# RTX 3080 Crash to Desktop Problems Likely Connected to AIB-Designed Capacitor Choice



## Raevenlord (Sep 25, 2020)

Igor's Lab has posted an interesting investigative article where he advances a possible reason for the recent crash to desktop problems for RTX 3080 owners. For one, Igor mentions how the launch timings were much tighter than usual, with NVIDIA AIB partners having much less time than would be adequate to prepare and thoroughly test their designs. One of the reasons this apparently happened was that NVIDIA released the compatible driver stack much later than usual for AIB partners; this meant that their actual testing and QA for produced RTX 3080 graphics cards was mostly limited to power on and voltage stability testing, other than actual gaming/graphics workload testing, which might have allowed for some less-than-stellar chip samples to be employed on some of the companies' OC products (which, with higher operating frequencies and consequent broadband frequency mixtures, hit the apparent 2 GHz frequency wall that produces the crash to desktop).

Another reason for this, according to Igor, is the actual "reference board" PG132 design, which is used as a reference, "Base Design" for partners to architecture their custom cards around. The thing here is that apparently NVIDIA's BOM left open choices in terms of power cleanup and regulation in the mounted capacitors. The Base Design features six mandatory capacitors for filtering high frequencies on the voltage rails (NVVDD and MSVDD). There are a number of choices for capacitors to be installed here, with varying levels of capability. POSCAPs (Conductive Polymer Tantalum Solid Capacitors) are generally worse than SP-CAPs (Conductive Polymer-Aluminium-Electrolytic-Capacitors) which are superseded in quality by MLCCs (Multilayer Ceramic Chip Capacitor, which have to be deployed in groups). Below is the circuitry arrangement employed below the BGA array where NVIDIA's GA-102 chip is seated, which corresponds to the central area on the back of the PCB.



 

 



In the images below, you can see how NVIDIA and it's AIBs designed this regulator circuitry (NVIDIA Founders' Edition, MSI Gaming X, ZOTAC Trinity, and ASUS TUF Gaming OC in order, from our reviews' high resolution teardowns). NVIDIA in their Founders' Edition designs uses a hybrid capacitor deployment, with four SP-CAPs and two MLCC groups of 10 individual capacitors each in the center. MSI uses a single MLCC group in the central arrangement, with five SP-CAPs guaranteeing the rest of the cleanup duties. ZOTAC went the cheapest way (which may be one of the reasons their cards are also among the cheapest), with a six POSCAP design (which are worse than MLCCs, remember). ASUS, however, designed their TUF with six MLCC arrangements - there were no savings done in this power circuitry area.



 

 

 



It's likely that the crash to desktop problems are related to both these issues - and this would also justify why some cards cease crashing when underclocked by 50-100 MHz, since at lower frequencies (and this will generally lead boost frequencies to stay below the 2 GHz mark) there is lesser broadband frequency mixture happening, which means POSCAP solutions can do their job - even if just barely.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## The Quim Reaper (Sep 25, 2020)

Is that a multitude of BIOS Firmware updates with down-clocking, I see Incoming...


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## Vya Domus (Sep 25, 2020)

> For one, Igor mentions how the launch timings were much tighter than usual, with NVIDIA AIB partners having much less time than would be adequate to prepare and thoroughly test their designs. One of the reasons this apparently happened was that NVIDIA released the compatible driver stack much later than usual for AIB partners; this meant that their actual testing and QA for produced RTX 3080 graphics cards was mostly limited to power on and voltage stability testing, other than actual gaming/graphics workload testing, which might have allowed for some less-than-stellar chip samples to be employed on some of the companies'



Yeah, sure. I feel like this is the number one scapegoat as of late, "We just didn't get enough time". As if they needed time to know that some capacitors are better than others. Somehow they always have less and less time, I am assuming that time will become zero at some point.   

Anyway, I am still not convinced this is the culprit but regardless NVIDIA sure managed to piss of almost everyone one way or another, customers and partners, and it's all down to their choice of designing these things with monstrous power requirements. They don't really seem to care because they know people will still cater to their whims since they got most of the market share. And remember :

_The more you buy the bigger the chances that they'll work. _


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## Xuper (Sep 25, 2020)

oh this launch is mess..


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## roccale (Sep 25, 2020)

It's beautiful


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## moproblems99 (Sep 25, 2020)

If this is actually the reason then this is unacceptable in any industry by any player.  Let alone the market leader.

If they wanted to be secretive the. They should have launched founders edition only.  Oh, except they would have had even less stock.


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## LabRat 891 (Sep 25, 2020)

Gotta love EMI/RFI design oversights. From what I've read, it is the bane of every freshly college-educated EE and many a veteran EE. I bet somebody on the design teams knew that this would cause a problem and was promptly ignored after referencing datasheets claiming "It'll be fine!"


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## Animalpak (Sep 25, 2020)

3000 series looked already too good to be true...


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## Amite (Sep 25, 2020)

Don't think I will be buying any 3080s or EVDA  stock  anytime soon.
Of mice and men.
A big merger and a big GPU launch plus a pandemic  what could go wrong ?  LOL


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## newtekie1 (Sep 25, 2020)

Early adopters are beta testers these days.


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## Sykobee (Sep 25, 2020)

I mean, it's in the name - POSCAPS.

But it's really pretty poor that this has happened, and it's a poor rushed launch by Nvidia - when if the card was good enough to compete with RDNA2 coming soon, they could have waited a few more weeks to get it right and to get a stockpile for launch.


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## KarymidoN (Sep 25, 2020)

So they didn't have enough time because of what? it's not like AMD had already released BIGNAVI/RDNA2. it's not like Pascal owners were screaming for new graphics cards bc they RTX were not powerfull enough, sure Nvidia wanted to undercut the new consoles, but they don't have a competitor for the new consoles (not in price). 
They rushed the Launch, botched the market claims creating hype without having enough stocked products to sell... Nvidia taking a Page out of AMD's book (see recent release of Ryzen APUs and Mobile chips that are always out of stock).


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## john_ (Sep 25, 2020)

Funny that in the end consumers will be praising bots for avoiding this first batch of boards.


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## Julhes (Sep 25, 2020)

*Only one reason....*


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## windwhirl (Sep 25, 2020)

I don't get why AIBs went cheap for this board. I mean, it's the second highest-tier GPU! You should never go cheap in that kind of product!


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## Chomiq (Sep 25, 2020)

If it's related to underdeveloped AIB partner designs then why FE users are also reporting CTDs? Unless everyone is overclocking their brand new ampere gpus.


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## Assimilator (Sep 25, 2020)

Chomiq said:


> If it's related to underdeveloped AIB partner designs then why FE users are also reporting CTDs? Unless everyone is overclocking their brand new ampere gpus.



Too many unknowns to tell. Igor's speculation is just that, speculation - but somehow his "possible" gets turned into "likely" by TPU's clickbait editors. Once again, shameful yellow journalism on par with WCCFTech.


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## Dave65 (Sep 25, 2020)

And people say only AMD cards have problems


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## Julhes (Sep 25, 2020)

there will be the same problem with the rtx 3090. the arrangement of the capacitors and the type are the same.



Dave65 said:


> And people say only AMD cards have problems







Oups.........


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## Chrispy_ (Sep 25, 2020)

Yet more solid confirmation that Nvidia really rushed the whole 30-series launch.

It's uncharactaristic from Nvidia, so what do they know about RDNA2 that makes them in such a hurry to get this horse out of the gate before it's ready for prime time?


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## Mysteoa (Sep 25, 2020)

Vya Domus said:


> Anyway, I am still not convinced this is the culprit but regardless NVIDIA sure managed to piss of almost everyone one way or another, customers and partners, and it's all down to their choice of designing these things with monstrous power requirements. They don't really seem to care because they know people will still cater to their whims since they got most of the market share. And remember :



Isn't it what they have always done? They are constantly trying to burn bridges, just so the issue is not their fault.


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## _UV_ (Sep 25, 2020)

windwhirl said:


> I don't get why AIBs went cheap for this board. I mean, it's the second highest-tier GPU! You should never go cheap in that kind of product!


Because they want money, and every cent saved in a process is money. I'll give another example: most of mid to high (not top notch) AMD platform mobo since Athlon era produced with cost savings opposite to Intel designs in one way or another, being cheaper caps or FETs, less integrated controllers such as onboard WiFi or dual LAN, cheaper sound codec, etc...


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## nguyen (Sep 25, 2020)

Just tried to order a Asus TUF 3090 but my local retailer told me they had 3 in stock and sold out pretty quick, next batch will be in November .


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## bug (Sep 25, 2020)

Tight launch timing, my ass. What happened to "if you don't have the time to do the work, don't release"?


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## HugsNotDrugs (Sep 25, 2020)

It's too bad there isn't an OEM that uses only premium parts.  I'd be happy to pay for a higher quality product (rather than a higher marketing budget) if such an option existed.


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## my_name_is_earl (Sep 25, 2020)

3080 Super, Here I wait.


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## moproblems99 (Sep 25, 2020)

bug said:


> Tight launch timing, my ass. What happened to "if you don't have the time to do the work, don't release"?



We lost that when testing/qa was laid off.


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## mborghi (Sep 25, 2020)

This affects ALL 3080s models from ALL brands? Or only specific ones?


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## Assimilator (Sep 25, 2020)

mborghi said:


> This affects ALL 3080s models from ALL brands? Or only specific ones?



Nobody knows because this is a THEORY.


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## xtreemchaos (Sep 25, 2020)

its a trend thats happening a lot nowa its a total lack of respect for the customer but thay will keep doing it as long as we let them its not only things like gpus its games too thay release them before there fit and leave them to modders to fix. greed and lazynuss and carnt give a shit comes to mind.


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## mouacyk (Sep 25, 2020)

Sorry Jensen -- about that upgrade you mentioned for your Pascal friends...


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## Bubster (Sep 25, 2020)

Nvidia have messed this product roll up so much...how come those fake Yotube reviewers  didn't spot these (crashes)


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## mechtech (Sep 25, 2020)

Chrispy_ said:


> Yet more solid confirmation that Nvidia really rushed the whole 30-series launch.
> 
> It's uncharactaristic from Nvidia, so what do they know about RDNA2 that makes them in such a hurry to get this horse out of the gate before it's ready for prime time?



Probably nothing, and even if it was everything would it matter?  Nvidia has huge market share, and there has been some challenges wit the RX5k series.  Even when AMD had some real gems for dirt cheap (I'm thinking HD4850/4870) people still bought nvidia.

Maybe they did want to beat AMD to market, maybe they thought they were ready for prime time, who knows.  Either way maybe the scalpers will be stuck with some excess stock 

Time will tell.


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## moproblems99 (Sep 25, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> Nobody knows because this is a THEORY.



Theory?  I already have my pitchfork!?


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## Axaion (Sep 25, 2020)

Sooo.. the TUF/Strix seems safe then?

Great, they seemed to have the best cooling/noise ratio anyway


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Sep 25, 2020)

Comedy, The way it's meant to be played.

No.

Consumers are getting played.

Damn Beta community tactics need to stop.


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## B-Real (Sep 25, 2020)

Animalpak said:


> 3000 series looked already too good to be true...



In what terms did it look good? The 3080's performance uplift from the 2080 was the only really positive about this series so far. But it didn't even reach the 1080's performance leap. Moreover, the efficiency gain of both the 3080 and the 3090 is close to crap: it is identical to the 2080/2080Ti's. The 1080 and 1080Ti's efficiency gain was 3x more than these. The 3080 consumes nearly 100W more than the 2080. And the OC capability of both 3000 cards are even worse than usual AMD GPU's: it's around 2-3%. Even the 2080 and 2080 Ti was around 10%, the 1080 was even more, 13%. They advertised the 3090 as a 8K GAMING card. In reality, most games run maybe with 30 fps with 20 fps lows. And the 4K performance leap over the 3080 is close to 10%. WTF? The 3070 was advertised as "Faster than 2080 Ti". If we can believe Galax's communication, the 3070 will be unequivocally slower than the 2080Ti.


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## Solid State Soul ( SSS ) (Sep 25, 2020)

If this is true how come these issues never came up in the review cycle with many dozens reviewers posting high praise reviews ? 

Even trusted reviewers like gamers nexus and jayz two cents who reveal issues your conventional reviewer wont do the extra work to uncover, never had an issue with them ? 

I think this is just the case of end users trying so hard to overclock their cards pushing them to perform to whatever high standards they deem acceptable then post negative threads when their cards cant overclock high enough past default profiles


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## metalfiber (Sep 25, 2020)

The only ones one the list i've seen that have the most problems are MSI, EVGA, and ZOTAC with ZOTAC being the worst. I haven't seen the ASUS cards mentioned. As it says in the article Asus TUF used six MLCC's and they have the most custom components on a reference board and supposedly test them for 144 hours...


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## xkm1948 (Sep 25, 2020)

Assimilator said:


> Too many unknowns to tell. Igor's speculation is just that, speculation - but somehow his "possible" gets turned into "likely" by TPU's clickbait editors. Once again, shameful yellow journalism on par with WCCFTech.




The game of telephones and the desire to get click click click


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## moproblems99 (Sep 25, 2020)

Solid State Soul ( SSS ) said:


> If this is true how come these issues never came up in the review cycle with many dozens reviewers posting high praise reviews ?



Cherry picked?



Solid State Soul ( SSS ) said:


> I think this is just the case of end users trying so hard to overclock their cards pushing them to perform to whatever high standards they deem acceptable then post negative threads when their cards cant overclock high enough past default profiles



Supposedly they are just the factory profiles.  But it is very likely some are from people overclocking.


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## Haile Selassie (Sep 25, 2020)

I don't believe EE design is at fault here. After all, all qualifications are done under worst possible conditions. Moreover, the same issue is present on FE boards.
The MCUs are simply not binned good enough or there is an issue with boost algorithm. Same happened with Turing boards.


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## Mirrormaster85 (Sep 25, 2020)

So, as an Electronics Engineer and PCB Designer I feel I have to react here.
The point that Igor makes about improper power design causing instability is a very plausible one. Especially with first production runs where it indeed could be the case that they did not have the time/equipment/driver etc to do proper design verification.


However, concluding from this that a POSCAP = bad and MLCC = good is waaay to harsh and a conclusion you cannot make.


Both POSCAPS (or any other 'solid polymer caps' and MLCC's have there own characteristics and use cases.


Some (not all) are ('+' = pos, '-' = neg):
*MLCC:*
+ cheap
+ small
+ high voltage rating in small package
+ high current rating
+ high temperature rating
+ high capacitance in small package
+ good at high frequencies
- prone to cracking
- prone to piezo effect
- bad temperature characteristics
- DC bias (capacitance changes a lot under different voltages)


*POSCAP:*
- more expensive
- bigger
- lower voltage rating
+ high current rating
+ high temperature rating
- less good at high frequencies
+ mechanically very strong (no MLCC cracking)
+ not prone to piezo effect
+ very stable over temperature
+ no DC bias (capacitance very stable at different voltages)


As you can see, both have there strengths and weaknesses and one is not particularly better or worse then the other. It all depends.
In this case, most of these 3080 and 3090 boards may use the same GPU (with its requirements) but they also have very different power circuits driving the chips on the cards.
Each power solution has its own characteristics and behavior and thus its own requirements in terms of capacitors used.
Thus, you cannot simply say: I want the card with only MLCC's because that is a good design.
It is far more likely they just could/would not have enough time and/or resources to properly verify their designs and thus where not able to do proper adjustments to their initial component choices.
This will very likely work itself out in time. For now, just buy the card that you like and if it fails, simply claim warranty. Let them fix the problem and down draw to many conclusions based on incomplete information and (educated) guess work.


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## mahirzukic2 (Sep 25, 2020)

Bubster said:


> Nvidia have messed this product roll up so much...how come those fake Yotube reviewers  didn't spot these (crashes)


I am pretty sure that they have, but they may have attributed it to the newness of the architecture and the beta drivers.


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## Metroid (Sep 25, 2020)

This is disgraceful no matter how you look at, $699 gpu should have the best of the best of components on it. This same problem happened with the gt 8800, 30% rma and they did not want to accept it, whatthehell.


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## Dimi (Sep 25, 2020)

B-Real said:


> In what terms did it look good? The 3080's performance uplift from the 2080 was the only really positive about this series so far. But it didn't even reach the 1080's performance leap. Moreover, the efficiency gain of both the 3080 and the 3090 is close to crap: it is identical to the 2080/2080Ti's. The 1080 and 1080Ti's efficiency gain was 3x more than these. The 3080 consumes nearly 100W more than the 2080. And the OC capability of both 3000 cards are even worse than usual AMD GPU's: it's around 2-3%. Even the 2080 and 2080 Ti was around 10%, the 1080 was even more, 13%. They advertised the 3090 as a 8K GAMING card. In reality, most games run maybe with 30 fps with 20 fps lows. And the 4K performance leap over the 3080 is close to 10%. WTF? The 3070 was advertised as "Faster than 2080 Ti". If we can believe Galax's communication, the 3070 will be unequivocally slower than the 2080Ti.



Excuse me but what the hell are you talking about?

Yes it consumes more but the perf/watt is the highest of any card, AMD doesn't even get close.


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## Vya Domus (Sep 25, 2020)

Dimi said:


> Yes it consumes more but the perf/watt is the highest of any card, AMD doesn't even get close.



If 8% means "not even close". Sure ...

You gotta lay off the cool-aid, Pascal was almost 40% better than Maxwell in terms of per/watt. In comparison Ampere's improvement in that area is absolutely pathetic over Turing.


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## Cheeseball (Sep 25, 2020)

metalfiber said:


> The only ones one the list i've seen that have the most problems are MSI, EVGA, and ZOTAC with ZOTAC being the worst. I haven't seen the ASUS cards mentioned. As it says in the article Asus TUF used six MLCC's and they have the most custom components on a reference board and supposedly test them for 144 hours...
> 
> View attachment 169786



Yeah, ASUS probably did the work this time around. They even put a proper heatsink on the memory modules. It's sad because the TUF version of their RX 5700 XT didn't do so well compared to the other brands.


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## blobster21 (Sep 25, 2020)

Metroid said:


> This is disgraceful no matter how you look at, $699 gpu should have the best of the best of components on it. This same problem happened with the gt 8800, 30% rma and they did not want to accept it, whatthehell.



Vote with your wallet. Enough said.


