Wednesday, October 31st 2018
NVIDIA Confirms Issues Cropping Up With Turing-based Cards, "It's Not a Broad Issue"
It has been been making the rounds now on various forum sites (including our own TPU) that problems have been cropping up for users of NVIDIA's Turing-based architecture graphics cards. The reports, which are increasing in number as awareness of the issue increases, vary in their manifestation, but have the same result: "crashes, black screens, blue screen of death issues, artifacts and cards that fail to work entirely," as reported by the original Digital Trends piece.
Of course, at the time, problems with the source for the information were too great to properly discern whether or not this issue stood beyond the usual launch issues and failures that can (and will happen) to any kind of hardware. The fact that people with negative experiences would always be more vocal than those without any problem; the fact that some accounts on the reported forums were of doubtful intent; and that the same user could be posting across multiple forums would always put a stop to any serious measurement of the issue. Now, though, NVIDIA has come out with a statement regarding the issue, which at least recognizes its existence.
Problems have been cropping up with both NVIDIA-made and AIB cards from various manufacturers, which seemingly rejects the possibility for manufacturer-based issues, and leaves on the table either an architectural or manufacturing batch issue (no confirmations yet). Let's hope this really is confined to a batch issue, though there have been multiple reports of users that got their cards RMA'd and then got one or two replacements that met ther same fate). The issue seems to be affecting owners of the flagship RTX 2080 Ti the most, though there are reports of 2080 models being affected as well.
In response, NVIDIA acknowledges the issue, but limits its relevance: as reported by Tom's Hardware, the company said that "it's not an increasing number of users" affected by this problem, saying "it's not broad." It then added that "we are working with each user individually like we do always." We're here to wait and see, but this definitely doesn't do any favors in grabbing more sales for the RTX 20-series, when the flagship graphics card costing over $1,000 fails on users.
Sources:
GeeksULTD, via Tom's Hardware, GeForce Forums, GeForce Forums, Forbes, TechPowerupForums
Of course, at the time, problems with the source for the information were too great to properly discern whether or not this issue stood beyond the usual launch issues and failures that can (and will happen) to any kind of hardware. The fact that people with negative experiences would always be more vocal than those without any problem; the fact that some accounts on the reported forums were of doubtful intent; and that the same user could be posting across multiple forums would always put a stop to any serious measurement of the issue. Now, though, NVIDIA has come out with a statement regarding the issue, which at least recognizes its existence.
127 Comments on NVIDIA Confirms Issues Cropping Up With Turing-based Cards, "It's Not a Broad Issue"
www.techpowerup.com/248382/msi-talks-about-nvidia-supply-issues-us-trade-war-and-rtx-2080-ti-lightning
Far Cry had visible stutter on 970 and several driver updates were needed to fix that. The stutter was not appearing on any other Maxwell card. Nvidia had to mitigate the effects of the memory setup, obviously, but that needed some tweaking. In SLI, the 970 is also more prone to stuttering than other 'full fat' solutions like the 980 or the 980ti. Something's gotta give, and we are now in a period of time where 4GB is the norm rather than the high end. These GPUs get obsolete faster. This is why everyone today will be seen recommending a 980 but not a 970 - the latter simply won't cut it anymore and the large price gap between the two has all but vanished.
Regardless, the point was about trust and business ethics and how that relates to this Nvidia statement. Not the end performance of the specific part. And in that aspect Nvidia took a fall with the 970, and rightly so. It was misleading advertising, we thought we got a full fat 256 bit 4GB, and we did not. Countering that with 'but performance was OK' is the weirdest kind of argumentation ever. If we lose a few GB/s on a new to be released 1060, we dó complain and worry about its impact on performance (check the recent announcement topic on the GDDR5X version of it). And there is an impact, simple enough. Numbers don't lie. Whether or not a driver can mitigate or 'hide' that impact is another discussion entirely, you're still not magically getting those GB/s back.
Because they more careful look what they buy, read more, estimate, search, wait to product show negative sides, etc...
But some people hurry like fly on sheet, hypnotized with advertising and this that someone will say WOW if they buy everything new.
Sometimes WOW could become Laugh, example now when even perfect product can't justify such prices.
Now I'm more jealous on someone why pay GTX1080Ti for lower price than people who spend 1500$ on premium RTX2080Ti as Galaxy, K|NGP|N etc...
A wait and see is in order (and being glad that I decided that these new cards were too expensive for me) and they're probably well on the way to a resolution.
Too many folks just don't understand what their utilities are capable of.... they download a utility recommended by someone on the internet and use it without understanding what does. And yes the fact remaoins we still have folks screaming that more VRAM is needed solely because their utility is misinforming them. As Mr. Inigo Montoya said so well in Princess Bride "I don't think that word means what you think it means".
And no, there is no utility in existence that measures VRAM usage ....
www.extremetech.com/gaming/213069-is-4gb-of-vram-enough-amds-fury-x-faces-off-with-nvidias-gtx-980-ti-titan-x
I was once offered as proof the TPU results for the 1060 3GB and 6GB models ... "see it's 6% faster". But the reason the 6 GB is faster is because it has 11% more shaders. So it is 6% faster at 1080p... and if the reason was VRAM, then we should have seen the gap widen at 1440p but it doesn't ... same 6%.
Again, I am not excusing nVidia's PR response to the
problem... er issue ... but the fact remains, any problem you can create o the 980, you could create on the 980. But we have seen this kind of response many times ... EVGA on the 970 SC where their excuse for 1/3 the heat sink missing the GPU was intentional. Asrock for bulging caps and broken boards, Intel for the giant P68 pre-B3 recall. Today it's become a modus operandi and no one does it better than the "alternative facts" crowd. But one side shoveling the stuff does not excuse the other side from the same behavior. The excuses were BS but so was the imaginary problem ... had their been a real problem, like P68 B3, there would have been a recall.Right let's ask Nvidia, oh wait :wtf:
"I have info which seems to confirm for now, defective batches starts on - 0323xxx, those that have long and healthy working so far - 0333xxx. "
Of course it was followed by I have an 0344 and :) ... Does seem that the issue is primarily with FE cards. I expect it will take a week or two to nail down the problem and address it ... assuming of course that it is not batch related.
TechSpot - Researchers show Nvidia GPUs can be vulnerable to side channel attacksLooks like GamersNexus made progress
Video touches on a few issues that is more or less mainly driver and monitor compatibility issues especially with G-Sync or high refresh rate monitors that cause BSODs. BSODs have also been easily reproducible on multi monitor setups...
There are hardware issues present but this is how far Steve has got during their tests so far. This video is just part one. Im guessing part two is taking a closer look at the dead/defective cards with the help of buildzoid and buildzoid is a God when it comes to teardowns right to the component level.
HardOCP - GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FAILS After Gaming for 2 Hours
His one card died... and it's now an issue to them. LOL great journalism. Another thrown into the pile of click bait tech sites. :(
Still waiting for my luck to run out.... 2 high hz gsync monitors and an 2080Ti FE....pray for me TPU. :)