Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
I get the impression that he was waiting to overclock it, but he did say default voltage rather than just "stock" or anything. Though I think these cards are generally dying more often under overvolting than slight overclocking.
overclocking raises power usage but only very slightly, increasing voltage is an exponential power increaser while clock speed is very marginal power increases.
Though if Charlie is correct(haven't seen him talking about it yet, nor any real talk from reviewers of exactly what the power circuitry was, ) it would rather back up what I've been suggesting. Dying THAT quickly even with a slight overvolt suggests the power circuitry is absolutely borderline to start with and could well fail easily over time.
I mean we've seen over volted computer hardware die over time, its VERY rare to kill stuff with high volts instantly, look at something like people ramming 1.6-1.7v through an Intel 45 or even 32nm chip for a benchmark run, 24/7 that might not last more than weeks, but hours?
For them to die almost instantly with a smaller over volting than pretty much any other computer part before(cpu's, gpu's, memory have all taken far larger overvolts before, safely, for years) is just a terrible sign.
You do wonder if the VRM's would be running so much cooler with a full cover waterblock that they "might" do well under water, though still a stupid cheaping out on power circuitry by Nvidia, come on, 6990 length how many extra phases could they have fitted in, hell, go dual pcb like previously.
Now a MSI with "miltary grade components" which generally means, "we add 4 more phases that costs us £20 more and we'll charge you £40 more", but thats really what this card needs.
I can see a MSI stupid version doing pretty well but I can also see a ridiculous level of reference Nvidia ones dying over the next few months, even being run 100% at stock settings.
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