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## kiriakost (Sep 25, 2020)

Igor mentions ..... Igor mentions .... Igor mentions  ....   and the TPU team gave GOLDEN EDITORS CHOICE ? 
I did dare to make preliminary collection of RTS 3000 electrical weak points, and some one from the TPU stuff it did block my access at the topic ..... reason unproductive comments.

Here is another unproductive prediction .... masive product return to bases (they are many ) = Product Recalls.



Bubster said:


> Nvidia have messed this product roll up so much...how come those fake Yotube reviewers  didn't spot these (crashes)


They did not demonstrate actual games rather plain cards, some one made even a comparison  RTX 3800 vs GTS 1660 Super at 4K  ( he is an idiot).


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## moproblems99 (Sep 25, 2020)

Dimi said:


> Excuse me but what the hell are you talking about?
> 
> Yes it consumes more but the perf/watt is the highest of any card, AMD doesn't even get close.



8% isn't close?


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## Kaotik (Sep 25, 2020)

Someone probably mentioned it already, but these issues are affecting Founders Edition cards too


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## Paganstomp (Sep 25, 2020)

I got this funny feeling between my toes, again! PC gaming is dead.


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## Deleted member 24505 (Sep 25, 2020)

How many people are glad they kept their 2080ti's which is still a damn good GPU


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## mouacyk (Sep 25, 2020)

When you have EE's talking about this issue, that's not good for NVidia and especially AIB's.


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## HisDivineOrder (Sep 25, 2020)

And this is why you should never buy a product at launch.


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## tomc100 (Sep 25, 2020)




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## metalfiber (Sep 25, 2020)

Here's what happened with the 2080ti launch...It's best not to get the first run of anything be it a car, appliance, etc, etc.









						NVIDIA Confirms Issues Affecting Early Production Run of GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Graphics Cards
					

NVIDIA, via a blog post on its forums, has confirmed widespread reports of failures affecting their flagship RTX 2080 Ti graphics card. The issues, which resulted in "crashes, black screens, blue screen of death issues, artifacts and cards that fail to work entirely," started cropping up...




					www.techpowerup.com


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## Tomgang (Sep 25, 2020)

So it seems the to go to cards are asus tuf/strix and evga FTW 3. Glad I dit not ordered a card yet and spared me a big disappointment.

I Will wait and see how this turns out, before ordering a card. But it does look very plausible that the problem is likely the capacotators with all these different layouts. This also truly shows who is the cheap ass manufacturer and who is more seriously. MSI surprised me while gigabyte and zotac disappointe on the capasitator layout.

It looks like as well Jay is right on asus tuf. It does have the more expensive capasitator layout for all six places.

From another side. Knowing what Jay just told. This looks really good for asus tuf card.







I Will wait and see the capacitator layout on evga FTW 3 card, before I decide. Else it looks like asus tuf card really is the go to card. Runs cool, has one the highest power target (at least for the cheaper cards at 375 watts), cooler design is great and it now also seems capasitator layout is one of the best to so far.


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## metalfiber (Sep 25, 2020)

Tomgang said:


> So it seems the to go to cards are asus tuf/strix and evga FTW 3. Glad I dit not ordered a card yet and spared me a big disappointment.
> 
> I Will wait and see how this turns out, before ordering a card. But it does look very plausible that the problem is likely the capacotators with all these different layouts. This also truly shows who is the cheap ass manufacturer and who is more seriously. MSI surprised me while gigabyte and zotac disappointe on the capasitator layout.
> 
> ...



On the 3090 ASUS Strix too...


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## windwhirl (Sep 25, 2020)

HisDivineOrder said:


> And this is why you should never buy a product at launch.



Now, imagine that everyone followed your idea and absolutely nobody bought the card. That would be the worst launch ever 

EDIT: And as someone else pointed out, eventually somebody would still get the shitty cards, so there is no escaping it.


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## Tomgang (Sep 25, 2020)

metalfiber said:


> On the 3090 ASUS Strix too...
> 
> View attachment 169804



Yeah I see and I also think I now know how asus can get boost clock of over 1900 mhz out of the 3080 strix oc model while most others are just below or over 1800 mhz as max. It's the capasitator layout as asus chose the most expensive but also the best for high stable factory oc cards and overclock in general. That also means thre strix card shut provide the highest Manuel overclock as long silicone and max power target allows for it. So if evga fails as well on capasitators, asus here i come. No doubt there.






						ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition 10GB GDDR6X | Graphics Cards
					

The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition 10GB GDDR6X unleash the maximum performance on NVIDIA Ampere Architecture, by featuring Axial-tech fan design, 0dB technology, 2.9-slot Design, Dual BIOS, Auto-Extreme Technology, SAP II, MaxContact Technology, and more.



					www.asus.com


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## Zealotki11er (Sep 25, 2020)

Asus seemed to have done their homework. They always seem to have a bad product and then overcorrect it. TUF was bad with 5700 XT but X570 TUF was one of the best as so looks like RTX 3080. Usually AIB launch their cards after Nvidia/AMD because of these reasons. They need extra time to validate their designs.


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## KainXS (Sep 25, 2020)

This launch is one of the biggest GPU launch fails I can remember. Many went from wanting it, being outbid from unbeatable bots to hitting F5 for who knows how long to basically saying


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## moproblems99 (Sep 25, 2020)

windwhirl said:


> Now, imagine that everyone followed your idea and absolutely nobody bought the card. That would be the worst launch ever



It just means someone would inevitably get the shit cards.


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## Fluffmeister (Sep 25, 2020)

tigger said:


> How many people are glad they kept their 2080ti's which is still a damn good GPU



Two years old, hated by the competiton, and still no competition.


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## Bubster (Sep 25, 2020)

Nvidia Ampere-Gate...Biggest Nvidia Blunder to date


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## mtcn77 (Sep 25, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> I did dare to make preliminary collection of RTS 3000 electrical weak points, and some one from the TPU stuff it did block my access at the topic ..... reason unproductive comments.


I couldn't agree more.
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but they sometimes beat me to it and it is discouraging to see the same sort of journalistic censure somebody someone, you know who, demands from launch date ndas directed towards community forums.


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## harm9963 (Sep 26, 2020)

Well i will wait  for sure now.


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## dragontamer5788 (Sep 26, 2020)

I feel like this entire thing is based on oversimplified discussion points.

POSCAP vs MLCC vs Aluminum or whatever is a very technical choice. At first you think its simple: just pick the thing with the lowest ESR and highest Capacitance, but then you start worrying about high-frequency operation (these GPUs are at 2GHz+ now). But not only that, there's temperature and more.

The article oversimplifies:



> with a six POSCAP design (which are worse than MLCCs, remember)



I haven't done this stuff since I was in college. But what I do remember was pouring over capacitor spec sheets and tearing my head out trying to understand the nuanced differences between them. Just picking an MLCC capacitor series alone requires going through a giant 100+ page list, focusing on the Thermal, Frequency, Capacitance, and Resistance of your application.

"POSCAP is worse than MLCC" ?? Wut? I'm sure an 8-terminal low-inductance MLCC is superior to most others, but a cheap general-purpose MLCC may be worse. Its not like all MLCCs are made the same. Even then, "worse" in what way? POSCAPs don't lose capacitance at higher temperatures, while MLCCs are temperature-dependent and voltage-dependent (the higher the voltage and higher the temperature, the less capacitance you get).

Maybe the MLCC is better if you've found a section of the board that has superior heat-sinks / cooling, but maybe POSCAP gets better if you're in a warmer area and/or higher voltage. Like, this crap is devilishly complicated.

Heck: Even simplifying the discussion to ESR and Capacitance (ESR bad, Capacitance Good) you get utterly borked if you randomly get resonance for some stupid reason (where voltage/current "bounces" between two components, because by luck would have it... something is "ringing" at the same frequency as your capacitor). So maybe a higher ESR chip is better in those weird cases.

----------------

I'm *sure* someone out there made a mistake with capacitor selection. This is a very difficult part of high-speed electronics design. However, simplifying the discussion to "X design has 6-MLCC capacitors vs Y Design has POSCAPs" is *completely* useless. That level of discussion is insufficient to seriously understand the power issues going on at the sub-nanosecond scale (2GHz == 0.5 nanoseconds).

At the end of the day, you blackbox the entire decision tree and test the heck out of the electronics. If this does end up to be a capacitor issue, then it was a *testing* issue. Having to go under several board revisions to fix capacitor issues is like, standard EE-issues (like finding a bug in a version of the a computer program and having to issue a patch to fix it later). Your engineers are going to make that mistake, and you hope that your testing mechanisms are good enough to catch them.

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If anyone thinks that this job is easy, go to Murata's simsurfing site and browse around for a few minutes. That's one company's capacitor selection, mostly MLCCs. Then go to Panasonic's website, download their Capacitor tool, and search their database for POSCAPs. Then download everyone's pSpice models, and run a few simulations on LTSpice (its a free tool, you can do all of this for free).


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## windwhirl (Sep 26, 2020)

moproblems99 said:


> It just means someone would inevitably get the shit cards.


It is inevitable. Someone has to "sacrifice" themselves for the rest of us


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## purecain (Sep 26, 2020)

Well this is the first time ive been lucky with my GPU brand choice... I went with the Asus TUF OC 3090. I will update on how it performs and if i get a crash to desktop... (when it arrives) ^^


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## rtwjunkie (Sep 26, 2020)

Mirrormaster85 said:


> So, as an Electronics Engineer and PCB Designer I feel I have to react here.
> The point that Igor makes about improper power design causing instability is a very plausible one. Especially with first production runs where it indeed could be the case that they did not have the time/equipment/driver etc to do proper design verification.
> 
> 
> ...


It’s nice to see someone applying a little reason and common sense into this.


----------



## Birdito (Sep 26, 2020)

Nvidia is becoming complacent


----------



## windwhirl (Sep 26, 2020)

Birdito said:


> Nvidia is becoming complacent


That... sounds like Intel...?


----------



## svan71 (Sep 26, 2020)

I'm starting to understand Apples decision to tell nvidia to get bent.


----------



## serelaw (Sep 26, 2020)

roccale said:


> It's beautiful


I'm ha haw-ing that the scalpers bought all the first cards and they are broken. 
fuck them anyway.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Sep 26, 2020)

serelaw said:


> I'm ha haw-ing that the scalpers bought all the first cards and they are broken.
> fuck them anyway.


I doubt many of them are offering refunds. As far as they are concerned they made money and moved on. So this doesn’t hurt them at all.


----------



## Camm (Sep 26, 2020)

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1309659834468298753
"The crashing with the RTX 3080 cards doesn’t appear to be down to the caps used, which is why we haven’t made a video yet, we don’t know the issue. What we do know is the FE and TUF Gaming models crash just as much as other models and they use MLCC’s."

Not over yet (although the lack of MLCC's probably doesn't help).


----------



## Rashkae (Sep 26, 2020)

On Reddit many people are reporting that the crashes stop once they use 2 dedicated power connectors instead of a splitter.


----------



## Camm (Sep 26, 2020)

Rashkae said:


> On Reddit many people are reporting that the crashes stop once they use 2 dedicated power connectors instead of a splitter.



I wouldn't be surprised, but those in the tech press such as Igor & HWU have had the same issue and they aren't that dumb, lol.


----------



## xkm1948 (Sep 26, 2020)

EVGA has clarified the issue






						Message about EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 POSCAPs - EVGA Forums
					

Hi all, Recently there has been some discussion about the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 series. During our mass production QC testing we discovered a full 6 POSCAPs solution cannot pass the real world applications testing. It took almost a week of R&D effort to find the cause and reduce the PO...



					forums.evga.com


----------



## Rashkae (Sep 26, 2020)

Camm said:


> I wouldn't be surprised, but those in the tech press such as Igor & HWU have had the same issue and they aren't that dumb, lol.



True, so it seems to point more at the limits of Samsung 8nm



xkm1948 said:


> EVGA has clarified the issue
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And Asus uses no cheap POSCAPs at all and there have been crash reports


----------



## KarymidoN (Sep 26, 2020)

Rashkae said:


> And Asus uses no cheap POSCAPs at all and there have been crash reports







Sauce: https://forums.evga.com/Message-about-EVGA-GeForce-RTX-3080-POSCAPs-m3095238.aspx


----------



## Turmania (Sep 26, 2020)

Does this mean a recall is coming? If so not very good for Nvidia.


----------



## xkm1948 (Sep 26, 2020)

Rashkae said:


> True, so it seems to point more at the limits of Samsung 8nm
> 
> 
> 
> And Asus uses no cheap POSCAPs at all and there have been crash reports




POSCAP is more expensive than MLCC it seems. But sure, carry on with your pitch forks


----------



## KarymidoN (Sep 26, 2020)

Turmania said:


> Does this mean a recall is coming? If so not very good for Nvidia.



no recall, the issue happens when the chip boosts on high clockspeeds, they will "FIX" it by limiting the clockspeeds in firmware or via driver update. the consumer will get less performance but who cares amiright?


----------



## Rashkae (Sep 26, 2020)

xkm1948 said:


> POSCAP is more expensive than MLCC it seems. But sure, carry on with your pitch forks



No. Other way around.


----------



## Darksword (Sep 26, 2020)

It's a feature.


----------



## dicktracy (Sep 26, 2020)

Dis is why you don't want to be an early adopter.


----------



## hwoarang5 (Sep 26, 2020)

avoid cheap out zotac, got it thanks...


----------



## swirl09 (Sep 26, 2020)

Rashkae said:


> And Asus uses no cheap POSCAPs at all and there have been crash reports











						[Official] NVIDIA RTX 3090 Owner's Club
					

I wish I could confirm this :unsure:  So far no luck at all, neither 3080 nor 3090. Even when I actually bought a card with "in stock" status, it just turned back to "not available" minutes after my order went through. I had one store, where I instantly called them after my order was placed and...




					www.overclock.net
				



Maybe, maybe not.


----------



## sergionography (Sep 26, 2020)

With all the bad press and hiccups with the rtx3000 series, AMD has the red carpet rolling for it to make a grand entrance. It's impressive how lucky they have been in the past few years. Sure they did great work, but their competition also weren't at their best.


----------



## dragontamer5788 (Sep 26, 2020)

xkm1948 said:


> POSCAP is more expensive than MLCC it seems. But sure, carry on with your pitch forks



Which MLCC? Which POSCAP?

* Here's a $0.30 POSCAP: 6.3V 150uF 3528 sizing

* Here's a POSCAP that's $1.64: 6.3V 150uF 2917 sizing

* Here's a $1.53 MLCC 6.3V 150uF 1210 size.

* Here's a $0.27 6.3V 150uF 1206 size MLCC.

Yeah, all are 150uF and 6.3V rated. I did that on purpose, because there's many, many, many other specifications on capacitors than just voltage, capacitance, chemistry, and size. (150uF is huge for the sizes we're talking about. I probably should have picked a smaller size... too late, I'm not looking all this stuff up again)

EDIT: Ah crap, I forgot to normalize for Metric-Size vs American-size. Whatever.

There are expensive MLCCs, there are cheap MLCCs, there are expensive POSCAPs, there are cheap POSCAPs. There are big MLCCs, there are small MLCCs, there are big POSCAPs, there are small POSCAPs, there are low ESR and then lower ESR caps, there are ESL-optimized caps, there are frequency optimized caps. There are multi-terminal caps, there are 2-terminal caps. There are sideways caps. There are stacked caps.

There are 755,004 MLCCs available for purchase from Digikey. There are 13,507 Tantalum-Polymer Capacitors for purchase from Digikey. There are KEMET POSCAPs, there are Panasonic POSCAPs, there are Samsung POSCAPs, there are Vishaay POSCAPs. There are AVX MLCCs, there are KEMET MLCCs, there are Murata MLCCs.

But Vishaay is more known for their resistors not really their caps. Murata is known for their MLCCs. KEMET is known for... I forget. There's a reputation for each of these companies to keep track of too.

--------

I should note: high-speed digital circuits with high-power and high-frequencies with multilayer PCB boards was a subject *I ran away screaming* from in college. That's literally one of the hardest subjects I've ever seen in my life. Yes, choosing the wrong capacitor can cause issues, but other mistakes include having your PCB-traces the wrong length (too long, or too short), or come at various angles, or otherwise messing up your transmission line characteristics.





Do you see that? *You literally just made a capacitor here* because any copper running with some insulator in between them makes capacitance. Did your PCB trace make a turn? Congratulations, you now have parasitic inductance, and the signal may reflect off of the copper corner. Will that mess up your design? Maybe.


----------



## BigJonno (Sep 26, 2020)

Looks like  Asus Tuf Gaming RTX3080 also has a poscap version out there!






edit: This is the Tuf Gaming non OC version.


----------



## WeisserWalFisch (Sep 26, 2020)

Why should any customer purchase feature stripped and unreliable hardware that performs at thermal limits of its components burning down your house.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

svan71 said:


> I'm starting to understand Apples decision to tell nvidia to get bent.


That's a very misinformed understanding considering we're about a decade removed from that decision..


----------



## -The_Mask- (Sep 26, 2020)

EVGA confirms the issue with the capacitors



> Recently there has been some discussion about the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 series.
> 
> During our mass production QC testing we discovered a full 6 POSCAPs solution cannot pass the real world applications testing. It took almost a week of R&D effort to find the cause and reduce the POSCAPs to 4 and add 20 MLCC caps prior to shipping production boards, this is why the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 series was delayed at launch. There were no 6 POSCAP production EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 boards shipped.
> 
> ...



https://forums.evga.com/m/tm.aspx?m=3095238&p=1


----------



## Jism (Sep 26, 2020)

WeisserWalFisch said:


> Why should any customer purchase feature stripped and unreliable hardware that performs at thermal limits of its components burning down your house.



Computer hardware is well protected against Overcurrent, Shorting out and all that. That's not the issue.

You got a AIB here that skimps out on parts that nvidia initially recommends. If the card is sold at the same price as the rest then their intention is just to make more profit over each sold card.


----------



## Shatun_Bear (Sep 26, 2020)

The Ampere disaster continues.

There is a consequence when you rush release GPUs made on a poor process node that use up to 400W. We've never had cards in living memory that draw so much power, it's ridiculous.


----------



## Chomiq (Sep 26, 2020)

You don't need to watch full video, Buildzoid starts rambling 5 minutes in.


