Sunday, June 6th 2021
Alienware's Fewer CUDA Core Controversy Explodes, Company Admits Error, Announces mid-June Fix
Last week, it surfaced that Alienware shipped certain m15 gaming laptops with GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPUs with fewer CUDA cores than what is standard—4,608 vs. 5,120, without properly advertising it in their marketing material. Over the weekend, the company's train-wreck of a response played out. First, from Alienware's parent company Dell; and later by Alienware itself.
Dell, in a statement to Jarrod's Tech, tried to normalize the practice. "CUDA core counts per NVIDIA baseline may change for individual OEM, such as ourselves [Dell], to allow to provide a more specific design and performance tuning. Be assured the changes made by our engineering team for this computer model was done after careful testing and design choices to bring the most stable and best performance possible for our customers, if at a later date more CUDA cores can be unlocked via a future update, we will be swift to make it available on our support website," the Dell statement read.
Here's the controversy: Alienware did not advertise the specific configuration of the RTX 3070 Laptop GPU in this notebook, only mentioned the GPU name. One is guided to believe they are buying a notebook with a GPU they've independently researched to be of a certain configuration. Clock-speed tuning by OEMs to a certain degree is acceptable, but certainly not 10 percent fewer CUDA cores. Also, CUDA cores aren't the only things that are fewer. Since Dell/Alienware reduces the number of streaming multiprocessors available to the GPU, there are proportionate reductions in even RT cores (raytracing cores), Tensor cores, and TMUs.
Meanwhile, Dell's misfired attempt at damage-control was quickly eclipsed by Alienware, which trashed the "optimization" excuse offered by its parent company, and termed this as a manufacturing defect. The company released a statement to Tom's Hardware: "We have been made aware that an incorrect setting in Alienware's vBIOS is limiting CUDA Cores on RTX 3070 configurations. This is an error that we are working diligently to correct as soon as possible. We're expediting a resolution through validation and expect to have this resolved as early as mid-June. In the interim, we do not recommend using a vBIOS from another Alienware platform to correct this issue. We apologize for any frustration this has caused."
Sources:
Jarrod's Tech, Tom's Hardware
Dell, in a statement to Jarrod's Tech, tried to normalize the practice. "CUDA core counts per NVIDIA baseline may change for individual OEM, such as ourselves [Dell], to allow to provide a more specific design and performance tuning. Be assured the changes made by our engineering team for this computer model was done after careful testing and design choices to bring the most stable and best performance possible for our customers, if at a later date more CUDA cores can be unlocked via a future update, we will be swift to make it available on our support website," the Dell statement read.
Meanwhile, Dell's misfired attempt at damage-control was quickly eclipsed by Alienware, which trashed the "optimization" excuse offered by its parent company, and termed this as a manufacturing defect. The company released a statement to Tom's Hardware: "We have been made aware that an incorrect setting in Alienware's vBIOS is limiting CUDA Cores on RTX 3070 configurations. This is an error that we are working diligently to correct as soon as possible. We're expediting a resolution through validation and expect to have this resolved as early as mid-June. In the interim, we do not recommend using a vBIOS from another Alienware platform to correct this issue. We apologize for any frustration this has caused."
24 Comments on Alienware's Fewer CUDA Core Controversy Explodes, Company Admits Error, Announces mid-June Fix
BTARUNR: "Given that Alienware is asking end-users to tamper with video BIOS"
One of you is wrong and i'm pretty sure it isn't Alienware.
I think it's safe to say (considering Dell and Intel's special relationship from the past instance) that we're seeing Dell/Alienware pants down with its ugly backside. Notice this latest controversy is also affecting AMD system(s).
Here's the source: Alienware Really Doesn't Want You to Buy an AMD Ryzen PC - ExtremeTech
And you are absolutely correct, nVidia could sue Dell. It is likely that Dell violated their contract with nVidia by selling chips that had shaders locked via the VBIOS. However, I can guarantee you nVidia won't sue. It isn't worth losing Dell as a customer over a mistake that is minor in the scheme of things and that Dell is taking the blame for and correcting(at least according to the Alienware department's statement).
It is kind of pointless to assume either way. Mistakes happen and we don't know if it was intentional or not. So we can really only judge them on how they react. I'll say the first response was pretty bullshit on Dell's part, and sounds like a PR guy just trying to come up with an answer. The second response though sounds better and more realistic.
This doesn't change the fact that it was an error at Dell and has nothing to do with nVidia.Oh, I guarantee you nVidia already knows about this. But they won't sue, for the reason I posted above. The most they'll probably do is have a strongly worded phone call with some Dell exec telling them to try harder to make sure this doesn't happen again.
I think the issue with the name, again, comes down to the OEMs, as most seem to shorten the name down to just RTX 3070 in their marketing. Which I think is deceptive and nVidia should assert more control over that.
"CUDA core counts per NVIDIA baseline may change for individual OEM, such as ourselves [Dell], to allow to provide a more specific design and performance tuning.
IMO there should also be TGP indicators as well. For example:
low TGP 3070 - RTX 3070-M3
mid TGP 3070 - RTX 3070-M5
high TGP 3070 - RTX 3070-M7
highest TGP 3070 - RTX 3070-M9
This really isn't that hard to do and relies on existing nomenclature to give customers an immediate idea of where the performance of each version stands.
The other issue that is present is the fact that the TGP still doesn't really actually matter. You'll see in Jarrod's video that 3070 Mobiles with lower TGPs are out performing some 3070 Mobiles with higher TGPs. Why? Because they are all still likely thermal throttling at some point, which kind of throws the whole point of a TGP out of the window. IMO, nVidia should just set a solid TGP for their mobile GPUs. If the laptop OEMs can't build a laptop to keep them cool, that's on them. The reviews will tell you about the throttling before you buy the laptop. That's how it was before, and I don't see any reason we had to change it and add this sliding TGP scale in the first place.
videocardz.com/newz/there-are-28-variants-of-geforce-rtx-30-laptop-gpus
Both AMD and Intel do this, it is not surprising.On average higher TGP SKUs are faster. There's always going to be OEMs that do a poor job at cooling, that doesn't change the fact that higher TGP parts will perform better when not thermally and electrically limited then a lower TGP SKU.
The model name of the GPU we are talking about is RTX 3070 Mobile GPU. That is the model name, it is a different model than the RTX 3070 and has different specsNo, nVidia does not set the TGP. They provide a TGP range that the OEM is allowed to then set the TGP in. But nVidia doesn't have a "Low, Mid, High" TGP numbers like you suggest.
Neither is wrong, technically.