Thursday, April 17th 2008
NVIDIA Admits to Data Corruption Issues with 790i Chipset
NVIDIA has admitted that its new nForce 790i chipset may cause data corruption when overclocking. A support article on the company's website says:
Source:
NVIDIA
NVIDIA has received reports of data corruption when using certain high speed memory and overclocking the front side bus. Our engineers are currently investigating this issue and as soon as we have more information, we will provide an update to this knowledge base article.Unfortunately NVIDIA hasn't revealed any workarounds or specific details on what causes the data corruption, so it may be best for 790i owners to run at stock speeds until a solution is found.
68 Comments on NVIDIA Admits to Data Corruption Issues with 790i Chipset
Non of my windows installations lasted more than a month on RAID configs, then I just gave up on RAID and switched to ATi xpress3200 chipset for A64 CPUs with ULi south bridge the moment I could get my hands on one.(RAID was on ULi chipset)
Man was it a super stable board. I had two ATi cards in CrossFire and OCed CPU and RAID0 config.I never faced data corruption. Not even once. One of the best configs I ever had with that DFI UT CFX 3200 mobo.
That makes me wonder what on earth did nVIDIA do to ULi? We have seen two new generations of nForce chips after nVIDIA's acquisition of ULi (three if you count the NF5) yet they still have data corruption issues. At least I know that ULi can design chipsets wich operate stable when the system is overclocked. Did nV just flush ULi down the drain after the buyout instead of using their expertise in designing chipsets?
I wouldn't say the technology is immature, as it's been around since 04-05. We didn't really start seeing implimentation until last year, though. The price of DDR3, IMO, is immature still - it's too costly for most to justify upgrading a system to, and there's too much stigma, IMO, as to DDR3's performance.
DRAM latency is high for a reason, being that at that high clock-rate you can't maintin such tight timings. Besides, tight timings don't alone mean better performance, DDR3 scales to higher bandwidth. It's bandwidth that counts.
Could it be because all my systems are AMD+NF4? Maybe Intel+NF4 = higher chance of RAID problems/corruption?
Wow, good job its been around for three/four years. GDDR5 was announced 4/5 months ago, it must be being used and improved in this time even though its not on the market. Boxx built computers that had 12 cores starting around 2004 therefore 12 core computers should be a mature viable solution by now.
I said I did not expect a latency of 2. High end DDR2 still outperforms DDR3 as far as I know. By the definition of the word, it is a more effective and mature technology. I had a Athlon 64 2800+/3000+/3200 M/Opitron 148 when I had corruption, but I believe mine was due to overclocks.
Finally, maturity of a product doesn't mean the market receives it better (unless maturity means price-cuts). You still get a i975X based motherboard for $175 made by ASUS....that's pretty 'mature'.
Then get me a DDR3 module that is at CL4. When 2 came out you could buy CL8-13. going from 8 to 3 is a significant difference. When DDR3 goes to 5 it will be a hell of a lot closer. But it probably wont because companies wont push hard enough for it.
We still don't have DDR2 1200 kits that run stable at 3-3-3-10 right now, talk about DDR3 2000.
All I'm saying, is that one can't compare performance of DDR2 and DDR3 based upon latency timings - as has been pointed out a few times already, with higher memory clock speeds come loose timings. There's really no way around it as far as system stability is concerned.
One can push DDR3 quite low from white I understand, but the tighter the timings at higher clock rates requires better cooling solutions for the DRAM modules beyond what a stock or aftermarket heatspreader is capable of. For most setups, you'd more than likely need a good, active cooling solution.
Just to point out: forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=754108#post754108 - although those sticks might only be rated at CAS-8, with an active liquid cooling solution in the hands of skilled OCers, I'd fathom to bet those sticks capable of hitting at least CAS-4 @ 2000MHz. Give the extreme reviewers some time on that one . . .
Yes, NVidia screwed up with 790i SLI, but we tend to forget, the 790i is NVidia's first chipset with a DDR3 memory controller. They shouldn't have tagged it 'for extreme overclocking', and that's the screw up here, that when you overclock, there's a data corruption issue. Lesson to learn: when coming up with new technology, don't launch it in a big way, don't promise things you can't live up to. They could have done away with the 'fastest motherboard' ad campaign and stuck to 'SLI now with DDR3 support'. But that's no excuse.