied for the advertised specs and that is about as much information as we can provide. The silicon lottery is still in effect and it is possible that a Black Edition card could potentially overclock higher than another card. With the higher-end cards, we make the PCB and cooling as robust as possible to make better conditions for a card to reach it's best overclocking potential but above the advertised spec, nothing is guaranteed.
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Emew42
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/18 11:13:39
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EVGATech_AdamB
For the RTX 2070's those differ a bit from the 2080 or 2080Ti. The 2070 XC PCB's will be a more custom PCB with a 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connector and have a slightly high clock speed versus the non-XC Black Edition. In terms of binning, that is a question we commonly get asked and unfortunately cannot provide a definitive answer for any particular card. The cards are warrantied for the advertised specs and that is about as much information as we can provide. The silicon lottery is still in effect and it is possible that a Black Edition card could potentially overclock higher than another card. With the higher-end cards, we make the PCB and cooling as robust as possible to make better conditions for a card to reach it's best overclocking potential but above the advertised spec, nothing is guaranteed.
Nailed all my questions right on the head! Thank you very much!
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GTXJackBauer
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/18 11:23:28
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EVGATech_AdamB
For the RTX 2070's those differ a bit from the 2080 or 2080Ti. The 2070 XC PCB's will be a more custom PCB with a 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe power connector and have a slightly high clock speed versus the non-XC Black Edition.
What? I thought the XC brand are reference PCBs, unlike FTWs, etc.
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EVGATech_AdamB
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Re: XC Black vs FTW 3 Ultra question
2018/10/18 11:26:38
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For the 2080 XC and 2080Ti XC those are reference PCB. For the 2070 XC those are not reference.
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