----------



## TiN (Sep 26, 2020)

Whole article is based on speculations of speculations. First of all, high-current DC-DC PDN (power delivery network) is real challenge, and indeed must use proper decoupling. However it does not mean that use of POSCAP/SPCAP or MLCC is the best in every case. Much more depends on transient tuning and VRM settings, and PCB layout itself, than using MLCC or POSCAP in specific spot. Just replacing everything with MLCCs will NOT help the design to reach higher speeds and stability. Why? Because one need to use all different caps in tandem, as their frequency response is different, as well as ESR, ESL and other factors. 

Having everything with MLCC like glorified asus does means you have single deep resonance notch, instead of two less prominent notches when use MLCC+POSCAP together. Using three kinds, smaller POSCAP, bigger POSCAP, and some MLCCs gives better figure with 3 notches.. But again, with modern DC-DC controllers lot of this can be tuned from PID control and converter slew rate tweaks. This adjustability is one of big reasons why enthusiast cards often use "digital" that allows tweaking almost on the fly for such parameters. However this is almost never exposed to user, as wrong settings can easily make power phases go brrrrrr with smokes. Don't ask me how I know...

Everybody going nuts now with MLCC or POSCAP, but I didn't see a single note that actual boards used DIFFERENT capacitance and capacitor models, e.g. some use 220uF , some use 470uF  There are 680 or even 1000uF capacitors in D case on the market, that can be used behind GPU die. It is impossible to install that much of capacitance with MLCC in same spot for example, as largest cap in 0603 is 47uF for example.

Before looking onto poor 6 capacitors behind the die - why nobody talks about huge POSCAP capacitor bank behind VRM on FE card, eh? Custom AIB cards don't have that, just usual array without much of bulk capacitance. If I'd be designing a card, I'd look on a GPU's power demands and then add enough bulk capacitance first to make sure of good power impedance margin at mid-frequency ranges, while worrying about capacitors for high-frequency decoupling later, as that is relatively easier job to tweak. 

After all these wild theories are easy to test, no need any engineering education to prove this wrong or right. Take "bad" crashing card with "bad POSCAPs", test it to confirm crashes... Then desolder "bad POSCAPs", put bunch of 47uF low-ESR MLCCs instead, and test again if its "fixed". Something tells me that it would not be such a simple case and card may still crash, heh. ;-)


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 26, 2020)

dicktracy said:


> Dis is why you don't want to be an early adopter.



*I am an early adopter*, I do run my Blog for eight long years, I do explore solely the planet of electrical test and measurement equipment and testers.
Due lots of reading and practice and the opportunity to receive highest precision parts and measuring tools, I did my entrance also at at electrical metrology.
This is the top of pyramid at that science.
And I won recognition at my sector by the industry it self, as they made the judgement that their Blogger and in a way a trainee early adopter, he does have true potentials to adopt and understand of what their High-tech work can do and it usage.

But here comes the difference between of me and others,  I was preparing my self for 30 years as freelancer electrician and electronics repair man,  studying , practicing , having a very high success rate when I do repairs or troubleshoot real problems at my local customers.
This is the hard and slow and painful way so some one to develop skills and understanding.  

Today because of Igor an German retiree,   all YouTube actors / product reviewers, they did found a reason to power on their cameras.
But even so they are clueless of what they are talking about.

And therefore all consumers they should simply wait so NVIDIA and their partners to do their own homework and any new decisions will be officially announced in the market no sooner than 40 days from now.



TiN said:


> After all these wild theories are easy to test, no need any engineering education to prove this wrong or right. Take "bad" crashing card with "bad POSCAPs", test it to confirm crashes... Then desolder "bad POSCAPs", put bunch of 47uF low-ESR MLCCs instead, and test again if its "fixed". Something tells me that it would not be such a simple case and card may still crash, heh. ;-)



I can solder and desolder of anything too, but GPU engineering this is something that no one can grasp with out be part of NVIDIA R&D team.
Fifteen years ago the only word that consumers knew was *number of pipelines*.
GPU engineering has nothing to do of  *YOU *becoming a car mechanic at your own car, it does not work that way due the unimaginable complexity of modern design.


----------



## gloomfrog (Sep 26, 2020)

it's a doubt  whether using  POSCAPs  means cheap , on some cases one  POSCAP could be expensive than ten MLCCs。


----------



## TiN (Sep 26, 2020)

> opportunity to receive highest precision parts and measuring tools, I did my entrance also at at electrical metrology.


Do tell more 

Though there is no much need for highest precision equipment to be able on capturing bode plot and response of relatively slow DC-DC converter that is used on 3080/3090 GPUs here. One do need decent differential probes, injector or high-speed load and good scope or bode plot analyzer 

Again, one does not need to know anything about GPU or silicon design to make a good DC-DC converter that can meet power requirements of the chip. You can measure all this in typical EE lab that all AIBs already have. No need to work at NVIDIA to do this, as DC-DC converter design is very common job that is done in majority electronics, be it GPU, motherboard, console or TV.

Also fun fact = MLCC caps produce lot of acoustic noise. Remember sqeaking cards that customers hate and RMA so much?


----------



## yeeeeman (Sep 26, 2020)

This is another example why no one should buy a product on its first batches. Let it pass at least a month.


----------



## Tsukiyomi91 (Sep 26, 2020)

Seems that I'll be getting an RTX3070 or a 3060.


----------



## Chomiq (Sep 26, 2020)

yeeeeman said:


> This is another example why no one should buy a product on its first batches. Let it pass at least a month.


More like example of proper validation required in the R&D process instead of a rushed release. This falls both on Nvidia and (some) AiB partners.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 26, 2020)

TiN said:


> Do tell more
> 
> Again, one does not need to know anything about GPU or silicon design to make a good DC-DC converter that can meet power requirements of the chip.



No need to do so, you are well aware that lack of understanding this limited your joy about bringing back from the dead the 8846A.
I got one a year ago and I even help at developing logging software for it.
3080/3090 GPUs  they are more complex than the 8846A.  
Just keep that in mind.


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

Turmania said:


> Does this mean a recall is coming? If so not very good for Nvidia.



Nvidia never admits being wrong and always blames the partners (TSMC, Apple, etc.), so here they will say that the fault is with the AIB and the fix will be based on downclocking...


----------



## HD64G (Sep 26, 2020)

Another con of Ampere consumer GPUS made on Samsung's 8nm and ended being an ultra high power draw chip. And power circuit robustness is the same reason that the cheapest AIB models most often than not have biggest RMA rates than the higher quality made ones.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 26, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> Nvidia never admits being wrong and always blames the partners (TSMC, Apple, etc.), so here they will say that the fault is with the AIB and the fix will be based on down-clocking...


 
We are all here to verify that, but do not expect getting any solid answers faster than four weeks of time.


----------



## Chomiq (Sep 26, 2020)

For those that didn't get the memo, here's @TiN:









Just so someone doesn't jump the gun and says he's pulling this out of his you know what.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 26, 2020)

HD64G said:


> Another con of Ampere consumer GPUS made on Samsung's 8nm and ended being an ultra high power draw chip. And power circuit robustness is the same reason that the cheapest AIB models most often than not have biggest RMA rates than the higher quality made ones.



I thought so far that the cheapest ones receive a hell of torture because of poor people trying to OC them with out use of sanity .


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> We are all here to verify that, but do not expect getting any solid answers faster than four weeks of time.



Of course, we need patience.

EVGA stance seems to confirm there is a problem with the choice of capacitors, although maybe not cheaping out is the root of the problem, but rather not enough testing.
On the other hand, FE cards seem to crash, too, so there might be other sources of issues, PSU related or such.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 26, 2020)

Chomiq said:


> For those that didn't get the memo, here's @TiN:
> 
> Just so someone doesn't jump the gun and says he's pulling this out of his you know what.



Electronics engineering and GPU architecture they are two different mountain tops.



BoboOOZ said:


> Of course, we need patience.
> 
> EVGA stance seems to confirm there is a problem with the choice of capacitors, although maybe not cheaping out is the root of the problem, but rather not enough testing.
> On the other hand, FE cards seem to crash, too, so there might be other sources of issues, PSU related or such.


an 750W PSU this has headroom of 1150W Max,  you may expect only 1% relative complain about it.
Mostly because the users they are not aware of the actual health status of the PSU in their hands, current performance delivery in watts due it age.


----------



## TiN (Sep 26, 2020)

I still missing how GPU architecture or GPU design matter here? One can assume it's magic oompa-loompa inside chip doing the math, and it would be same either way, as soon as you need (can measure) how many amps and what voltage margins loompa's need to stay happy. That is number one test to be done for all new GPUs, before you can even begin to start writing specification of VRM design.

P.S. No joy in 8846A was not because of it's digital issues, but because I am/was not interested in it much, having way more fun with 3458A/2002/etc.  Even fully working 8846A is quite poor unit for what it costs...

P.P.S. All above are just my personal ramblings, not related to any AIB point of view.


----------



## P4-630 (Sep 26, 2020)

In other news:
_Brazilian overclocking legend Ronaldo "Rbuass" Buassali pushed his Galax GeForce RTX 3080 SG to 2,340 MHz _








						Overclocked RTX 3080 Hits 2.34 GHz, a New World Record
					

Using LN2, an overclocker achieved record RTX 3080 clock speeds.




					www.tomshardware.com


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 26, 2020)

TiN said:


> I still missing how GPU architecture or GPU design matter here? One can assume it's magic oompa-loompa inside chip doing the math, and it would be same either way, as soon as you need (can measure) how many amps and what voltage margins loompa's need to stay happy. That is number one test to be done for all new GPUs, before you can even begin to start writing specification of VRM design.
> 
> P.S. No joy in 8846A was not because of it's digital issues, but because I am/was not interested in it much, having way more fun with 3458A/2002/etc.  Even fully working 8846A is quite poor unit for what it costs...
> 
> P.P.S. All above are just my personal ramblings, not related to any AIB point of view.



It is not in my priorities of me to discover NVIDIA's magic oompa-loompa inside chip, because I do not make money from VGA card repairs. 
I am aware of your measuring gear, but your accident did stop your exploration at the discovery of what an 8846A can do as by far most modern design.
Anyway this is another story, and a boring one for the readers of this forum.


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 26, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> Anyway this is another story, and a boring one for the readers of this forum.


Please carry on. You are carrying it like the main event. I appreciate it more than the uninformed opinions.

This component race somehow makes me wonder if there are forbidden cheats that don't meet the regulations. Where there is a rule, so is a violation.


----------



## jormungand (Sep 26, 2020)

Looks like the scalpers saved the day!!!! We need to thank them, they sacrificed their wallets in order to protect ours bois!!!! 
Re-manucfacturing uhmmmm 
Now the companies will have to show that they made a reliable product and works fine.


----------



## Haile Selassie (Sep 26, 2020)

There seems to be more and more indications that this is poor QC control on yield side, not PCBA design problem. Either that or faulty boost algorithm or bad VID/FID table.
Over 2GHz seems to be an issue, either MCU design or design process limit or both.
I personally expect there will be BIOS updates that will lower the maximum boost clock.


----------



## basco (Sep 26, 2020)

could this be why Msi put so low power target on their 3x8pin trio cards?


----------



## AsRock (Sep 26, 2020)

LabRat 891 said:


> Gotta love EMI/RFI design oversights. From what I've read, it is the bane of every freshly college-educated EE and many a veteran EE. I bet somebody on the design teams knew that this would cause a problem and was promptly ignored after referencing datasheets claiming "It'll be fine!"


----------



## mak1skav (Sep 26, 2020)

Meh at least with 2xxx series we had Space Invaders but now we just have an ordinary crash to desktop


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 26, 2020)

I don't get the reception that I'm signalling for, but what about chain of excellence?
This is what TSMC posted a month before. Fluke or coincidence?
Nvidia is trying to reinvent the wheel, maybe...





						Introducing TSMC 3DFabric: TSMC’s Family of 3D Silicon Stacking, Advanced Packaging Technologies and Services - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited
					

Computing workloads have evolved more over the past decade than perhaps the previous four decades. Not too long ago, word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics and the occasional game of solitaire were the typical workload for even the most advanced processors in the world.




					www.tsmc.com


----------



## blobster21 (Sep 26, 2020)

Come on, we need more insightful comments here ! (and i'm bored to death anyway, so keep them coming please   )


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> Nvidia never admits being wrong and always blames the partners (TSMC, Apple, etc.), so here they will say that the fault is with the AIB and the fix will be based on downclocking...


It's not NVidia's fault. The AIB's are solely to blame for not following the recommendations and not doing proper testing. The reality is, people will need to do a little bit of downclocking to keep those card stable. It's not the end of the world and likely will not even affect over-all card performance to a noticeable degree.


----------



## Chomiq (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> It's not NVidia's fault. The AIB's are solely to blame for not following the recommendations and not doing proper testing.


Nvidia has to approve each partner board design. Also, aib partners didn't even get the drivers until review samples were shipped out.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

Chomiq said:


> Nvidia has to approve each partner board design.


The design, yes. That doesn't mean it was tested buy NVidia. That is the responsibility of the AIB's.



Chomiq said:


> Also, aib partners didn't even get the drivers until review samples were shipped out.


And that is still not NVidia's fault. The problem would not exist if the AIB's had followed the recommendations stated by NVidia. That is what recommendations are for.


----------



## zlobby (Sep 26, 2020)

roccale said:


> It's beautiful


Indeed so, most indeedely!


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> It's not NVidia's fault. The AIB's are solely to blame for not following the recommendations and not doing proper testing. The reality is, people will need to do a little bit of downclocking to keep those card stable. It's not the end of the world and likely will not even affect over-all card performance to a noticeable degree.


We don't know yet what's happening exactly, but you are already sure Nvidia has no responsibility in this? That's very unbiased of you.


----------



## asdkj1740 (Sep 26, 2020)

subbed


----------



## EarthDog (Sep 26, 2020)

asdkj1740 said:


> subbed


just an FYI, there is a "watch" button at the top of the page just for subscribing. 



BoboOOZ said:


> We don't know yet what's happening exactly, but you are already sure Nvidia has no responsibility in this? That's very unbiased of you.


What is Nvidia's role in this?


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> We don't know yet what's happening exactly, but you are already sure Nvidia has no responsibility in this?


So far, these problems are NOT happening with NVidia's own cards, nor the higher-tier cards from AIB's. It's just the lower tier offerings from AIB's. The responsibility rests with the AIBs. Please review;











BoboOOZ said:


> That's very unbiased of you.


Bias has nothing to do with it. The info out there is showing the problem.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> So far, these problems are NOT happening with NVidia's own cards, nor the higher-tier card from AIB's. It's just the lower tier offerings from AIB's. The responsibility rests with the AIBs. Please review;


No company shouts more about their work with partners, Devs and AIB.
The reference spec design they passed AIB was different to their own reference card's.
And they compressed development and testing time to near zero.
And they allowed such design variation in their development reference kit instead of both knowing  that it needed specific voltage conditioning and informing AIB partners or limiting those AIB designs.

It's not all on Nvidia but they share the blame.


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> So far, these problems are NOT happening with NVidia's own cards, nor the higher-tier cards from AIB's. It's just the lower tier offerings from AIB's. The responsibility rests with the AIBs.
> 
> 
> Bias has nothing to do with it. The info out there is showing the problem.


That's not true, and Jays2c is fun and all, but his technical abilities aren't awesome. he might be onto something, but apparently, FE crashes as well

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1309659834468298753
Most of the time, in this type of situation, the responsibility is shared, but the chances than Nvidia gave very clear and correct specifications and the AIB just blatantly disprespected them are close to 0.

Time will tell, but it looks like we were expecting another Pascal and we got another Fermi... They'll fix it soon, I imagine, if it's just a matter of dropping the frequency a tad should be easily fixable.


----------



## Dave65 (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> It's not NVidia's fault. The AIB's are solely to blame for not following the recommendations and not doing proper testing. The reality is, people will need to do a little bit of downclocking to keep those card stable. It's not the end of the world and likely will not even affect over-all card performance to a noticeable degree.



You GOT to be kidding , right?
This is exactly on Nvidia.


----------



## Radi_SVK (Sep 26, 2020)

Mirrormaster85 said:


> So, as an Electronics Engineer and PCB Designer I feel I have to react here.
> The point that Igor makes about improper power design causing instability is a very plausible one. Especially with first production runs where it indeed could be the case that they did not have the time/equipment/driver etc to do proper design verification.
> 
> 
> ...


Amen and thank you!
Dont think I have to look for more informative and unbiased opinion.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> It's not all on Nvidia but they share the blame.


There's likely some truth to that, but people are acting like it's ALL on NVidia which is a crock of poop.... Example you ask?...



Dave65 said:


> You GOT to be kidding , right?
> This is exactly on Nvidia.


There you go..


----------



## MelonGx (Sep 26, 2020)

__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1309840810880282625
For those people who insisted TUF won't crash, I post an evidence video of my TUF crashed.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> That's not true, and Jays2c is fun and all, but his technical abilities aren't awesome.


His are better than yours it would seem...


----------



## asdkj1740 (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> His are better than yours it would seem...


you should check his latest response on his twitter.


----------



## harm9963 (Sep 26, 2020)

The one i want!








						TUF-RTX3080-10G-GAMING｜Graphics Cards｜ASUS USA
					

TUF Gaming graphics cards add hefty 3D horsepower to the TUF Gaming ecosystem, with features like Auto-Extreme manufacturing, steel backplates, high-tech fans, and IP5X certifications. And it’s all backed by a rigorous battery of validation tests to ensure compatibility with the latest TUF...




					www.asus.com


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 26, 2020)

Rado D said:


> Amen and thank you!
> Dont think I have to look for more informative and unbiased opinion.


Agreed. People who show up at such a debate make it almost into a fortune to behold.


----------



## BigBonedCartman (Sep 26, 2020)

RTX 2000 series had faulty brand new card randomly dying, RTX 3000 series has AIB partners cheaping out on capacitors, AMD constantly has driver issues..... WTF is wrong with GPU manufacturing?


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

asdkj1740 said:


> you should check his latest response on his twitter.


Who's? What response are we talking about?



BigBonedCartman said:


> WTF is wrong with GPU manufacturing?


Nothing. They are making ever more complex and powerful cards to push the limits of performance in very tight time constraints. I'm not excusing these problems, only offering explanation. The industry needs to slow it down a little and focus on quality more.


----------



## Khonjel (Sep 26, 2020)

I don't get it tbh. POSCAP is supposedly more expensive than MLCC (per that reddit post). So supposedly overbuilt cards aren't performing as intended or something? But damn, people are gonna run towards ASUS now. Both Strix and cheaper TUF use all-MLCC design.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

Khonjel said:


> I don't get it tbh. POSCAP is supposedly more expensive than MLCC (per that reddit post).


