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ECS 8800GT has underclocked memory?

kellcom

kellcom

kellcom

Associate
Joined
26 Aug 2008
Posts
23
Hi all,

I recently bought one these cards: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-071-OK
and received and ECS made card, model no: N8800GT-512MXL-F

The problem though is I have found this card is clocked by default to run at just 700mhz on the memory, rather than the advertised 900 (1800 is listed, though I know that has to be halved). See screenshot taken from GPUz:

ECS 8800GT:
ECS-8800GT.jpg



Now I had intended this for use in SLI with an another brand 8800GT, but on testing this card and seeing only a small boost in performance via SLI I checked the cards in Ntune and could see my full speed 8800 was being slowed to match the new one (the lower memory speed on the ECS made model was confirmed in GPUz too). On testing the ECS card on it's own I can confirm it does not perform nearly as well as my original 8800GT set at the correct clocks.

I suppose I could try manually setting the memory to 900, but I am unwilling to try that as I suspect the memory is simply not designed to run that fast (a 200mhz hike seems unlikely to be at all stable).

Anyways, I requested an RMA for the card yesterday on the basis I did not receive what was advertised and I am waiting for OCUK to respond.

Has anyone else received one of these cards? I am interested to know if this is simply the design of the card, which seems most likely to me (the ECS website doesn't specify, btw) or if I somehow landed a duff one.
 
Last edited:
Sounds like you just got unlucky...

but as most of these cards all come off the same assembly line I'd be suprised if it didn't have the exact same chips as all the rest and "OC" to 1800MHz fine.

Its possible ECS are being naughty and as its an OEM card thinking they can get away with pushing out the memory that doesn't make the grade with lower clock speed in the hope that the average consumer never notices...
 
Rroff said:
Sounds like you just got unlucky...

but as most of these cards all come off the same assembly line I'd be suprised if it didn't have the exact same chips as all the rest and "OC" to 1800MHz fine.

Its possible ECS are being naughty and as its an OEM card thinking they can get away with pushing out the memory that doesn't make the grade with lower clock speed in the hope that the average consumer never notices...
Click to expand...

I don't know if the card is strictly OEM as it came in a shrink wrapped retail box, but I do think the latter (ECS being naughty) is more likely as the clock speeds are determined by the cards bios, and they would have had to create a specific one here to deliberately clock the memory slower: ie: the card is recognised as an 8800GT (so that part of the bios is correct), and in GPUz it's specs are nearly identical to my proper 8800 but for that memory 'underclock'. I cant see that happening by accident.

The fact the ECS website makes no mention of the clock speeds supports this: they have simply put cheaper memory on the cards that cannot run faster and hope most wont realise.

btw, I have seen this before: A friend bought what he thought was a bargain 8600gt a ways back only to find the manufacturer had underclocked both GPU and memory (which explained why there were going so cheap at the time...That might have been an ECS card too come to think of it).
 
I had a similar issue with a Powercolor X1950Pro a few years ago. The memory came below specs and would not overclock to ATI specifications. It was sent back.

I think some manufacturers do this to reduce costs and get rid of old stock. They also do a good job of hiding the fact you are buying a cut-down card.
 
Yes, it does seem that way. Must be a headache for the retailers too as they likely wont know the cards have been gimped until a customer spots it.

Btw, how long does it take for an RMA request to be responded to?
 
Generally my RMA requests have been replied to within a couple of hours but if its later in the day might not get a reply until tomorrow morning.
 
Rroff said:
Generally my RMA requests have been replied to within a couple of hours but if its later in the day might not get a reply until tomorrow morning.
Click to expand...

Looks like I might have to send it again then as I requested the RMA yesterday afternoon (I did get an email telling me they'd received the web-note, but nothing else so far.
 
Ok, I am getting a little concerned now.

2 days after reporting the problem with this card and requesting an RMA I have yet to hear anything back outside of the automated replies.

Considering this was my first order with OCUK, receiving a card below the advertised specs and being kept waiting for the RMA is not the best of starts.

It's made more frustrating to me as I would like to purchase or swap to the Leadtek 8800GT ( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail ) that should certainly be clocked with the correct specs, but I cannot until I have the RMA sorted out for the ECS card.
 
I have the opposite situation, my Ocuk 8800GS actually has better out of the box clocks than whats on the website, so it must be a pre overclocked model.
 
What make card did they send you?

Unfortunately for me I looked at the reviews and assumed I'd get either a Xpertvision/Palit or PNY model (I currently have a Xpertvision 8800GT that works a treat)

Truth be told, had I known I'd get an ECS made card I wouldn't have ordered it (I had an ECS motherboard a few years back and it was nothing but trouble.).

Does anyone have any idea why OCUK might be taking so long to respond to my RMA request?

I've not had to do many RMA's elsewhere but on each occasion the authorization was granted in no more than a day.
 
Paulo88 said:
OK, Ive applied for an RMA in order to exchange the card.

@ Kellcom.

Just to check... how can I tell that its effecting my other GT ?
Click to expand...

After you enable SLI restart, then go back into the Nvidia control panel (or open GPUz) and you should see the true 8800GT has it's memory clock now set to 700Mhz rather than it's default 900.
 
I have different from you !?

My first ASUS 8800GT still show as 900. However I will still try and return the ECS card as its not whats its advertised as !
 
You might not see the clock has dropped until after you have run a game or benchmark (As far as I know SLI will always drop a higher speed card to the lower cards default speeds unless you manually overclock them)
 
I will run some tests later tonight and feed back.

I must admit I originally ran 3Dmark06 and found very little improvement when using SLI.

Are there any other tests I can do to see SLI performance other than 3dmark06.

Vantage ?
 
I don't have Vantage yet but I imagine that will show a similarly unimpressive boost - from what I've seen though you should ignore the overall score, which factors in your CPU as well, and look at the GPU score only.

As for me I noticed the card wasn't performing as expected in Crysis with Physx enabled, 4xAA and the settings all increased to very high: my single 8800GT would (understandably) stutter and lag at those settings and with the ECS in SLI it was about the same. I adjusted the settings until there was no stutter at all and found I was back to what I had originally.

I ran both 3dmark 06 & 05 (with SLI indicators on so I could see it was activated), saw the scores were not boosted by very much, so I checked the new cards specs and saw the reason then (running an 8800GT in SLI should give you a boost of around 50% on average. With this card I would say it was no more 10% on my system.
 
I also got one of these cards this week and that also says that the memory is 700 MHz.

I bought it direct from the shop so I don't know where I stand on that one, last time I tried to return something they weren't interested.

Actually in my case it makes little difference as my CPU is bottlenecking the system and was only bought to replace a failing 1900xt.
 
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