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The Leadtek 280 Extreme

Dr_Fartypants said:
It would be nice to have a firm clarification one way or the other :) After all, the product seems to be generating external press now (which I guess is good for you whatever else happens). Congrats on getting exclusive access to a unique product!

I'm a bit confused though - you had 11/07 as the ETA date for the past week, and yet you still don't know from Leadtek when they can release any stock, or even if the clock speeds are accurate? :confused: How can you have been expecting stock right up until Friday in this situation?
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HI there

We pass on merely what the manufacturer tells us. At the time I did not question the speeds as I've not played with a GTX 280 so was unaware the clock speeds are well beyond whats generally attainable. Leadtek informed me they hoped to have had some shipping to us but its obvious they are speed binning cards and clear that none have yet passed at these speeds and hence the latest is still none have shipped.
 
Fair enough. I guess that everyone in the supply chain (from nvidia down to the end user) relies on the information they get from the guy one step above.

I hope they confirm the information soon, anyway :)
 
To be honest i wouldnt be shocked if these never actually appeared, or if they do they will be in tiny quantities. Might just be a case of the marketing people deciding a spec that the R&D guys just cant live upto.

The process of speed testing loads of cards and then fitting a massive heatsink will cost them more than they will get back in the end most likely. All depends if they want the crown of "fastest retail card" badly.

Even if they do appear i suspect that unless you have a very well ventilated case its going to give you grief.

id like to be proved wrong of course.
 
EVGA hand test the cards to speed bin for special models, even hand fitting ACS3 Coolers with Artic Ceramic, as shown in the review I posted many many months ago.

Can't comment on other vendors.

If I ordered a card and the speed ended up less I would not be happy as your paying a premium for it.
 
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I don't think LeadTek can do em, so we'll probably see them removed shortly, and refunds handed out to all those who have pre-ordered.

Should never have been listed in the first place imo, gona be quite a few ****** off people by the looks of it.
 
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LoadsaMoney said:
I don't think LeadTek can do em, so we'll probably see them removed shortly, and refunds handed out to all those who have pre-ordered.

Should never have been listed in the first place imo, gona be quite a few ****** off people by the looks of it.
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I agree with you Loadsa. Even speed binning won't get the speeds they are quoting.

Look round the forums at people with GTX280 cards and I haven't seen anybody hitting those speeds yet. You would imagine a certain percentage would have by now as they slip through as ordinary cards.

Even EVGA with their SCC are only going for 648/2322.

I reckon they were basing it on past performance of Nvidia chips and were hoping to get yields like that but the extra £80 premium just won't be enough if they speed binned chips are only 1 in a 1000.

It's either that or they have indeed getting early supplies of 55nm GTX280 chips which would make the claimed speeds more realistic.
 
LoadsaMoney said:
I don't think LeadTek can do em, so we'll probably see them removed shortly, and refunds handed out to all those who have pre-ordered.

Should never have been listed in the first place imo, gona be quite a few ****** off people by the looks of it.
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If that happens, I'm going to be one of them! I missed out on 2 BFG H2OC's for around the same price because I decided to go with the Leadtek. I'm actually considering cutting my losses and getting a couple of standard EVGA cards from the US for less than £300 shipped....

Leadtek wouldn't have advertised these cards though if they didn't have at least a few cards running at those speeds, this seems more to be a shortage in all of the highest clocked models.
The only company I know of in the UK to sell the BFG H2OC model is still waiting on a delivery that should have arrived last week too, and EVGA themselves have run out of their HC model with no ETA on a new batch as yet.

Either the high clocked cards are very popular or it's proving very difficult to get those sort of clocks in any quantity.
 
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fornowagain said:
Going by the Zoltac AMP!, this is just a step further binned. The shader clock is literally impossible as an actual figure anyway.
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I have two Zotac AMP! Edition cards and they are both fine at 700MHz. THere is a lot of headroom in the memory. My stable (non-artifacting in Crysis over extended session!) settings are 710MHz Core, 1485MHz shader and 1270MHz memory. 1666MHz shader just isn't going to happen!!
 