The Reddit post was wrong. The whole process of mounting the smaller components is a more expensive one. The components themselves are not all that expensive it's just getting them soldered on that presents the more involved process.


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## blobster21 (Sep 26, 2020)

Khonjel said:


> I don't get it tbh. POSCAP is supposedly more expensive than MLCC (per that reddit post). So supposedly overbuilt cards aren't performing as intended or something? But damn, people are gonna run towards ASUS now. Both Strix and cheaper TUF use all-MLCC design.



No, it's not THAT easy. If anything, those components will to the job within their respective operating range nicely. It's just that the gpu boost is too much to handle for them.  2 contributors wrote it already :



Mirrormaster85 said:


> *concluding from this that a POSCAP = bad and MLCC = good is waaay to harsh and a conclusion you cannot make.*
> 
> 
> Both POSCAPS (or any other 'solid polymer caps' and MLCC's have there own characteristics and use cases.
> ...





TiN said:


> * Just replacing everything with MLCCs will NOT help the design to reach higher speeds and stability. Why? Because one need to use all different caps in tandem, as their frequency response is different, as well as ESR, ESL and other factors.
> 
> Having everything with MLCC like glorified asus does means you have single deep resonance notch, instead of two less prominent notches when use MLCC+POSCAP together. Using three kinds, smaller POSCAP, bigger POSCAP, and some MLCCs gives better figure with 3 notches..* But again, with modern DC-DC controllers lot of this can be tuned from PID control and converter slew rate tweaks. This adjustability is one of big reasons why enthusiast cards often use "digital" that allows tweaking almost on the fly for such parameters. However this is almost never exposed to user, as wrong settings can easily make power phases go brrrrrr with smokes. Don't ask me how I know...
> 
> ...


----------



## dragontamer5788 (Sep 26, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> It is not in my priorities of me to discover NVIDIA's magic oompa-loompa inside chip, because I do not make money from VGA card repairs.
> I am aware of your measuring gear, but your accident did stop your exploration at the discovery of what an 8846A can do as by far most modern design.
> Anyway this is another story, and a boring one for the readers of this forum.



While @TiN is being a bit aggressive with his words, I ultimately believe he's making the correct point.

From a PDN perspective, the *only* thing that matters is the frequencies at which power is drawn. It doesn't matter how NVidia's pipelines or local memory or whatever work. What matters is that they draw power at 2.1GHz increments, generating a 2.1GHz "ring frequency" across the power network... at roughly 100+ Amps.

Which will be roughly:

* 2.1GHz (Clockspeed of GPU)
* 5.25 GHz (rough clockspeed of the GDDR6x)
* 75Hz (The 75-Hz "pulse" every time a 75Hz monitor refreshes: the GPU will suddenly become very active, then stop drawing power waiting for VSync).
* Whatever the GHz is for PCIe communications
* Etc. etc. (Anything else that varies power across time)

Satisfying the needs of both a 5GHz *and* 75Hz simultaneously (and everything else) is what makes this so difficult. On the one hand, MLCC is traditionally considered great for high-frequency signals (like 5GHz). But guess what's considered best for low-frequency (75Hz) signals? You betcha: huge, high ESR Aluminum caps (and big 470 uF POSCAPs or 220uF caps would similarly better tackle lower-frequency problems).

----------

*COULD* the issue be the 2.1GHz signal? Do we *KNOW FOR SURE* that the issue is that the PDN runs out of power inside of a nanosecond?

Or is the card running out of power on VSyncs (~75Hz)? If the card is running out of power at that point, maybe more POSCAPs is better.

I wouldn't be convinced MLCC is "better" until someone posts a sub-nanosecond transient on a $50,000 10GHz oscilloscope showing the problem. Heck, I've seen *no actual evidence* posted in this entire discussion that even suggests the PDN is the issue yet. (Yeah, EVGA says they had issues when making the card. But other companies clearly have a different power-network design and EVGA's issues may not match theirs).


----------



## fynxer (Sep 26, 2020)

windwhirl said:


> I don't get why AIBs went cheap for this board. I mean, it's the second highest-tier GPU! You should never go cheap in that kind of product!



It is in general terms called GREED. Imagine that they save only few cents on a $699 card and still go cheap.

Greed is the one of the most important things we must get rid of in human society if we are to avoid extinction.

TO ALL 3080 OWNERS, DO NOT ACCEPT BIOS UPDATES THAT REDUCES YOUR PERFORMANCE, RETURN YOUR CARD NOW WHILE YOU CAN !!!!!


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## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> His are better than yours it would seem...


And there I was thinking that you ran out of dumb arguments.... Ignored.


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## Vya Domus (Sep 26, 2020)

The quality people seem to find acceptable has fallen to an all time low, that's the root cause of all this. Had people said no these 800$ POS or however much they cost I can guarantee you Nvidia and AIBs would magically find the just right designs and components to use such that this didn't occur because they'd need to impress people.

But when all they see is "unprecedented demand" all that takes a back seat and next time around you'll get an even shittier and more expensive product.


----------



## TechLurker (Sep 26, 2020)

I'd like to point out that the only guaranteed performance one is paying for is whatever is written on the box, so one can't really take NVIDIA to court if they wanted to just because a firmware update reduced the max auto-OC limits of early batch GPUs (and OC'ing, whether manual or automatic, is considered operating out of spec). The GPUs are still usable at spec. Only that even under ideal conditions, they will not boost as far as later GPU revisions will due to whatever issues are found and corrected with the next major batch.

That said, it doesn't make for good reputation and hurts the brand when some users lose a bit of performance from a firmware update, and will hurt even further given it'll take some time before revised cards are made and released. Then there is the fact that some companies may or may not allow for RMA/exchanges for revised GPUs (although most probably will bend and allow GPU exchanges, if only for publicity purposes). At the very least, the AIBs might be able to re-market the early batch GPUs either as cheaper SI cards for prebuilts for say, Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Dell (non-gaming-oriented lines), foreign equivalents, and so forth, where they're great as stock GPUs, since they do work at stock and just have a lower max OC ceiling.

Personally, I suspect that any major revisions will not make it to mainstream until November/December, or even not until after the new year, since all the early batches (including the "more incoming stock" being promised) were produced according to the original, finalized setup that's currently in the wild, and it'll take a bit of time to sort out the issues and get that change passed in the manufacturing process. And we're still dealing with a human virus that's still hampering the world's recovery.


----------



## Vya Domus (Sep 26, 2020)

TechLurker said:


> I'd like to point out that the only guaranteed performance one is paying for is whatever is written on the box, so one can't really take NVIDIA to court if they wanted to just because a firmware update reduced the max auto-OC limits of early batch GPUs (and OC'ing, whether manual or automatic, is considered operating out of spec). The GPUs are still usable at spec. Only that even under ideal conditions, they will not boost as far as later GPU revisions will due to whatever issues are found and corrected with the next major batch.



That's not how it works, a manufacturer can't just say "clock speed higher than zero" or something like that and get away with every value possible afterward. This BS wouldn't last a second in court.

You were sold a product that had a specific performance characteristic which was diminished after a software update because the item was defective, that alone would be enough to win the case. You don't even need to worry about what's written on the box.

And may I remind you of this : https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/2...n-throttling-batterygate-class-action-lawsuit


----------



## asdkj1740 (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Who's? What response are we talking about?


jayztwocent posted a follow up video on his twitter after his first video on youtube.


----------



## jayseearr (Sep 26, 2020)

I did not expect the launch to be good or smooth but seemingly this one has been exceptionally terrible...

*Early adopters beware*...For those of you who did not figure this out a long time ago.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

asdkj1740 said:


> jayztwocent posted a follow up video on his twitter after his first video on youtube.


Please post the link.


----------



## Khonjel (Sep 26, 2020)

jayseearr said:


> I did not expect the launch to be good or smooth but seemingly this one has been exceptionally terrible...
> 
> *Early adopters beware*...For those of you who did not figure this out a long time ago.


TBH I'm just waiting for when AMD fucks up their launch somehow and people start shitting on them.



lexluthermiester said:


> Please post the link.




__ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1309617232201175040


----------



## jayseearr (Sep 26, 2020)

Khonjel said:


> TBH I'm just waiting for when AMD fucks up their launch somehow and people start shitting on them.



That wouldn't surprise me at all...I'm hopeful they can do better than this but I certainly wouldn't wager any money on it


----------



## TechLurker (Sep 26, 2020)

Vya Domus said:


> That's not how it works, a manufacturer can't just say "clock speed higher than zero" or something like that and get away with every value possible afterward. This BS wouldn't last a second in court.
> 
> You were sold a product that had a specific performance characteristic which was diminished after a software update because the item was defective, that alone would be enough to win the case. You don't even need to worry about what's written on the box.
> 
> And may I remind you of this : https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/2...n-throttling-batterygate-class-action-lawsuit



It's a good thing then that on their official pages, the clocks are only officially advertised to a specific range, and that is officially what has been paid for. Take ASUS' Strix 3080 OC for example:



> Engine Clock
> OC Mode - 1740 MHz (Boost Clock)
> 
> Gaming Mode (Default) - GPU Boost Clock : 1710 MHz , GPU Base Clock : 1440 MHz



No where did they promise more than that on the product page. And since most of the crashes seem to be happening above 1800 MHz; closer to the 2 GHz limit, that's already operating "out of spec", and thus they could technically get away with a firmware tweak that hard limits things to say, 1900 MHz since they're only preventing cards from operating too far out of spec. In this instance, they are NOT throttling the performance promised, which is only up to 1740. Your example would have more relevance had the GPUs get a firmware that locks them below the originally advertised clocks, such as a hard limit to 1730 MHz in OC mode.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 26, 2020)

dragontamer5788 said:


> While @TiN is being a bit aggressive with his words, I ultimately believe he's making the correct point.
> 
> From a PDN perspective, the *only* thing that matters is the frequencies at which power is drawn. It doesn't matter how NVidia's pipelines or local memory or whatever work. What matters is that they draw power at 2.1GHz increments, generating a 2.1GHz "ring frequency" across the power network... at roughly 100+ Amps.
> 
> ...



This is an interesting post and a pack of thoughts! 
Me and TIN we have some sort of relation as we are both engaging with electrical test and measurement sector for a decade at least.
I am an maintenance electrician involving mostly with industrial electronics and power supply.
We do differentiate by allot as he has specialization and further understanding of electronic circuits how to. 
But he should be the one so to inform this forum that GPU circuit analysis this requiring an 100.000 Euro 10GHz or better oscilloscope and special probes them worth 4000 Euro or more its one. 
In simple English ... we are both missing the required very damn expensive tools which they are required for in-depth analysis of what is happening. 
Therefore it is wise that all of us, to wait for the findings of the well paid engineers them working at the big brands.


----------



## Julhes (Sep 26, 2020)

_Hi all,_

_Recently there has been some discussion about the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 series._

_During our mass production QC testing we discovered a full 6 POSCAPs solution cannot pass the real world applications testing. It took almost a week of R&D effort to find the cause and reduce the POSCAPs to 4 and add 20 MLCC caps prior to shipping production boards, this is why the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 series was delayed at launch. There were no 6 POSCAP production EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 boards shipped._

_But, due to the time crunch, some of the reviewers were sent a pre-production version with 6 POSCAP’s, we are working with those reviewers directly to replace their boards with production versions.
EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 series with 5 POSCAPs + 10 MLCC solution is matched with the XC3 spec without issues._

_Also note that we have updated the product pictures at EVGA.com to reflect the production components that shipped to gamers and enthusiasts since day 1 of product launch.
Once you receive the card you can compare for yourself, EVGA stands behind its products!_

_Thanks
EVGA_


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

Khonjel said:


> TBH I'm just waiting for when AMD fucks up their launch somehow and people start shitting on them.
> 
> 
> 
> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1309617232201175040


Thank You.

Desided to reactivate my old Twitter account... Surprised it was still there.


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## OneMoar (Sep 26, 2020)

POSCAP is just a Product from Panasonic IT IS NOT A PARTICULAR TYPE OF CAPACITOR
You need to have two types of Capacitors in the circuit because MLCC's as a General Rule do not have Enough Capacitance and Other types of polymer Capacitors don't have the same filtering/frequency capability

think of it this way the larger poly type caps act as a reservoir and the MLCC handles the heavy lifting of dealing with the extreme changes in demand coming from the gpu core

its entirely possible to build a circuit with nothing but MLCC, But that requires a lot of PCB Space, its expensive, and in the end probly overkill

you can also do it with other types of Caps so long as you keep the  Capacitance and frequency requirements in mind

youtubers that don't have electrical degrees should not talk about shit that requires said degree 

what the article should read is this

*AIBS screw up PCB design*


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Sep 26, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> POSCAP is just a brand name from Panasonic IT IS NOT A PARTICULAR TYPE OF CAPACITORS



Don't think many actually watched this ^ video. still think Poscap is a type not brand


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## $ReaPeR$ (Sep 26, 2020)

All this arguing should be funny but it really isn't. At the end of the day this is a defective product that is ridiculously expensive. And I do not understand how some people have the nerve to defend nvidia when we all know the level of control they have over their partners. If you want better quality, vote with your wallets and don't buy this. But you won't because at the end of the day rationality is not something that people use. This behavior is literally the reason we can't have nice things.


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## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

tigger said:


> Don't think many actually watched this ^ video. still think Poscap is a type not brand


Just do a Google search, POSCAP are Panasonic only.


----------



## jayseearr (Sep 26, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> youtubers that don't have electrical degrees should not talk about shit that requires said degree


I get your point, but I would still rather they talk about it..more awareness is a good thing and stuff like this can often accelerate a fix.



OneMoar said:


> what the article should read is this
> 
> AIBS screw up pcb design, issue revisions


Didn't the same video that you posted explain within the first couple minutes why/how it's just as much of a reflection on nvidia as the AIBs if not more so?

"The thing is, as far as I'm concerned this is like nvidia screwing up the design guidelines, I wouldn't really throw this on the board partners because as far as I'm aware you can't even ship an nvidia gpu without running it through nvidia's green light program. So if nvidia doesn't approve you pcb design, you can't sell it."


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 26, 2020)

$ReaPeR$ said:


> All this arguing should be funny but it really isn't. At the end of the day this is a defective product that is ridiculously expensive. And I do not understand how some people have the nerve to defend nvidia when we all know the level of control they have over their partners.


Well, it is halo product plus planned obsolescence all rolled into one. Two birds with one stone. And people don't appreciate enough already.


----------



## Vya Domus (Sep 26, 2020)

TechLurker said:


> It's a good thing then that on their official pages, the clocks are only officially advertised to a specific range, and that is officially what has been paid for. Take ASUS' Strix 3080 OC for example:
> 
> 
> 
> No where did they promise more than that on the product page. And since most of the crashes seem to be happening above 1800 MHz; closer to the 2 GHz limit, that's already operating "out of spec", and thus they could technically get away with a firmware tweak that hard limits things to say, 1900 MHz since they're only preventing cards from operating too far out of spec. In this instance, they are NOT throttling the performance promised, which is only up to 1740. Your example would have more relevance had the GPUs get a firmware that locks them below the originally advertised clocks, such as a hard limit to 1730 MHz in OC mode.



A vendor must provide specifications that match how the real product sold behaves no matter what. The only real "spec" is written in the BIOS of the card which allows the card to operate within certain parameters, i.e close to 2000Mhz, if it can't do that then it's defective and it can't match it's specification. It's as simple as that. There is no auto-OC, it's all default stock settings that Nvidia and AIBs came up with.

Again, they are simply pushing the limits of advertising, in a real legal matter those figures would never hold up just like it didn't in the Apple case. If the world operated how you think it does, then you could for example sometimes get water from the gas station in your car's tank because the oil company claimed "Up to 95% petrol content" and so that would be fine and no one could ever take them to court. That'd obliviously be completely absurd, companies can't just claim what they want and sell crap with no repercussions.


----------



## semantics (Sep 26, 2020)

Clearly this was done to snipe all the ebay scalpers.


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 26, 2020)

semantics said:


> Clearly this was done to snipe all the ebay scalpers.


Right? It is a feature.


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## Vya Domus (Sep 26, 2020)

semantics said:


> Clearly this was done to snipe all the ebay scalpers.



I hope that's sarcasm.


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 26, 2020)

Vya Domus said:


> I hope that's sarcasm.


Don't u want competition, progress? How very not liberal minded of you...
This creates a new echelon of enthusiast - the ones who are privileged enough to be able to run the cards.


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 26, 2020)

semantics said:


> Clearly this was done to snipe all the ebay scalpers.


*BOOM HEADSHOT*



mtcn77 said:


> Don't u want competition, progress? How very not liberal minded of you...
> This creates a new echelon of enthusiast - the ones who are privileged enough to be able to run the cards.


Leave any and all politics at the door please


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## TiN (Sep 26, 2020)

100k oscilloscope or 10 GHz oscilloscope is *not required* again to do *power delivery network analysis* of the VGA card. It is required for signal integrity measurements and verification, such as that pretty PAM4 eye diagram everybody saw on marketing presentation slides or for testing PCIe 4.0 signal quality and interface health (and 10GHz for that is not enough, gotta need 32GHz+, which together with probe system would go for 300k$+ mark). Why it is not needed for power testing and VRM tuning? Because major (99.9%) amount of frequency bandwidth involved in switching hundreds of amps on large planes like PCB has is limited to few tens MHz tops, and all fast transient at GHz are handled by GPU package, not the PCB.

Real life example. Let's imagine you are GPU and jumping up is equivalent to computing a frame in the game. You are healthy and strong GPU. You jump lightweight, you can jump 100 times an hour (e.g. 100 fps ) no sweat. This is when you have no capacitive and inductive loading case. Now we add 1kg of weights to your backpack. You can jump only 80 times an hour, because now its harder to jump with that extra weight added (this is when we have just tiny MLCCs around). Let's add 10kg of weights.. this is some polymer "POSCAP"s around... Now you jump only 50 times, it's getting heavy to bring all that mass up, and then slow it down when you land... Now add VRM inductors and bulk capacitors...another 40 kg weight.... oops...you can barely jump at 5 times.... soooo heavy..... so sloooow.... This is PDN for dummies  Power designer job is to optimize weights on each step, so system as a whole handle workloads well. And you don't need to know about muscle cell composition, neurons operation or immune system hormones or even blood flow (inner workings of GPU) when you doing jumps...

