TechPowerUp Impact: MSI Issues "OC Mode by Default" BIOSes

[Tsukiyomi91]

ASUS & MSI have damaged their rep sheet as soon as benchers realized their sample cards are sporting slightly higher clocks than retail ones. Good thing I didn't buy their products as these 2 are relying heavily on marketing gimmicks to sell their products. It's good also that TPU managed to bring this case to light. Hopefully all reviewers who got their sample cards will see this & not get criticized by forumers (aka end users) who bought the card based on the reviewer's recommendation.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Good thing I didn't buy their products as these 2 are relying heavily on marketing gimmicks to sell their products.

I don't think so. MSI cards, at least, sell on the more than excellent cooling solution, which is also quiet, with no marketing gimmick needed. This is what has me in such disbelief...the already could sell their cards well just on their own merits. This extra 30 to 40MHz, which literally might add 1 FPS was totally not necessary. The cards were already selling themselves.

 

[Ungari]

ASUS & MSI have damaged their rep sheet as soon as benchers realized their sample cards are sporting slightly higher clocks than retail ones. Good thing I didn't buy their products as these 2 are relying heavily on marketing gimmicks to sell their products.

The same OC Mode preset is available for retail cards if the user elects to use it.
I do agree with you that these factory presets are targeted at less sophisticated users who do not wish to make there own clock profiles, and is purely marketing.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

@rtwjunkie if the cards are selling themselves, the makers shouldn't fiddle their factory OC profiles in the first place & let benchers do the work as it makes things clean & fair.

 

[Ungari]

@rtwjunkie if the cards are selling themselves, the makers shouldn't fiddle their factory OC profiles in the first place & let benchers do the work as it makes things clean & fair.

The reason that they did this was precisely due to the fact that the benchers were not doing the work!

 

[rtwjunkie]

@rtwjunkie if the cards are selling themselves, the makers shouldn't fiddle their factory OC profiles in the first place & let benchers do the work as it makes things clean & fair.

That's my point! There was no reason to do it.

 

[EarthDog]

The reason that they did this was precisely due to the fact that the benchers were not doing the work!

Lol...no.

 

[Flow]

In any case, I do buy cards after reading their respective reviews. And as always, I expect them to test out of the box, or at default, then the oc software that usually comes with the card (depending on brand ofcourse), and finally I head over to the overclocking page (not every reviewer does this).
So when I buy the card and see I need oc mode to get the same results as the reviewers got right out of the box, then I start investigating, I look at my asic value etc etc.
So eventually I will find the difference in clockspeeds being the culprit, but it will definitely leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

Now 1 or 2 fps wont be shocking at all ofcourse, but in the synthetic benches we get points, and if my card scores 500 points lower than the reviews, something must be wrong right?
So good job on tpu, review samples should always be the same as the consumers cards.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Kudos to TPU for bringing this to light. I hope this serves as a warning & friendly reminder to all vendors that this will be a lesson of NOT to cheat their reviewers trust in order to garner publicity.

 

[EarthDog]

LOL.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

The cards are physically identicle, the only difference is they have a differen't BIOS flashed. That's the same difference as EVGAs reference card, their reference SC card, their reference FTW card. All of which are considered different cards.

The same was true of the HD7970/HD7970ge/280X, the HD7950/HD7950 Boost, the GTX680/GTX770, etc.

This is not actually true, they have different vrm and for the 10 series, extremely relevant.

The real root of the problem is that nowhere is this oc mode and gaming mode documented. At all. They literally made this bullshit reasoning up to cover their asses. users get at most a timy little blip on the box saying the card inclused "software".

The problem ISNT that they have different modes, its that they're trying to play the system by hedging bets on consumers not using oc profiles on their cards so they can dish out shittier and shittier yielded cards.

 

[StinkyMojo]

MSI seems to have taken down the 1080 bios (1070 bios is still up). Anyone know which of these is the 1080 bios that was removed? Thanks!

 

[MrGenius]

MSI seems to have taken down the 1080 bios (1070 bios is still up). Anyone know which of these is the 1080 bios that was removed? Thanks!

It would have to be one with 1709MHz core clock.

So you've got 3 to choose from. I'll bet it's the one marked as "Review Sample".

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/183802/msi-gtx1080-8192-160525 <---
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/183935/msi-gtx1080-8192-160525-1
https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/184799/msi-gtx1080-8192-160606

 

[StinkyMojo]

Noticed the "Review Sample" but wasn't sure since there were other downloads with the same clocks. Thanks!

 

[EarthDog]

@MrGenius - did you bail on the CPU overheating thread?