Very hard to run 12's of games to try find max OC, far easier and better to use ATI Tool.

Obv some games may not like the speed you find stable but most will be less stressfull than ATI Tool.

Crysis is not a good example to grade any hardware with IMO.
 
helmutcheese said:
Crysis is not a good example to grade any hardware with IMO.
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*shrug*

If it's the most demanding current application, then it's ideal for stability testing.

In the same way that most GPU applications don't produce as much heat as furmark, or most CPU appliations don't stress the CPU as much as parallel instances of prime95, it's good to test artifacting against the program which most readily produces them. However they come about, artifacts are indicative of pushing hardware too far. It's good to know where the limit is, even if you choose to push past that limit for certain applications which don't stress the GPU as much.
 
I always find Tiger Woods 08 is the best test for me.

I know that seems daft but with both my 8800GTS G92 and my 4870 I can have it stable in ATI tool, GRID and Crysis but load up Tiger Woods and the textures go all over the place.

Same happended yesterday after I fitted a new cooler to my mates 7900GT. I thought I would see what overclock I could get and everything in GRID and ATI tool was fine at 550/775. After a couple of hours of GRID we loaded up Tiger Woods and not only was all the grass mising but all the trees were bare as well.

Tabbing out and dropping the overclock back to normal fixed it instantly.

It's not the most graphically demanding game but shows up slightly dodgy overclocks big style. I always load it as a final test now.
 
BTW, Quake 4 was well known to not like OC rigs.

Simply goes by what game/app asks what part of your Card to work harder.

Bit like being totally Orthos stable with your CPU OC'd then crashing during a 3D bench or gaming (with GPU stock).
 
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Gibbo said:
HI there

We pass on merely what the manufacturer tells us. At the time I did not question the speeds as I've not played with a GTX 280 so was unaware the clock speeds are well beyond whats generally attainable. Leadtek informed me they hoped to have had some shipping to us but its obvious they are speed binning cards and clear that none have yet passed at these speeds and hence the latest is still none have shipped.
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Honestly, this seems like another example of pure negligence and cheesy business tactics. If you don't have confirmation about specifications, that of which fit a very simple template that applies to graphics cards universally, then why advertise it?

Assuming you have a good amount of pre-orders on a product, and it turns out to be false, not only do you face a returns storm, you also put yourself in risk of legal issues. And even if you can point the finger at the manufacturer, it's a negative situation that can easily be avoided.

The excuse of not 'playing' with the 280 seems irrelevant to me. You're to have us believe you sit down with each product you sell, and have a 'tinker?' And that's suppose to make the customer feel like your technically adept and informed?


However, you cannot make excuses about the simple and known information that exists regarding the nm manufacturing. The 280 is less than two months old, or there abouts? Nvidia has made no definitive statement about 55nm processing dates.


It also doesn't help your position, that the default Leadtek card, is cheaper than any other 280, and for UK prices, cheaper than any other 280 sale from any other company, whether they are an E-tailer or not.
While OCUK has competitive prices, they've never had the ultimate cheapest, especially not on a nearly brand new piece of computer hardware.

One might even say that the stock Leadtek is 55nm and that's why it's priced as it is, and that the Extreme model is 80 quid more, because well, it's a pre-flashed card.

Maybe they are going to be 55nm, yet Nvidia controls that out-flow and it makes no sense for them to start dishing out 55nm to a distributor, - especially one like Leadtek, who's obviously not in the top three sellers - , when they're still PRODUCING 65nm. Which means that Leadtek is roping in publicity by setting clocks and prices based off of hardware that Nvidia isn't even going to give them for a while. That's bogus.


The only fair and logical thing to do, is pull the card off the site until it's confirmed; even if such confirmation has to come via the CONCLUSIVE method you propose of 'playing' with the product.

Because as far as I've always known, OCUK isn't dirty, and these cards look 'extreme'ly shady.
 
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