And while GPU operate at 2.1GHz (which is interesting question on itself, because internally clocks are not 2.1 GHz everywhere , current pulses and draw spikes that fast will never reach PCB level. This is ABC of circuit design and PDN design. The higher frequency is, the smaller (physical) sizes are. You cannot have current suddenly switch on huge copper sheet polygon with a GHz rate due to huge inductance and capacitance between PCB layers. That is why you have those teeeeny 01005 capacitors around the GPU/CPU dies and why you have layers inside BGA package (which is structured exactly like PCB, but smaller). Those are first line of "defense" against switching currents, and they filter GHz current transients. What reaches PCB right behind the core is tens and hundreds MHz rate tops. And having 1GHz or just 2.5GHz oscilloscope (to be sure) with PROPER probing is enough to measure 100MHz power spikes and ripple. Such scope is available at every AIB lab, nothing special.

Here's some basic documents on the topic: https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...wer-integrity/power-distribution-network.html
It is ALTERA (now Intel) page on PDN. It's about FPGA power design but same principle applies to CPU or GPU too. Please note that plot does not extend post 1 GHz . There is nice PDF going over basics too.







See those notches? Each notch is a particular "capacitor" (in reality its a combined inductance+capacitance+impedance). First notch would be bulk caps, then big MLCC, then smaller MLCC, than tiny MLCCs sprinkled everywhere on the PCB, then GPU package with onboard caps, and finally at tens/hundreds of MHz capacitance/inductance of package and die power networks itself.

Another plot showing notches from different decoupling "sources". Plot here shows impedance from DC to 10GHz. You can see on-package capacitors kick off at 100MHz+ mark, while on-die structures handle 1GHz+ range. Again, no 10GHz+ stuff or ASIC design knowledge required here, because while in theory we can probe inside GPU (and I'm sure NVIDIA R&D engineers do that during design of the chip with their multi-M$ equipment and fancy tools), it's *irrelevant for PCB designer or AIB *point of view for *VRM/power design*, because they are given chips as a whole, and have zero control over chip operation. But have requirements and target impedance and voltage margins, which must be met by PCB designer and VRM tuning/components selection.






These are just random pics on topic from 1 minute googling.

Also there is whole lot of another factors, which are way more important than decoupling banks. Such as load-line tuning, VRM stability and RFI/EMI aware design. If any if these are bad, than you can have perfect decoupling scheme and layout in the world, but your product will be unstable mess as a whole. It's like spending 10000$ on audiofoolery mains power cable (fancy MLCC arrays), while you have aluminum AWG22 wiring inside the wall (bad power settings, poor stability for VRM PWM controller) on the other side of the outlet  Great job for capacitors , A+ for efforts, but still F for overclocking and meeting specs...

Btw, all of this is perfect example on HOW and WHY overclocking, especially liquid nitrogen overclocking is nice and helpful tool. If you just test design on NVIDIA spec conditions, you may never reach the poor stability VRM region. While pushing chip to 30-50% higher than the spec will instantly reveal instabilities and deficiency of the power design. And believe, here I am not talking about "which AIB card got more phases" or "whose MOSFET have 90A rating instead of 60A", but actual things that matter, like VRM stability, correct phase-shifts, balancing load, and of-course decoupling networks .

When I was working on all KPE cards, PDN experiments and measurements are what took most time, tuning for all those things in system level. And I didn't need to use fancy 10GHz oscilloscope for these tests. Okay, I'm done 



> I wouldn't be convinced MLCC is "better" until someone posts a sub-nanosecond transient on a $50,000 10GHz oscilloscope showing the problem. Heck, I've seen no actual evidence posted in this entire discussion that even suggests the PDN is the issue yet.



Bingo! My point precisely, I am not convinced at all that culprit is in using few MLCC or polymer cap behind a GPU, it's just misinformation and guesswork spread by one blogger IMHO.



> In simple English ... we are both missing the required very damn expensive tools which they are required for in-depth analysis of what is happening.
> Therefore it is wise that all of us, to wait for the findings of the well paid engineers them working at the big brands.
> 
> Also cost of placing components is low and not a big factor, compared to everything else. It's not like human getting paid per hour for placing every cap, it's done by PnP machines on automated lines.



I do have expensive tools, and one can buy 1GHz oscilloscope and decent differential probes from eBay for $3-6k without problem to measure and tune power delivery. But obviously I am not going into practice of it all, as I don't work in consumer field anymore. It is interesting problem to look at however, no denial about that, just not interesting enough .
And most likely we will never know the root cause, because stuff like this is never shown publicly, because this is bread and butter of AIBs that differentiate ones who just copy designs from ones who actually design things better by having how-to. So those well-paid engineers will need to keep their NDAs and not say a word.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

tigger said:


> still think Poscap is a type not brand


Correct. POSCAP is a type of capacitor not a brand.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Sep 26, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> Just do a Google search, POSCAP are Panasonic only.



I understand this. what my point was, is some people are still confusing the fact that POSCAP is a brand of panasonic, not a type of capacitor, and stating some GPU's have POSCAPS on when they do not.


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## TiN (Sep 26, 2020)

POSCAP is registered brand/trademark name for Panasonic's line of capacitors. 








						Conductive Polymer Tantalum Solid Capacitors (POSCAP) - Panasonic
					

Product information and news of Conductive Polymer Tantalum Solid Capacitors (POSCAP), Panasonic.




					industrial.panasonic.com
				



Like "Core i7" for some Intel processors.


----------



## Chomiq (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Correct. POSCAP is a type of capacitor not a brand.





Enhance...



Enhance...


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 26, 2020)

TiN said:


> POSCAP is registered brand/trademark name for Panasonic's line of capacitors.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Chomiq said:


> View attachment 169886
> Enhance...
> View attachment 169884
> Enhance...
> View attachment 169887


It's still a cap type. The branding is not relevant.


----------



## TiN (Sep 26, 2020)

Let's call all proccessors Core i7's then


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> It's still a cap type. The branding is not relevant.












Polymer tantalum electrolytic capacitor (Polymer Ta-e-cap)
Polymer aluminum electrolytic capacitor (Polymer Al-e-cap)
Hybrid polymer capacitor (Hybrid polymer Al-e-cap)
Polymer niobium electrolytic capacitors


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

tigger said:


> I understand this. what my point was, is some people are still confusing the fact that POSCAP is a brand of panasonic, not a type of capacitor, and stating some GPU's have POSCAPS on when they do not.


My bad, I misunderstood your comment, maybe it was a tad too short for me


----------



## asdkj1740 (Sep 26, 2020)

TiN said:


> 100k oscilloscope or 10 GHz oscilloscope is *not required* again to do *power delivery network analysis* of the VGA card. It is required for signal integrity measurements and verification, such as that pretty PAM4 eye diagram everybody saw on marketing presentation slides or for testing PCIe 4.0 signal quality and interface health (and 10GHz for that is not enough, gotta need 32GHz+, which together with probe system would go for 300k$+ mark). Why it is not needed for power testing and VRM tuning? Because major (99.9%) amount of frequency bandwidth involved in switching hundreds of amps on large planes like PCB has is limited to few tens MHz tops, and all fast transient at GHz are handled by GPU package, not the PCB.
> 
> Real life example. Let's imagine you are GPU and jumping up is equivalent to computing a frame in the game. You are healthy and strong GPU. You jump lightweight, you can jump 100 times an hour (e.g. 100 fps ) no sweat. This is when you have no capacitive and inductive loading case. Now we add 1kg of weights to your backpack. You can jump only 80 times an hour, because now its harder to jump with that extra weight added (this is when we have just tiny MLCCs around). Let's add 10kg of weights.. this is some polymer "POSCAP"s around... Now you jump only 50 times, it's getting heavy to bring all that mass up, and then slow it down when you land... Now add VRM inductors and bulk capacitors...another 40 kg weight.... oops...you can barely jump at 5 times.... soooo heavy..... so sloooow.... This is PDN for dummies  Power designer job is to optimize weights on each step, so system as a whole handle workloads well. And you don't need to know about muscle cell composition, neurons operation or immune system hormones or even blood flow (inner workings of GPU) when you doing jumps...
> 
> ...


Hi Tin,
the evga statement posted by jacob seems to be supportting the "guesswork" from that blogger, what do you think?





						Message about EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 POSCAPs - EVGA Forums
					

Hi all, Recently there has been some discussion about the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 series. During our mass production QC testing we discovered a full 6 POSCAPs solution cannot pass the real world applications testing. It took almost a week of R&D effort to find the cause and reduce the PO...



					forums.evga.com
				





i have seen some ppl saying after shutmod or flashing xoc bios on watercooled 2080ti/titan, they can get 21XX~22XX mhz for binned gpu in games/benchmarks.
what is your guess on rtx3090 kingpin? should we expect such level of oc on 3080/3090?

thanks.


----------



## Parn (Sep 26, 2020)

AIBs have got used to sub 250W cards from nvidia. As a result they've under-estimated how crucial power delivery circuitry design needs to be for these monstrous GA102 chips.

Anyway whoever is going to be buying a 3080 (new or used) on ebay will have to be extremely careful and possibly ask for a visual inspection of the pcb to make sure he/she isn't paying the full whack for an early batch unit.


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 26, 2020)

asdkj1740 said:


> i have seen some ppl saying after shutmod or flashing xoc bios on watercooled 2080ti/titan, they can get 21XX~22XX mhz for binned gpu in games.


Is it reliably so, though? I have my fair share of ulps unlocked vrm failures.


----------



## TiN (Sep 26, 2020)

asdkj1740 said:


> i have seen some ppl saying after shutmod or flashing xoc bios on watercooled 2080ti/titan, they can get 21XX~22XX mhz for binned gpu in games/benchmarks.
> what is your guess on rtx3090 kingpin? should we expect such level of oc on 3080/3090?
> 
> thanks.



How would I know? I don't even have any 30*0 card  . I've seen enough of 3Dmarks in last 10 years, haha. But to your point, I kept repeating on oc guides and posts, that high clocks do not mean best performance. Like KPE 1080Ti running 50MHz less than competitor card in same benchmark but having higher score in 3Dmark  Think of cars, you may have 5.7 liter engine, but yet be slower than 3.6L Turbo...


----------



## Radi_SVK (Sep 26, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> The Reddit post was wrong. The whole process of mounting the smaller components is a more expensive one. The components themselves are not all that expensive it's just getting them soldered on that presents the more involved process.


Uhm,let me recap what you just wrote.
So you say,certain production cost is all about how components are placed,but ignoring the cost(=quality) of the given components?
Actually you are so clueless..but then you shouldnt act otherwise.


----------



## MikeSnow (Sep 26, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> just an FYI, there is a "watch" button at the top of the page just for subscribing.



Either I'm blind, or there isn't one. I even searched for it with Ctrl+F.

Later edit: after posting this reply now it took me to a section of the site where there is an "unwatch" button. The original page where I was reading the comments didn't have either "watch" or "unwatch":









						RTX 3080 Crash to Desktop Problems Likely Connected to AIB-Designed Capacitor Choice
					

Igor's Lab has posted an interesting investigative article where he advances a possible reason for the recent crash to desktop problems for RTX 3080 owners. For one, Igor mentions how the launch timings were much tighter than usual, with NVIDIA AIB partners having much less time than would be...




					www.techpowerup.com


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 26, 2020)

MikeSnow said:


> Either I'm blind, or there isn't one. I even searched for it with Ctrl+F.
> 
> Later edit: after posting this reply now it took me to a section of the site where there is an "unwatch" button. The original page where I was reading the comments didn't have either "watch" or "unwatch":
> 
> ...


There are 2 views, the comment view, and the forum view, the watch option is visible in the forum one.
Hah ninja edit


----------



## MikeSnow (Sep 26, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> There are 2 views, the comment view, and the forum view, the watch option is visible in the forum one.
> Hah ninja edit



Yeah, thanks, I suspected this was the case, but I initially found no way to switch to the forum view. After a bit more digging, clicking on the #nnn number at the top right of one of the comments will take you to the forum version of the thread.


----------



## surendran.kalai.92@gmail. (Sep 27, 2020)

AIBs cheaping out is a mis-information. POSCAPs are more expensive than MLCCs. MLCC is good at high frequency and POSCAP is good under high tempreture and they are durable. If POSCAP is the issue its due to lack of testing before sending the cards out not because the AIBs want to save money.


----------



## Amite (Sep 27, 2020)

Just have this funny feeling - Lisa Su  is coming for Nvidia this time. These are the first cards that the dude that went to Intel didn't have his fingers in. Maybe it is time to slowly wade back into AMD. 
and yes I bought a Radeon 7   lol


----------



## purecain (Sep 27, 2020)

So Asus is the only brand using the decent MLCC's am i right?

BTW lets hope a load of people using bots to buy up all the cards get stuck with the early batch's. That would be perfect.


----------



## jesdals (Sep 27, 2020)

Strange thing looking at product pics of Asus TUF, TUF OC and STRIX they all show the "bad" layout of components under the GPU socket - cant help to wonder if Asus did catch the problem early and just didnt share the information with the rest of AIB






						ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF - 10GB GDDR6X RAM - Grafikkort | Billig
					

8.690,00 kr. Grafikkort, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (Core clock 1440 MHz / Boost clock 1740 MHz), 8704 CUDA kerner, 10 GB GDDR6X (Memory clock 19.5 GHz) - 320-bit, PCI Express 4.0 x16, 2 x HDMI 2.1 / 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 tilslutninger, understøtter NVIDIA G-Sync, 2 x 8-pins strømstik, kortlængde...




					www.proshop.dk
				









						ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 TUF OC - 10GB GDDR6X RAM - Grafikkort | Billig
					

8.890,00 kr. Grafikkort, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Overclocked (Core clock 1440 MHz / Boost clock 1815 MHz), 8704 CUDA kerner, 10 GB GDDR6X (Memory clock 19.5 GHz) - 320-bit, PCI Express 4.0 x16, 2 x HDMI 2.1 / 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 tilslutninger, understøtter NVIDIA G-Sync, 2 x 8-pins strømstik...




					www.proshop.dk
				









						ASUS GeForce RTX 3080 ROG STRIX - 10GB GDDR6X RAM - Grafikkort
					

9.990,00 kr. Grafikkort, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (Core clock 1440 MHz / Boost clock 1740 MHz), 8704 CUDA kerner, 10 GB GDDR6X (Memory clock 19.5 GHz) - 320-bit, PCI Express 4.0 x16, 2 x HDMI 2.1 / 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 tilslutninger, understøtter NVIDIA G-Sync, 3 x 8-pins strømstik, kortlængde...




					www.proshop.dk


----------



## dinmaster (Sep 27, 2020)

jesdals said:


> Strange thing looking at product pics of Asus TUF, TUF OC and STRIX they all show the "bad" layout of components under the GPU socket - cant help to wonder if Asus did catch the problem early and just didnt share the information with the rest of AIB
> 
> 
> 
> ...



thats what im thinking, at the same time the rest are competition so yea makes sense..


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> Polymer tantalum electrolytic capacitor (Polymer Ta-e-cap)
> Polymer aluminum electrolytic capacitor (Polymer Al-e-cap)
> Hybrid polymer capacitor (Hybrid polymer Al-e-cap)
> Polymer niobium electrolytic capacitors


THAT was awesome!! I love Dr Cox! 

@OneMoar & @Rado D

I'm redirecting that video right back at you the two of you and I'm going to suggest that you go do some "moar" reading, paying careful attention to context. There are a few subtleties you both seem to be missing.


----------



## Greenfingerless (Sep 27, 2020)

Think i'll wait and see how my gtx 1070 handles the new HPg2....phew!


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 27, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> THAT was awesome!! I love Dr Cox!
> 
> @OneMoar & @Rado D
> 
> I'm redirecting that video right back at you the two of you and I'm going to suggest that you go do some "moar" reading, paying careful attention to context. There are a few subtleties you both seem to be missing.



O looky here it seems Panasonic is not the only manufacture of
Polymer tantalum electrolytic capacitors



			https://www.vishay.com/docs/40254/t50.pdf
		

 (vPolyTan )

No I don't care if the cards in question accually use Panasonics line of Polymer tantalum electrolytic capacitors
Nor do I care what POSCAP stands for Or what particular formulation Panasonic is using

unilaterally declaring all Polymer tantalum electrolytic capacitors as POSCAP is misinformation at best and at worst illegal

*POSCAP* is a registered trademark of Panasonic. And in accordance with trademark law NOBODY else can refer to their product as 'POSCAP'
./thread


the next f***ing smooth brain that mentions it again is going to get a angry pussy thrown in there face


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 27, 2020)

Once again, people getting lost in the details and not seeing the context...


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 27, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Once again, people getting lost in the details and not seeing the context...


/me dunks a cat in warm soapy bathwater and chucks it at @lexluthermiester


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> the next f***ing smooth brain that mentions it again is going to get a angry pussy thrown in there face





OneMoar said:


> /me dunks a cat in warm soapy bathwater and chucks it at @lexluthermiester


ROFLMBO!!! 

And now ladies and gentlemen, we return everyone to the regularly scheduled thread topic.


----------



## okbuddy (Sep 27, 2020)

BOM is very important, everything is about budget, we are not dealing with art here


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 27, 2020)

okbuddy said:


> BOM is very important, everything is about budget, we are not dealing with art here


True. Finding the optimal balance between cost, quality and value to the end user can be a very serious challenge. Everyone wants to make money and as much as possible. In the case of video card AIBs, they want to make money but also boost their brand. Most actually care about making a quality product and hate it when things like the problems being faced currently happen.


----------



## Chomiq (Sep 27, 2020)

asdkj1740 said:


> Hi Tin,
> the evga statement posted by jacob seems to be supportting the "guesswork" from that blogger, what do you think?
> 
> 
> ...


TiN isn't working for evga for some time now so there's no way he would give you any "official" input on this. Even if he was, he'd probably not address it.

IMHO Evga statement is about last minute change in board design, which came up during all this CTD stuff. Their internal testing showed some issues with previous cap layout on their board and they made change for the final design. This is in no way a confirmation of "guesswork" done by "blogger".

Right now we get similar reports about CTDs on almost every partner design as well as on FEs. Bloggers can speculate whatever they want, take a look at jayz "I've just been told that there are multiple type of tantalum caps". Jayz not a freaking board engineer. He's probably on the same level as anyone on this forum that cares to do some serious research when it comes to power delivery on gpus.

