cloiselle1
Because they didn't go back and rewrite the bios for that model. That is the only reason.
Go turn your gpu memory slider up to 500 MHZ yourself.
Is it stable? Probably not.
Did it give you better performance? Probable not.
Can't speak for other people's cards but I own two non-iCX 1080s. A FTW and a FTW Hybrid. In an earlier post, I mention my FTW card benchmarking FireStrike just fine and stable with the memory slider increased +1000Mhz. I've observed that increasing the memory speed alone results in more performance. Increase the memory speed and core speed, and bam, even more performance. One, or both, can be done while still being stable. +500 Mhz on the memory is pretty normal for EVGA cards it seems based on what other EVGA card owners have reported on forums and in videos.
For fun today, I overclocked and benchmarked my FTW Hybrid. Right now, it's stable at 2164 Mhz boost clock (+150) and 11600 Mhz on the memory (+800). It can bench at +1000 on the memory, but mild screen flickering occurs. It runs the stock EVGA bios, and is in the slave bios position. Each game has a benchmark executable file. I run three tests at bone stock EVGA settings, then three tests with the power, temperature and over voltage sliders maxed out, and the aforementioned clock and memory speed increases. Graphical settings are maxed out for each game. Single 1080p, 144Hhz refresh rate monitor, an AIO liquid cooled, OC'd, and delided i7-4790K at 4.8Ghz @1.375V, uncore/cache at 4.5Ghz @1.325V, and 32GB of DDR3 ram at 2400Mhz @ 10-12-12-31 timing, Windows 7 64bit, DX11. The following average frame rates are observed for each game:
BioShock Infinite: Stock 192 fps avg, OC'd 202 fps avg
GTA V: Stock 88 fps avg, OC'd 94 fps avg
Metro Last Light: Stock 88 fps avg, OC'd 99 fps avg
Shadow Of Mordor Middle Earth: Stock 151 fps avg, OC'd 164 fps avg
Rise Of The Tomb Raider: Stock 57fps avg, OC'd 62 fps avg
Tomb Raider: Stock 106 fps avg, OC'd 117 fps avg
I'm considering flashing this new FTW2 bios onto my FTW Hybrid, and seeing if the new bios results in more performance both at stock settings and after I overclock my FTW Hybrid. I will report back with more benchmark results if I do.