Leave guesswork to people on forum and bloggers and YouTubers that are oriented on clicks and views. They will milk this for as long as they can. Ok, that was a bit harsh, I understand that IgorLab and Jayz want to inform their viewers about an issue with a newly released product. They're not doing it just for clicks and views. But they also get paid based on the type and the amount of content they produce.

Engineers from Nvidia and AiB partners will do the actual work. In the end this will be either solved by driver, firmware or worst case scenario - full blown recall based on the result for each manufacturer RMA and exchange to v2 board design.


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 27, 2020)

I doubt a recall is likely and remember just because a user has experienced a CTD does not mean its this particular issue at fault there is plenty of other things that can cause a CTD or TDR  event


----------



## Chomiq (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> I doubt a recall is likely and remember just because a user has experienced a CTD does not mean its this particular issue at fault there is plenty of other things that can cause a CTD or TDR  event


Yeah I know, we've got reports from people saying they're running their cards on stock, others that say they run theirs on stock but post screenshot will an overclock applied in Precision X2, etc. There are many variables that need to be considered.

Once again, all of this has to be investigated properly that people that get paid to do it.*

* and it wouldn't be needed if they'd have done it right in the first place.


----------



## trsskater63 (Sep 27, 2020)

I think this problem is less to do with the cheap caps and more to do with the fact that  Nvidia is pushing so much power through this card. Even cards with all 6 of the expensive caps still crash to desktop. I'm pretty sure the companies that went with all 6 cheap caps aren't causing a problem. If anything might make the actual problem even worse. I think the problem is Boost 2.0 allows these cards to push pass where they would be stable since these coolers are over engineered to deal with the extra heat and doing a really good job of it. So they stay cool enough for the gpu boost to think it can push farther since it hasn't hit power limits nor temperature limits. There is probably a lot of noise or cross talk or other things going on causing an error somewhere in the line because of how much power is running through the card with everything so close together. It looks like this card is really being pushed hard why it even need this much power. This could be the card is too close to the limits of how it can function.


----------



## Shatun_Bear (Sep 27, 2020)

What a nightmare.

Spend $800-1500 on a graphics card only to find out it's been cheaply made and needs to be sent back for RMA, taking several weeks to get a new one as there is limited stock.

I can't believe the stupidity of some spending best part of a grand of graphics card AIB I have honestly never heard of, like Ventus or Eagle? Crazy risk.


----------



## GreiverBlade (Sep 27, 2020)

isn't nvidia using AIB as Scapegoats? because i remember reading somewhere (need to find that back) that founder edition are also having that issues ...


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 27, 2020)

Shatun_Bear said:


> What a nightmare.
> 
> Spend $800-1500 on a graphics card only to find out it's been cheaply made and needs to be sent back for RMA, taking several weeks to get a new one as there is limited stock.
> 
> I can't believe the stupidity of some spending best part of a grand of graphics card AIB I have honestly never heard of, like Ventus or Eagle? Crazy risk.


the better cards don't seem to suffer from this particular issue and I have seen no confirmed reports of crashing that where caused by this particular problem on FE  cards (despite what some people are claiming because they read it on the internet the FE cards don't have the problem at least NOT this particular issue) 

this kind of thing is fairly normal when you ride the bleeding edge of new hardware


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 27, 2020)

Shatun_Bear said:


> What a nightmare.


This is like the solar flares coming in every 11 years, it is a rinse repeat of the non-eutectic solder joints in 2008.


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 27, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> This is like the solar flares coming in every 11 years, it is a rinse repeat of the non-eutectic solder joints in 2008.


a bit overly dramatic


----------



## steen (Sep 27, 2020)

Investigation of PCB power stages/decoupling/filtering, fw/drivers/boost behavior makes sense. I noticed some further interesting results in a followup article from Igor's Lab.







FE/Ref/AIB cards have current sensing/balancing circuits for each power rail. Why does PEG exceed the 6.5A hard limit?


----------



## trsskater63 (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> the better cards don't seem to suffer from this particular issue and I have seen no confirmed reports of crashing that where caused by this particular problem on FE  cards (despite what some people are claiming because they read it on the internet the FE cards don't have the problem at least NOT this particular issue)
> 
> this kind of thing is fairly normal when you ride the bleeding edge of new hardware



The YouTuber Tech Yes City just did a video about this yesterday and tested his reviewer sample Asus Tuf OC edition vs a production sample Asus Tuf non-OC edition. Both of them have 6 of the better caps and the production Asus Tuf still would crash to desktop. It looks like it's more than the issue of the caps.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 27, 2020)

TiN said:


> 100k oscilloscope or 10 GHz oscilloscope is *not required* again to do *power delivery network analysis* of the VGA card. It is required for signal integrity measurements and verification, such as that pretty PAM4 eye diagram everybody saw on marketing presentation slides or for testing PCIe 4.0 signal quality and interface health (and 10GHz for that is not enough, gotta need 32GHz+, which together with probe system would go for 300k$+ mark). Why it is not needed for power testing and VRM tuning? Because major (99.9%) amount of frequency bandwidth involved in switching hundreds of amps on large planes like PCB has is limited to few tens MHz tops, and all fast transient at GHz are handled by GPU package, not the PCB.



*You seem lost again.*
I do not care of any power delivery network analysis.
You should pay and get if you wish your opinion this to be taken seriously of one  100GHz Oscilloscope, so when NVIDIA shown
by saying that they have a fix,  you to be able to verify it with measurements.

Regular gamers all that they care about this is the problem to stop appearing in their screen.

My advice ... if you are not part of the solution...  then just make a step back.
You acted the same and about the 8846A in the past, you failed to repair it, and even still you are spreading misinformation about it. 

I will suggest again patience ..   patience ..   patience ..   so the people who are responsible of their work them to deliver their decisions of what next to the buyers of RTX3000 series.


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 27, 2020)

trsskater63 said:


> The YouTuber Tech Yes City just did a video about this yesterday and tested his reviewer sample Asus Tuf OC edition vs a production sample Asus Tuf non-OC edition. Both of them have 6 of the better caps and the production Asus Tuf still would crash to desktop. It looks like it's more than the issue of the caps.



yes but there is more to this then the cap type I never disputed that I also said there is a multitude of OTHER issues at play here everything from it being a new architecture, to driver issues that may cause a Wide Varity of stability issues  we went though this exact same phase with turning the drivers where no more stable at launch then ampere

now here is my Opinion on what is going on

more then likely all that needs to happen in terms of hardware stability is the driver needs a more aggressive voltage table if you look at the voltages at load, they are all over the place and are dipping below 1000Mv which is just not enough voltage for 2000Mhz this issue is exasperated by some cards with poorer power designs we know from Turing that they get unstable at about 2000-2050Mz for most samples and they don't scale particularly well even with lots of voltage

this is a silicon limitation and likely to be worse on Ampere then turning because its a smaller\new process

whatever other problems any given pcb might have more voltage should help with stability it buys you more room to breath when the silicon is already operating at its outer limits  which is really the problem is that AIBs want there pre overclocked 2000Mhz cards and the silicon quiet simply is not going todo that as easily as pervious generations


----------



## Caring1 (Sep 27, 2020)

Shatun_Bear said:


> I can't believe the stupidity of some spending best part of a grand of graphics card AIB I have honestly never heard of, like Ventus or Eagle? Crazy risk.


Ventus is an MSI card, just as Eagle is a Gigabyte card, they are merely naming conventions by known brands.


----------



## Calmmo (Sep 27, 2020)

Call me crazy but this could all be drivers.
With some overpushed early chips clocking too high on a so far near the limit @ stock chip. Aka not one single issue. (kinda like zen2, only those don't boost more than they can handle)
And those cards will get a "fixed" bios update. Your Eagles, Strixes etc might be getting a slightly less OC variant bios.


----------



## Shatun_Bear (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> the better cards don't seem to suffer from this particular issue and *I have seen no confirmed reports of crashing that where caused by this particular problem on FE  cards *(despite what some people are claiming because they read it on the internet the FE cards don't have the problem at least NOT this particular issue)
> 
> this kind of thing is fairly normal when you ride the bleeding edge of new hardware



This is totally not normal, software issues are to be expected, sure, but hardware problems like this are not the norm, of course they are not. There is even talk of a mass recall. When was the last time that happened for an Nvidia launch if it's all 'to be expected'?

Secondly, to the bolded, you must have been burying your head in the sand then or not bothered to look, but there are reports everywhere of FE CTD problems, this is clearly not relegated to just AIBs.



Caring1 said:


> Ventus is an MSI card, just as Eagle is a Gigabyte card, they are merely naming conventions by known brands.



Oh I see, 'cheap' models of these manufacturers.


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> a bit overly dramatic


It is not. I'm actually attributing it to Samsung. I think you would remember ChipGate?


			Techturtle.net


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> I doubt a recall is likely and remember just because a user has experienced a CTD does not mean its this particular issue at fault there is plenty of other things that can cause a CTD or TDR  event


Right, like drivers that need further refinement.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 27, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> Right, like drivers that need further refinement.



I am simply wonder of how NVIDIA will prioritize drivers that need further refinement?

Few months ago the GTS 1660 Super this were demonstrated as fresh product option which  as fresh one,  the drivers they should gain greater performance and compatibility.
Now the RTX 3000 issue this will change NVIDIA's drivers developers focus at this direction.
In simple English thousands of people expectations they get on hold.


----------



## StrikerRocket (Sep 27, 2020)

Well, Asus went the whole hog and implemented 6 MLCCs in their design, which simply suggests Nvidia partners *knew* about possible weaknesses in this area...
What is the only logical conclusion here? I leave it to you...


----------



## clopezi (Sep 27, 2020)

StrikerRocket said:


> Well, Asus went the whole hog and implemented 6 MLCCs in their design, which simply suggests Nvidia partners *knew* about possible weaknesses in this area...
> What is the only logical conclusion here? I leave it to you...


Asus TUF and FE also have problems...


I hope that tomorrow Nvidia relases an statement of this issue and add some information about it, because today all is rumour and noise... if FE are having same problems, I want to doubt that this is a HW problem...


----------



## Julhes (Sep 27, 2020)

clopezi said:


> Asus TUF and FE also have problems...
> 
> 
> I hope that tomorrow Nvidia relases an statement of this issue and add some information about it, because today all is rumour and noise... if FE are having same problems, I want to doubt that this is a HW problem...



A souce to give us?


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 27, 2020)

Julhes said:


> A souce to give us?











						RTX 3080 Crash to Desktop Problems Likely Connected to AIB-Designed Capacitor Choice
					

I don't get the reception that I'm signalling for, but what about chain of excellence? This is what TSMC posted a month before. Fluke or coincidence? Nvidia is trying to reinvent the wheel, maybe... https://www.tsmc.com/english/newsEvents/blog_article_20200803.htm




					www.techpowerup.com
				






mtcn77 said:


> It is not. I'm actually attributing it to Samsung. I think you would remember ChipGate?
> 
> 
> Techturtle.net


 Whatever it is, it seems to be related to the quality of the node. Whether downclocking or overvolting will be the result, it seems to come from the fact that Nvidia is asking more from the silicon than it is capable of giving. The correction will most likely result in either somewhat increased TDP or somewhat decreased performance, or a bit of both. There will be no recall for this, because the clock speeds at which these problems arise are way above what is advertised on the box.


----------



## trsskater63 (Sep 27, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> RTX 3080 Crash to Desktop Problems Likely Connected to AIB-Designed Capacitor Choice
> 
> 
> I don't get the reception that I'm signalling for, but what about chain of excellence? This is what TSMC posted a month before. Fluke or coincidence? Nvidia is trying to reinvent the wheel, maybe... https://www.tsmc.com/english/newsEvents/blog_article_20200803.htm
> ...



I agree with you. They are only required to give what the box promises and gpu boost is designed to just make your purchase more valuable. So there solution will surely be a down clock. It looks like someone tested doing his own overclock and he was still able to get an increase of 4 to 6 fps in games without crashing. They probably did juice these cards from the start to make the generational leap as large as it is.


----------



## SoftwareRocketScientist (Sep 27, 2020)

Why are you guys complaining?  You chose to be a beta test for Nvidia.  Even when you download a new driver there is a box you can check if you wish to send them data about your crashes.  Of course it was a rush to market like any other manufacturer of any product to increase their stock price and demand to satisfy the board of their shareholders.  We saw the result of that in crashes. They didn’t do enough alpha and beta test.  The story repeats itself.


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 27, 2020)

SoftwareRocketScientist said:


> Why are you guys complaining?  You chose to be a beta test for Nvidia.


Nobody signed to be a beta tester, the advertising was "It just works!"


----------



## Frick (Sep 27, 2020)

SoftwareRocketScientist said:


> Why are you guys complaining?  You chose to be a beta test for Nvidia.  Even when you download a new driver there is a box you can check if you wish to send them data about your crashes.  Of course it was a rush to market like any other manufacturer of any product to increase their stock price and demand to satisfy the board of their shareholders.  We saw the result of that in crashes. They didn’t do enough alpha and beta test.  The story repeats itself.



GPUs have been released without these issues for a very long time. Sometimes there have been problems (remember the 8800GT, even though those problems didn't arise when they were new) but in general GPUs have been pretty solid things, as they should be. Electronics in power delivery is a solved problem.



BoboOOZ said:


> Nobody signed to be a beta tester, the advertising was "It just works!"



Was it though? Because that would be silly. It's a finished product. If it doesn't work it's defective, saying it works is like saying it isn't defective.


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 27, 2020)

Frick said:


> Was it though? Because that would be silly. It's a finished product. If it doesn't work it's defective, saying it works is like saying it isn't defective.


Hey, you don't like the jingle, take it with Jensen .


----------



## Totally (Sep 27, 2020)

StrikerRocket said:


> Well, Asus went the whole hog and implemented 6 MLCCs in their design, which simply suggests Nvidia partners *knew* about possible weaknesses in this area...
> What is the only logical conclusion here? I leave it to you...



From the little info that was leaked the partners they get a reference design with recommended and minimum specs from nvidia they tweak that according to their design goals then make the card and test it some found out they were having issues but at this point it was past the point of no return. Some band-aid implemented fixes (zotac) and others shipped as-is or were unaware. Since they seem to be under a gag order there is no telling who knew what.


----------



## trsskater63 (Sep 27, 2020)

SoftwareRocketScientist said:


> Why are you guys complaining?  You chose to be a beta test for Nvidia.  Even when you download a new driver there is a box you can check if you wish to send them data about your crashes.  Of course it was a rush to market like any other manufacturer of any product to increase their stock price and demand to satisfy the board of their shareholders.  We saw the result of that in crashes. They didn’t do enough alpha and beta test.  The story repeats itself.


 
If anything turing was the beta test for this whole thing. And it didn't have problems. It just wasn't good enough. If a new architecture makes you a beta tester for it then we have been beta testers for the pass 6 years at least from as far back as I have been watching these cards with Nvidia. When are we going to be out of beta?


----------



## StrikerRocket (Sep 27, 2020)

clopezi said:


> Asus TUF and FE also have problems...
> 
> 
> I hope that tomorrow Nvidia relases an statement of this issue and add some information about it, because today all is rumour and noise... if FE are having same problems, I want to doubt that this is a HW problem...



Ok then, I just misread or misunderstood something... If that is true, then this might only be a part of the problem, and a big embarassment for card manufacturers!
Did they push the silicon too far from the start? Then, they will have to release updated firmwares with some downclock or something like that...
Sticking with my 1080 for now, I'll wait till the 20 series sells dirt cheap on eBay before pulling the trigger!


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 27, 2020)

I get the feeling AMD could help out Nvidia a little bit. Though sense m.i. is proprietary, it does work to curtail power. Threadripper exists for the sole reason that PBO is working as intended. Sudden spikes are very damaging to the customer base, as noted here.


----------



## OneMoar (Sep 27, 2020)

People are having a hard time grasping how many corners AIBS cut with the boards these days

basically every corner they cut they can and its just enough to push  the stability envelope past the limit when you are trying to hit that magical 2Ghz marketing number

ever since Nvidia started making there own boards the AIBS have been cutting every corner possible if you want a reliable card, you buy the Nvidia made one(unless you wanna spend the money for the absolute top tier cards like a Strix, Hall of Fame,  k1ngpin)

this is a complete reversal from how it used to be

it used to be AIB cards offered more bang for the buck with better overclocking and better cooling  this is frankly no longer the case and the short of it is unless Nvidia relaxes some of the restrictions AIBS only continued reason to exist is to make cards for Nvidia


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## kiriakost (Sep 27, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> I get the feeling AMD could help out Nvidia a little bit. Though sense m.i. is proprietary, it does work to curtail power. Threadripper exists for the sole reason that PBO is working as intended. Sudden spikes are very damaging to the customer base, as noted here.



I do prefer this to simply not happen, AMD it should focus their power at their own products which them wasting more on-board card memory than what an NVIDIA card this using at the same game and at the same resolution. 

*We are not shooting here NVIDIA's legs*, we simply trying to get a bit of encyclopedia understanding of what when wrong.


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 27, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> I do prefer this to simply not happen, AMD it should focus their power at their own products which them wasting more on-board card memory than what an NVIDIA card this using at the same game and at the same resolution.
> 
> *We are not shooting here NVIDIA's legs*, we simply trying to get a bit of encyclopedia understanding of what when wrong.


A few years back, Linus made a comment that Nvidia's polling method was precise but less frequent than AMD Radeon's faster guesswork. Nvidia's number was 33microsecondmilliseconds latency, afaik.
This could be related to slow responses to monitored events, wouldn't you say? We are talking about 2.5ghz chips that were previously impossible when these monitoring software first took over.





						Page 2 - AMD’s Radeon R9 290 has a problem, but Nvidia’s smear attack is heavy-handed | ExtremeTech
					

AMD's Radeon R9 290 has been taking flak for poorly tuned fan speeds.We investigate the problem as well as the ...




					www.extremetech.com
				








PS: I indeed think it is as simple as that, vdroop that is occurring quicker than 30 times a second which is above the monitoring resolution. As with cpu overclocking, a higher base voltage, or LLC would further complicate the power requirements. The solution is definitely good, but it has to be inside the frameset of parametrization. Something is voiding the algorithm.


----------



## Deleted member 24505 (Sep 27, 2020)

StrikerRocket said:


> Ok then, I just misread or misunderstood something... If that is true, then this might only be a part of the problem, and a big embarassment for card manufacturers!
> Did they push the silicon too far from the start? Then, they will have to release updated firmwares with some downclock or something like that...
> Sticking with my 1080 for now, I'll wait till the 20 series sells dirt cheap on eBay before pulling the trigger!



Sticking with my 1080 for now, me too. mine does 2140/5670 fine in my custom loop.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> People are having a hard time grasping how many corners AIBS cut with the boards these days
> 
> basically every corner they cut they can and its just enough to push  the stability envelope past the limit when you are trying to hit that magical 2Ghz marketing number



This text does not make any sense, and from now and on all of you, please use  AIBS or AIB acronym at it full form so confusion to be avoided.
a) AIB to refer to 'non reference' graphics card designs. 
b) An AIB supplier or an AIB partner is a company that buys the AMD (or Nvidia) Graphics Processor Unit to put on a board and then bring a complete and usable Graphics Card or AIB to market.


----------



## Shatun_Bear (Sep 27, 2020)

StrikerRocket said:


> Well, Asus went the whole hog and implemented 6 MLCCs in their design, which simply suggests Nvidia partners *knew* about possible weaknesses in this area...
> What is the only logical conclusion here? I leave it to you...



There is evidence that it's not just the MLCC to blame. It could be a couple of hardware faults plus Nvidua driver problems on top.


----------



## trsskater63 (Sep 27, 2020)

OneMoar said:


> People are having a hard time grasping how many corners AIBS cut with the boards these days
> 
> basically every corner they cut they can and its just enough to push  the stability envelope past the limit when you are trying to hit that magical 2Ghz marketing number
> 
> ...



Do you have any evidence of this? I'm trying to look this up and I can't find any information for or against it. I know companies will cut corners where ever possible but it seems in my experience the AIB have always been better performance and I buy a new graphics card every year. I have had gigabyte wind force, assus strix, and msi gaming x over the last 5. Are those cards normally done better? I usually get good temperatures and over clocks with them.


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## kiriakost (Sep 27, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> A few years back, Linus made a comment that Nvidia's polling method was precise but less frequent than AMD Radeon's faster guesswork. Nvidia's number was 33microsecond latency, afaik.
> This could be related to slow responses to monitored events, wouldn't you say? We are talking about 2.5ghz chips that were previously impossible when these monitoring software first took over.



At 1996 my first graphic card this was able to do 2D and 25 fps of video and no 3D as this came later. 
20 years ago we did complain (me too)  that NVIDIA was flooding the market with VGA card releases when the performance at positive scaling was just 12%.  
Series TNT and then TNT2 and and and ....  more money spend with out real benefit. 
Since 2012 I did stop to be a close follower of 3D cards development, I did use the storage ability of my brain at other by far more productive thoughts.  

Development of software this is always a second support step, if NVIDIA did  not add relative power usage monitor sensors, no one would be able to see power related information's (electrical measurements).


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 27, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> Development of software this is always a second support step, if NVIDIA did not add relative power usage monitor sensors, no one would be able to see power related information's (electrical measurements).


The sensors have temporal resolution which is what I'm saying. Props to Nvidia again, I used to go heavy on overclocking methods. This one, throttle near the voltage threshold limit, is the best(none saves power while still at the maximum performance), but the drawback is you have to act quick.
If only we still had @The Stilt around.

The method I would suggest at a big die gpu is still the same - try incrementally at 50MHz steps and see if there is a cutoff point where this behaviour starts. 1600 MHz, 1650 MHz, 1700 MHz... I'm not a metrologist which I highly respect as a science, but I can at least go down to the minimum resolution(1 MHz) until problem begins.
I used to combine ATi Tray Tools since not most software came with its error counter. I would monitor the gpu frequency time log in its overclock test and watch for the card to spit out errors in ATT(you had to select osd error check to monitor it live on the lower corner).
It was great fun, but such old software has a habit of damaging your card when continuously running at 5000fps, lol.
I cannot be of much other help outside of pointing out which software I used to get a frame of reference.
I hope they fix it because it rekindles the good old times I spent dialing just single digits in MSI Afterburner.


----------



## kiriakost (Sep 27, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> The sensors have temporal resolution which is what I'm saying. Props to Nvidia again, I used to go heavy on overclocking methods. This one, throttle near the voltage threshold limit, is the best(none saves power while still at the maximum performance), but the drawback is you have to act quick.
> If only we still had @The Stilt around.
> 
> The method I would suggest at a big die gpu is still the same - try incrementally at 50MHz steps and see if there is a cutoff point where this behaviour starts. 1600 MHz, 1650 MHz, 1700 MHz... *I'm not a metrologist *which I highly respect as a science, but I can at least go down to the minimum resolution(1 MHz) until problem begins.
> ...



Well I am not an electrical *metrologist *either, they respect the rules of science and they never ever do overclocking.  
My current AMD HD5770 this has an internal scanning method so to determine max OC limits all by it self. 
I never care to learn the scaling up in Megahertz steps. 

RTX 3000 and what ever will follow after it, this is a different animal, I am sensing that Major OC software and utilities these will not be required any more. 
This new hardware it is now made to restrict careless handling from the side of users.
Its a new car with no gears stick, and with a limiter at allowed top speed.
Anyone whom disagree with the new reality he should never get one.


----------



## mtcn77 (Sep 27, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> My current AMD HD5770 this has an internal scanning method so to determine max OC limits all by it self.
> I never care to learn the scaling up in Megahertz steps.


Thanks for making it easier for me to give an example.
Since this is about power delivery, it has to "match" the power requirement of the normal operating bevaviour.
Since the testing utility is good, but doesn't test at the same temperature ranges an overclocked case can rise up to, we'll have to reserve ourselves to more moderate speeds than what the utility can have us believe.
This is why I mentioned ATT, it follows the same fan temperature curve in the normal operating behaviour.
This is mainly about vdroop and temperature beyond that. The way I used it was, I would start the 3d renderer, let go of tuning a little bit, and wait until the card reached previously noted temperature points where it destabilized and switch to 'manual' from there(never expected ATT to sound this cool).
The leakiness brought about by temperature, inclining power requirements due to faster shader operation would get you a sweet spot where this cutoff was too easy to pinpoint. From there, I would play either with the fan curve, or voltage, or if on the cpu with LLC(you couldn't pick its temperature gradient if you didn't log everything up until here), but basically I find it more exciting to bust cards using this method than to use them daily, lol.


----------



## John Naylor (Sep 27, 2020)

And yet again ... the folks who have to be the 1st one on the block to get the new shiny thing get hammered.   Almost every new generation has problems, some big some small..... some affected 1 brtand, less often all in the series.  Sometimes they are easy to fix (i.e. MSI's extremely aggressive adhesive on the tape holding the fans still during shipping); sometimes they are significant but fixable (i.e. EVGAs missing thermal pads on the 1xxx series); sometimes they require design changes (i.e 1/3 of EVGAs 9xx series heat sink "missing" the GPU.  Sometimes these just effect one AIB design ... sometimes they are series wide like AMDs inadequate 6 pin connector on the 480.

As the saying goes .... good things come to those who wait ....  if the PCBs are indeed faulty, they will be redesigned and those who choose to wait won't have to deal with a 1st stepping design issue.   The alleged "cutting corners" by AIBs is simply not supported bu history... the AIB offerings, for the most part,  have always outperformed the reference and FE designs.  Yes, we have the deficient EVGA designs (9xx heat sink, 1xxx missing thermal pads, 2xxx Black series non "A" GPU) which didn't measure up but that's the exception rather than the rule.   I have commented a few times that "what did MSI do differently that they are the only card to deliver more fps than the FE.   I did note that they had one of the lowest power limits ... perhaps the problem arises when that limit is exceeded ?  In any case, hopefully folks who were unable to snag one before they were sold out, will now cancel the orders, sit and wait till the problem is defined, which cards it affects and the issued addressed in later offferings


----------



## trsskater63 (Sep 27, 2020)

John Naylor said:


> And yet again ... the folks who have to be the 1st one on the block to get the new shiny thing get hammered.   Almost every new generation has problems, some big some small..... some affected 1 brtand, less often all in the series.  Sometimes they are easy to fix (i.e. MSI's extremely aggressive adhesive on the tape holding the fans still during shipping); sometimes they are significant but fixable (i.e. EVGAs missing thermal pads on the 1xxx series); sometimes they require design changes (i.e 1/3 of EVGAs 9xx series heat sink "missing" the GPU.  Sometimes these just effect one AIB design ... sometimes they are series wide like AMDs inadequate 6 pin connector on the 480.
> 
> As the saying goes .... good things come to those who wait ....  if the PCBs are indeed faulty, they will be redesigned and those who choose to wait won't have to deal with a 1st stepping design issue.   The alleged "cutting corners" by AIBs is simply not supported bu history... the AIB offerings, for the most part,  have always outperformed the reference and FE designs.  Yes, we have the deficient EVGA designs (9xx heat sink, 1xxx missing thermal pads, 2xxx Black series non "A" GPU) which didn't measure up but that's the exception rather than the rule.   I have commented a few times that "what did MSI do differently that they are the only card to deliver more fps than the FE.   I did note that they had one of the lowest power limits ... perhaps the problem arises when that limit is exceeded ?  In any case, hopefully folks who were unable to snag one before they were sold out, will now cancel the orders, sit and wait till the problem is defined, which cards it affects and the issued addressed in later offferings



I'm pretty be sure the fix is going to be an underclock since they still perform above the promise on the box when underclocked. I don't think they would go back and retool their design unless they are going to make a new model that will cost more. Usually the easier fix when acceptable will be the path chosen. I hope they will make a better version. I would like to overclock since I find it fun to do even if it's not really needed. I think what you are saying about the power limit is the issue. Is this the highest power draw from a card to date? Or maybe it's a problem of the high power combined with the die shrink. Since from what I learned about CPUs is that on a die shrink they don't need as much power to function because it becomes more power efficient. But efficiency flew out the window here.


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## SoftwareRocketScientist (Sep 27, 2020)

Remember what Igor said: “By the way, you also have to praise a company here that recognized the whole thing from the start and didn’t even let it touch them, as the Asus TUF RTX 3080 Gaming consequently did without POSCAPs and only used MLCC groups. My compliments, it fits!”  ASUS did a fantastic job.  They knew what the problem was at least they predicted right.  Their quality control caught the problem and they went the best quality way at $50 more.  Lesson learnt.


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## mtcn77 (Sep 27, 2020)

trsskater63 said:


> I'm pretty be sure the fix is going to be an underclock


I also think a vrm pwm frequency change, or monitoring software polling change might be due. I like to keep my testing simple.


----------



## Caring1 (Sep 27, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> Nobody signed to be a beta tester, the advertising was "It just works!"


Saying it just works is the same as saying it barely works, exact same meaning.


----------



## Vayra86 (Sep 27, 2020)

Animalpak said:


> 3000 series looked already too good to be true...



Oh it'll get to the point where its worthwhile, I'm not too worried, as this is too big to fail territory.

But it'll take a while, and time is on our side really. The more and longer Nvidia struggles, the more they will need to watch the AMD space. Lacking supply can also be an easy ticket to switch camps, at some point people do need a GPU even if the one available is not their first choice - which has even yet to be seen, mind.

If Nvidia needs a downclock or limit to peak clocks they're losing % against competition which might just nudge things in Navi's favor. Interesting times! I hope our resident reviewer is happy to revisit those FE's.... 



John Naylor said:


> And yet again ... the folks who have to be the 1st one on the block to get the new shiny thing get hammered.   Almost every new generation has problems, some big some small..... some affected 1 brtand, less often all in the series.  Sometimes they are easy to fix (i.e. MSI's extremely aggressive adhesive on the tape holding the fans still during shipping); sometimes they are significant but fixable (i.e. EVGAs missing thermal pads on the 1xxx series); sometimes they require design changes (i.e 1/3 of EVGAs 9xx series heat sink "missing" the GPU.  Sometimes these just effect one AIB design ... sometimes they are series wide like AMDs inadequate 6 pin connector on the 480.
> 
> As the saying goes .... good things come to those who wait ....  if the PCBs are indeed faulty, they will be redesigned and those who choose to wait won't have to deal with a 1st stepping design issue.   The alleged "cutting corners" by AIBs is simply not supported bu history... the AIB offerings, for the most part,  have always outperformed the reference and FE designs.  Yes, we have the deficient EVGA designs (9xx heat sink, 1xxx missing thermal pads, 2xxx Black series non "A" GPU) which didn't measure up but that's the exception rather than the rule.   I have commented a few times that "what did MSI do differently that they are the only card to deliver more fps than the FE.   I did note that they had one of the lowest power limits ... perhaps the problem arises when that limit is exceeded ?  In any case, hopefully folks who were unable to snag one before they were sold out, will now cancel the orders, sit and wait till the problem is defined, which cards it affects and the issued addressed in later offferings



You'd think folks would know better by now, but no. So its well deserved really. Early adopting is great, as long as its not me 



Caring1 said:


> Saying it just works is the same as saying it barely works, exact same meaning.



The power of emphasis in speech... haha



lexluthermiester said:


> True. Finding the optimal balance between cost, quality and value to the end user can be a very serious challenge. Everyone wants to make money and as much as possible. In the case of video card AIBs, they want to make money but also boost their brand. Most actually care about making a quality product and hate it when things like the problems being faced currently happen.



You don't see the inside of big companies a lot do you...

I do... and yes 'they hate it'... until they get in the car and drive home. Its a 9 to 5 job, this hating of the work people have or haven't done, and the bottom line is just people screwing up and management not giving it enough mind to fix it. Or, management killing the workforce with too much work and/or too little time. The assumption everyone can do his job proper is a bad one, the assumption should be 'double check everything or it will likely go wrong'. This is what you do when you release software or code, too. You make sure there is no room for error through well defined processes - and even thén, something minor might just get through the cracks.

ALL of this is self-inflicted, conscious, well calculated risk management - even that last 1% that does get past and goes wrong. The bottom line is cost/benefit, it just doesn't always work out like people think it does. In the end, it is only and always the company producing something that is fully responsible. Nobody should ever have to find excuses for any company making mistakes. They're not mistakes. They were thoroughly looked at, and some people in suits together said 'We'lll run with this', and poof, consumer can start shoveling poop. Meanwhile, a healthy profit margin was already secured as 'the bottom line'...

Case in point here, because the only reason this is happening is because cards get pushed beyond or too close to the edge. That is directly, and only a cost/benefit scenario: performance per dollar. Even despite this capacitor detail, really, which kinda comes on top of it. The fact the line is thís thin, is telling in terms of overall product longevity, as well. That alongside with the heat of memory and several other decisions made with this 3080 really keeps me FAR away from it, so far.

It doesn't look good at all. Its a bit like cheap sports cars. Lots of HP's for not a lot of cash... but your seat is shit, the tank is empty before you've reached the end of the street and after a year you're replacing half the engine.


----------



## Darmok N Jalad (Sep 27, 2020)

Late to the party, but with these multi-billion transistor GPUs, I think they get pushed a little harder than they probably should be. I bet new drivers or firmware will just dial back the boost algorithm for the sake of stability. The cards can still push to the advertised boost on an easy task, like Luxmark Mirrorball, but you will rarely see it in games.


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## lexluthermiester (Sep 27, 2020)

Darmok N Jalad said:


> I bet new drivers or firmware will just dial back the boost algorithm for the sake of stability.


This is very likely.


----------



## John Naylor (Sep 27, 2020)

trsskater63 said:


> I'm pretty be sure the fix is going to be an underclock since they still perform above the promise on the box when underclocked. I don't think they would go back and retool their design unless they are going to make a new model that will cost more. Usually the easier fix when acceptable will be the path chosen. I hope they will make a better version. I would like to overclock since I find it fun to do even if it's not really needed. I think what you are saying about the power limit is the issue. Is this the highest power draw from a card to date? Or maybe it's a problem of the high power combined with the die shrink. Since from what I learned about CPUs is that on a die shrink they don't need as much power to function because it becomes more power efficient. But efficiency flew out the window here.



Consider ...

AMD did both .... the immediate fix on the 480 was to cut power delivery with BIOS and driver updates, , but later on,  vendors switched to 8 pin designs
EVGA did with the 970 ...1st they argued that they 'designed it that way", but later they came out with a new design
EVGA did again, with the malfunctioning 1060 - 108os ... 1st offer was a recall or thermal pad kit you could install yaself ... later all cards came with thermal pads.



lexluthermiester said:


> This is very likely.



I think that's an automatic ... as above, AMD did the same thing with the 6 pin 480 fiasco ... but they followed with a move to 8 pin cards later on.   Same with EVGA mishaps ... I just don't see everyone sitting and leaving this alone .... at the next board meeting, there will be at least one person in the room saying "we need to take thin step to distinguish ourselves above the others" ... but the reality is there will be one of those guys in every boardroom.  Im still curious as to why no one was able to beat the FE fps wise .... while most of the other AIBs allowed for greater wattage limit. MSI left theird 20 watts BELOW the DE .... maybe MSI saw something no one else picked up ?


----------



## Minus Infinity (Sep 28, 2020)

newtekie1 said:


> Early adopters are beta testers these days.



Alas that's pretty much true of any product these days and a lot of software. It's a pathetic situation and Nvidia rushed the product out to try and get a alot of hype generated and garner quick sales before Big Navi came along. All to the customers detriment.


----------



## AsRock (Sep 28, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> No company shouts more about their work with partners, Devs and AIB.
> The reference spec design they passed AIB was different to their own reference card's.
> And they compressed development and testing time to near zero.
> And they allowed such design variation in their development reference kit instead of both knowing  that it needed specific voltage conditioning and informing AIB partners or limiting those AIB designs.
> ...



But if the AIB's actually tested them fully they would of hit the issue, maybe they knew about it and thought fck it.


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## HD64G (Sep 28, 2020)

FYI, all models can CTD when aprroaching or just surpassing 2GHz...


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## Zubasa (Sep 28, 2020)

HD64G said:


> FYI, all models can CTD when aprroaching or just surpassing 2GHz...


At some point, people need to realize that Ampere just doesn't clock quite as well as Turing at ambient.
Also by default the 3080 are the lower bin GA102 dies.


----------



## BoboOOZ (Sep 28, 2020)

Zubasa said:


> At some point, people need to realize that Ampere just doesn't clock quite as well as Turing at ambient.


That's a big fail for the "largest generational leap", though. Reminds me of this great video:


----------



## nguyen (Sep 28, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> That's a big fail for the "largest generational leap", though. Reminds me of this great video:



Samsung 8N is still a superior node than TSMC 12nm, which Nvidia used for Turing and beat the living crap outta Navi 7nm . If you think Navi is as efficient as Turing, look at laptop GPU segment where mobile Navi is almost non-existant. 

Samsung 8N is fine, they seem to run cooler even with increased power consumption compare to TSMC 12nm FFN. 

I expect all these CTDs would be fixed with newer driver, not like the cause of these CTD is that mysterious anyways. As for SPCAP vs MLCC, sounds like Asus did an excellent job with their TUF line, kudo to them, and I guess they can't be making 3080/3090 fast enough. I asked my local retailer and they said they won't have 3090 TUF in stock for at least 2 months ~_~.


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## BoboOOZ (Sep 28, 2020)

nguyen said:


> Samsung 8N is still a superior node than TSMC 12nm, which Nvidia used for Turing and beat the living crap outta Navi 7nm . If you think Navi is as efficient as Turing, look at laptop GPU segment where mobile Navi is almost non-existant.
> 
> Samsung 8N is fine, they seem to run cooler even with increased power consumption compare to TSMC 12nm FFN.


It's a poor node no matter how you look at it, it runs cool just because the coolers are very high quality and huge. As the video points out, it was a poor choice for Nvidia, I wonder what the yields are on it.

It will also make a horrible node for any mobile GPU, I'm curious to what will Nvidia do to come with reasonable SKU for laptops, because these gobble way too much power as they are.


----------



## Assimilator (Sep 28, 2020)

HD64G said:


> FYI, all models can CTD when aprroaching or just surpassing 2GHz...



It's almost like computer silicon gets unstable when you clock it past its limits.
Almost like this has been true since silicon has been used in computers.
Almost like overclock instability related to silicon limits has nothing to do with capacitor choice.
Almost like this is a non-issue that has been blown way out of proportion.

As for those people who will say "but some people get over 2GHz": silicon lottery.
As for those people who will say "but MUH CLOCKS NVIDIA IS RIPPING ME OFF": NVIDIA never guaranteed you'd get over 2GHz boost, NVIDIA in fact never even guaranteed you'd get anything more than the rated base or boost clocks. Nobody does.


----------



## nguyen (Sep 28, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> It's a poor node no matter how you look at it, it runs cool just because the coolers are very high quality and huge. As the video points out, it was a poor choice for Nvidia, I wonder what the yields are on it.
> 
> It will also make a horrible node for any mobile GPU, I'm curious to what will Nvidia do to come with reasonable SKU for laptops, because these gobble way too much power as they are.


AdoredTV video did not account for the fact that Nvidia has the whole Samsung 8N capacity to themselves, they would be able to produce many more Ampere chips with Samsung 8N than they would with TSMC 7nm+. Nvidia was a late customer to TSMC 7nm, they wouldn't be able to secure much capacity.

On the subject of thermal and noise,
3080 TUF has better thermal and noise than 2080 Ti Strix
3080 Gaming X Trio the same, better than 2080 Ti Trio
3080 Zotac Trinity, same thing

So far all reviewed samples of 3080 show very good thermal and noise characteristic, the 3090 samples are hotter and louder but that is to be expected.
Ampere has around 20% higher perf/watt than Turing, yes it is a little on the low side but it is a compromise people have to accept to get a better perf/dollar, I expect any AMD GPU owner would understand this


----------



## steen (Sep 28, 2020)

BoboOOZ said:


> It's a poor node no matter how you look at it, it runs cool just because the coolers are very high quality and huge. As the video points out, it was a poor choice for Nvidia, I wonder what the yields are on it.
> 
> It will also make a horrible node for any mobile GPU, I'm curious to what will Nvidia do to come with reasonable SKU for laptops, because these gobble way too much power as they are.



Samsung 8LPU will certainly be interesting to see how it matures for Nv. GA102 is still drawing >500W peaks @ ~20ms, so it's likely a number of factors including PSU (esp split rails). The transients of a 23b xtor die, esp lower bin tiers, are likely causing conniptions at board level/mb/psu. The stock boost algo will likely need to be less aggressive & max P state lowered/locked. The above linked review focuses on temps as an arbiter of stability, for some reason, not power. Perhaps if it wasn't an open air testbed...



nguyen said:


> Ampere has around 20% higher perf/watt than Turing, yes it is a little on the low side but it is a compromise people have to accept to get a better perf/dollar


Only if you drink the Tu pricing koolaid. As for Samsung 8N all to themselves - if you define it that way, I guess...


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## kiriakost (Sep 28, 2020)

trsskater63 said:


> I'm pretty be sure the fix is going to be an under-clock since they still perform above the promise on the box when underclocked. I don't think they would go back and retool their design unless they are going to make a new model that will cost more.



Personally I think that this occasion will be a good test of how its one brand will respond to their customers. 
Real and responsible brands will offer specific pack of solutions or choices to their customers. 

The low-end they might simply hide their head under the sand, under-clock will be their only offering or a refund if you are a lucky one.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Sep 28, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> This text does not make any sense, and from now and on all of you, please use  AIBS or AIB acronym at it full form so confusion to be avoided.
> a) AIB to refer to 'non reference' graphics card designs.
> b) An AIB supplier or an AIB partner is a company that buys the AMD (or Nvidia) Graphics Processor Unit to put on a board and then bring a complete and usable Graphics Card or AIB to market.


You must be unaware of any sort of irony


AsRock said:


> But if the AIB's actually tested them fully they would of hit the issue, maybe they knew about it and thought fck it.


The IFS are massive , but you're idea of creating blame based on maybes doesn't sit right with me.

Nvidia rushed their own Fe development, yet gave time to ,AIB.

Yeah right, it's a rushed launch, I'm sure blame will be thrown about but I'm not buying, so my concern and care levels are minimum , I have an opinion yes but I have said it, leave me out of the debate until you have something other than your opinion to discuss, because I don't give a shit what you Think,. I stated Facts.


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## kiriakost (Sep 28, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> Thanks for making it easier for me to give an example.
> Since this is about power delivery, it has to "match" the power requirement of the normal operating bevaviour.
> Since the testing utility is good, but doesn't test at the same temperature ranges an overclocked case can rise up to, we'll have to reserve ourselves to more moderate speeds than what the utility can have us believe......................... From there, I would play either with the fan curve, or voltage, or if on the cpu with LLC(you couldn't pick its temperature gradient if you didn't log everything up until here), but basically I find it more exciting to bust cards using this method than to use them daily, lol.



You are welcome, this is the old pack of OC - hacking a VGA how-to.
Lets return to today and latest edge of GPU architecture. 
RTX 3080 due it high pricing this is now considered as investment. 
NVIDIA did  use additional tricks to protect it work (product) so to minimize the fail rate, it is extremely costly to handle an 1000 Euro worth of VGA card about return to base for an exchange. 
I would not be impressed if the people later on will discover that even BIOS_Flash at those cards this is locked by password.

I wrote too much in this topic, now I will simply take a seat at the back of the buss and I will wait so to inspect the quality degree of product support, that all major brands will deliver to their customers.



theoneandonlymrk said:


> You must be unaware of any sort of irony


There is no good enough schools  to teach us foreigners at the detection of sentiments due written text.
My advice to Americans, use neutral clear text as description of your true point which you are up to make.
TPU this is read internationally, this is not a neighborhood of Dallas - Texas


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Sep 28, 2020)

kiriakost said:


> You are welcome, this is the old pack of OC - hacking a VGA how-to.
> Lets return to today and latest edge of GPU architecture.
> RTX 3080 due it high pricing this is now considered as investment.
> NVIDIA did  use additional tricks to protect it work (product) so to minimize the fail rate, it is extremely costly to handle an 1000 Euro worth of VGA card about return to base for an exchange.
> ...


My advice don't pull someone up for using AIBS and then rant to us telling us we have to use the same abbreviation you just pulled someone up for.
You are not the English language police, you can tell me how to do nothing, sir. ... .
And I'm English not American.


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## nguyen (Sep 28, 2020)

steen said:


> Only if you drink the Tu pricing koolaid. As for Samsung 8N all to themselves - if you define it that way, I guess...



3080 is like 90% faster than 1080 Ti, selling at the same price, this is a very sizeable performance gain for just 2 generations apart. If you skipped on Turing then Ampere is the logical upgrade from Pascal, which Jensen Huang did specifically pointed out during his presentation .

Yeah Turing was known for its terrible perf/dollar, lucky for Nvidia that Navi was not that much better anyways...


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## mtcn77 (Sep 28, 2020)

I just wonder how hard would it be to write a green team version of ATi Tray Tools with its built in overclock error monitoring tool? Nvidia could even purchase the software wholesale from Mr. Ray Adams. Not that big of a deal. There are people who would enjoy breaking the cards for them, a point of reference, try running 'vsync on' unless you want to break the solder joints too soon.


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## Vayra86 (Sep 28, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> My advice don't pull someone up for using AIBS and then rant to us telling us we have to use the same abbreviation you just pulled someone up for.
> You are not the English language police, you can tell me how to do nothing, sir. ... .
> And I'm English not American.



You're responding to someone who hasn't managed a single correct English sentence to save his life... I nearly fell off my chair  Dafuq is happening to the world?



Assimilator said:


> It's almost like computer silicon gets unstable when you clock it past its limits.
> Almost like this has been true since silicon has been used in computers.
> Almost like overclock instability related to silicon limits has nothing to do with capacitor choice.
> Almost like this is a non-issue that has been blown way out of proportion.
> ...



Small caveat, these cards boost beyond 2 Ghz without touching the dials. So out of the box, they can simply boost to oblivion. This is not right, and the end result is you're going to find a performance limitation to avoid that. GPU Boost should be able to account for differences in silicon lottery, or it should be tweaked. Either way, its a handicap (and whatever is rated on the box is irrelevant in that sense, right? We know better by now and cards aren't reviewed on base clocks either)

Its not a non issue at all. Previous generations worked a lot more smoothly with GPU Boost peaking up high at the beginning of a load, and sustained too. The ripoff part...myeah... its not substantial in any way. But it does tell us a big deal about the quality of this generation and the design choices they've been making for it.

The whole rock solid GPU Boost perception we used to have... has been smashed to pieces with this. For me at least. Its a big stain on Nvidia's rep, if you ask me.


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## mtcn77 (Sep 28, 2020)

This still has the odd possibility of being related to Samsung since Nvidia has been following best practices up until now at TSMC. You cannot establish ground rules let alone known good designs at zero hour.


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## BoboOOZ (Sep 29, 2020)

mtcn77 said:


> This still has the odd possibility of being related to Samsung since Nvidia has been following best practices up until now at TSMC. You cannot establish ground rules let alone known good designs at zero hour.


If you mean history, it's not completely true, there was one node in the past where Nvidia didn't follow TSMC spec, the results were sub-mediocre and Nvidia blamed it on TSMC. I can't remember which one, but I'm sure the information is easy to find.


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## dragontamer5788 (Sep 29, 2020)

TiN said:


> After all these wild theories are easy to test, no need any engineering education to prove this wrong or right. Take "bad" crashing card with "bad POSCAPs", test it to confirm crashes... Then desolder "bad POSCAPs", put bunch of 47uF low-ESR MLCCs instead, and test again if its "fixed". Something tells me that it would not be such a simple case and card may still crash, heh. ;-)



This has now been tested: 








Gigabyte's board starts with 6x POSCAPs / SP-CAPs... or whatever you wanna call the 470 uF big ones.

der8auer removed 2x 470uF, then replaced them with 20x 47uF MLCCs, achieving a +30MHz clock (0.03 GHz). So yes, it has an effect, but its quite minor.

I think its safe to say that this entire "capacitor" issue has been grossly overblown, based on the practical test from der8auer. The stock 6x 470uF caps were still able to hold a +70MHz overclock and was stable initially. But reaching +100MHz (+30MHz higher than before) with 20x MLCCs does show that there's some degree of benefit to the MLCCs, but nothing major.

I admit that der8auer did a 3090 test instead of the 3080, but I doubt that makes a major difference. The question is what's the effect of "6x Big Caps" vs "60x Small Caps", and that's what the video tests.


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## EarthDog (Sep 29, 2020)

dragontamer5788 said:


> This has now been tested


I've seen this vid posted like 3 times at this site. How did it not go here (first)?!


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## nguyen (Sep 29, 2020)

dragontamer5788 said:


> Gigabyte's board starts with 6x POSCAPs / SP-CAPs... or whatever you wanna call the 470 uF big ones.
> 
> der8auer removed 2x 470uF, then replaced them with 20x 47uF MLCCs, achieving a +30MHz clock (0.03 GHz). So yes, it has an effect, but its quite minor.
> 
> ...



The biggest offender here is probably Zotac Trinity with 6x 330uF SP-CAP, plenty of news outlets also mention that the Zotac 3080 is the least stable out of the bunch before the new driver update. 

Well all this capacitors issue could also be alleviated when the die's power requirement does not change so rapidly, so I guess Nvidia introduced some clocks ramping hysteresis into the driver to improve stability. That doesn't mean Ampere will run at lower clocks like people would have thought though, just that the clocks would react slower, allowing some undershoot of the power target.


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## redeye (Sep 29, 2020)

asus rtx3080 TUF, for the win...


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## asdkj1740 (Sep 29, 2020)

steve on his latest video reports that evga informed him about the 6 poscaps cards used to be mesed up with the first release driver are now running fine with the latest driver.


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## kiriakost (Sep 29, 2020)

asdkj1740 said:


> steve on his latest video reports that evga informed him about the 6 poscaps cards used to be mesed up with the first release driver are now running fine with the latest driver.



You better have a look of this, and share it with any one interested.








						RTX3080 signal pollution demonstration by the use of Oscilloscope
					

GPU architecture this is a complex topic. Dedicated scientists among with electronics engineers both trying to keep thousands of signals separated from interfering to its other.  Its game frame this requiring thousands single signals them to establish an communication between GPU and with the...




					www.techpowerup.com


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## Mr Ethernet (Oct 1, 2020)

I'm building a new gaming rig. Bought an i9-10900K and was originally planning to pair it with an RTX 3080. My monitor is 2560x1440 (144 Hz), not 4K, so I'm guessing an RTX 3090 would be overkill for me - hence the 3080.

Do you guys recommend I wait a few months before buying? Sounds like I should wait for these reported crashing issues to be ironed out first. I want to buy my GPU as quickly as possible but I also don't want to be a beta tester for something with known issues.


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## mtcn77 (Oct 1, 2020)

nguyen said:


> allowing some undershoot of the power target.


It is about transient response after all, isn't it?


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## lexluthermiester (Oct 1, 2020)

Mr Ethernet said:


> so I'm guessing an RTX 3090 would be overkill for me - hence the 3080.


If you have the money, a 3090 would future-proof you for a couple years.


Mr Ethernet said:


> Sounds like I should wait for these reported crashing issues to be ironed out first.


The latest driver update seems to be fixing most of the crashing problems. You should be fine. Waiting a month will not hurt you.

And welcome to TPU!


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## Caring1 (Oct 1, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> The latest driver update seems to be fixing most of the crashing problems.


I'd like to see comparison tests between drivers first before stating they appear to have fixed the issues.
Gimped performance is more likely.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Oct 1, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> I'd like to see comparison tests between drivers first before stating they appear to have fixed the issues.
> Gimped performance is more likely.


They are not likely to say they might have fixed them really though,, , seams fair to say windows driver's were the issue though since no one running Linux had C2D issues.
So after waying up the mediocre test provisioning Nvidia allowed AIB's with any driver, the rush then to get them out and the apparent ease with which Nvidia seam to have fixed the issues with a driver update, it's clear Nvidia are to blame.
No dramas just many an AIB GPU engineer can seek treatment from bus injuries now .


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## lexluthermiester (Oct 1, 2020)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> seams fair to say windows driver's were the issue though since no one running Linux had C2D issues.


Did Linux have Day1 support for Ampere? Haven't paid attention...


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## Xzibit (Oct 1, 2020)

Caring1 said:


> I'd like to see comparison tests between drivers first before stating they appear to have fixed the issues.
> Gimped performance is more likely.



He does a quick comparison *@ 10:30*


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## Caring1 (Oct 2, 2020)

Xzibit said:


> He does a quick comparison *@ 10:30*


Good to see no change in performance.


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## Mr Ethernet (Oct 2, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> If you have the money, a 3090 would future-proof you for a couple years.
> 
> The latest driver update seems to be fixing most of the crashing problems. You should be fine. Waiting a month will not hurt you.



Thanks. I think you're right. I'll fork out a bit extra for the 3090 in about a month. I'm waiting a bit anyway to save up a bit more cash - and waiting will also give stores time to get more 3090s in stock (all out of stock near me right now). Plus later batches potentially being improved is an added bonus!

In the meantime, I need to figure out what custom loop I'm going to go with. Never put together one of those before but I think my Lian Li O11 Dynamic is going to struggle to keep temperatures under control if I air cool it.



lexluthermiester said:


> And welcome to TPU!



Thanks! Happy to be here!


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## EarthDog (Oct 2, 2020)

This thread title didn't age well....


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## lexluthermiester (Oct 2, 2020)

Xzibit said:


> He does a quick comparison *@ 10:30*


Yeah a lot of people jumped on the Cap bandwagon likely because they didn't know any better, but the big outlets jumped on because they thought they were looking at a credible story.



EarthDog said:


> This thread title didn't age well....


True


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## dragontamer5788 (Oct 2, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> This thread title didn't age well....



Its good enough. "Likely" means its still a theory.



> Igor's Lab has posted an interesting investigative article where he advances a possible reason for the recent crash to desktop problems for RTX 3080 owners



I think that's fine. I know I've been pushing the opposite throughout this thread, but that's mostly because the internet ran away with the idea and started over-hyping the issue. This article, Igor's article, and the title, all make it clear that its a theory, "likely", or "possible reason". Where things got silly was some other youtubers, or Reddit, where people started discussing the issue with certainty.


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## Vayra86 (Oct 2, 2020)

Caps or not, the fix was well predicted I think. Small tweak to GPU boost, some voltage which in turn reduces peak clock automagically.

Good to see they kept the losses at an apparent minimum.


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## MelonGx (Oct 18, 2020)

MelonGx said:


> __ https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1309840810880282625
> For those people who insisted TUF won't crash, I post an evidence video of my TUF crashed.


Seemed that I self-resolved my TUF 3080's CTD.
I downgraded my RAM from DDR4-4266 to DDR4-4000 19-25-25-45.
Then CTD disappeared even I OCed it to Pwr +117% and Core +55.


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